The fire from the dragon's breath is now palpable. Communism has been replaced by consumerism, even if the party cadres still rule with an iron fist, controlling the cyber highway, outlawing Twitter, Google and Facebook.
There's an app, one Chinese official tells me, that can easily bypass that without detection (isn't there always?) but it's only those in the know who have the nous to download it.
One who saw the opportunity to exploit the cyber highway is Jack Ma, who with a bank balance said to be around fifty billion bucks, is China's richest man. He's the founder of the massive online shopping platform called Alibaba - which sells everything, even though he claims he's never bought anything from it himself. He leaves that to his wife.
John Key sat with him at lunch and couldn't help but be impressed. Ma's offered to help small businesses in New Zealand to access his site. He'll even train them how to sell their product which he's effusive about. He's signed an agreement to that effect.
And that's how far China's come, helping others to help themselves.
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