Fortune: IDG - first company to form joint venture in China
Fortune interviews Patrick McGovern, founder of IDG. Since China has been the reason for the recent economic rebound happening here in the U.S, no wonder for info tech, it can do the same.
"I made my first trip to China in 1978, before it had diplomatic relations with the U.S. I was going to fly from Tokyo to Moscow and noticed that I could take an Air Iran flight from Tokyo to Beijing, and then go on to Moscow the next day. When I got to Beijing, the immigration people told me I had to have a visa. I said, "No, I'm just here for a day in transit." Finally they all went into the back room and wrote out a visa on a piece of rice paper. They said, "Never tell anyone where you got this." So I went into town and saw all these people buying newspapers and magazines, and I thought, "This is a publisher's paradise." When China opened the door for U.S. joint ventures at the end of 1979, I immediately arranged a tour for seven U.S. technology companies. Within three months we had the project approved by the Chinese State Council and the Bank of China. We had our first issue out [of a version of Computerworld] in September 1980.
Does China's economic miracle seem sustainable?
The Chinese are putting tremendous emphasis upon education, graduating something like 700,000 engineers a year, compared with only 70,000 in the U.S. They traditionally save about 40% of their income. So China is going to have lots of talent and lots of capital to put to productive uses. I see its rapid growth continuing for at least the next ten years."
"I made my first trip to China in 1978, before it had diplomatic relations with the U.S. I was going to fly from Tokyo to Moscow and noticed that I could take an Air Iran flight from Tokyo to Beijing, and then go on to Moscow the next day. When I got to Beijing, the immigration people told me I had to have a visa. I said, "No, I'm just here for a day in transit." Finally they all went into the back room and wrote out a visa on a piece of rice paper. They said, "Never tell anyone where you got this." So I went into town and saw all these people buying newspapers and magazines, and I thought, "This is a publisher's paradise." When China opened the door for U.S. joint ventures at the end of 1979, I immediately arranged a tour for seven U.S. technology companies. Within three months we had the project approved by the Chinese State Council and the Bank of China. We had our first issue out [of a version of Computerworld] in September 1980.
Does China's economic miracle seem sustainable?
The Chinese are putting tremendous emphasis upon education, graduating something like 700,000 engineers a year, compared with only 70,000 in the U.S. They traditionally save about 40% of their income. So China is going to have lots of talent and lots of capital to put to productive uses. I see its rapid growth continuing for at least the next ten years."
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