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The Internet in China 109native-place networks for business transactions and sociocultural association(Hamilton, 1996, 1999; Hsing, 1998; Liu, 1998; Olds and Yueng, 1999;Yueng, 1999). According to John Kao’s (1993) survey of overseas Chineseentrepreneurs, 52 percent noted that more than half of their work relationshipsand 39 percent of their international business ties were with Chinese partners.Scholars understand that cultural synergy is attracting members of the Chinesediaspora to invest in Mainland China, particularly traditional origins ofemigration in the southern provinces of Guangdong and Fujian (Lin, 1997;Hsing, 1998; Wei et al, 1999; Cartier, 2001). Although the role of returningexpatriates is more prominent in manufacturing and trade than in Internetventures, they have been critical to the globalization of China’s economy andthe dramatic increase in China’s global informational links.While older generation sojourners are returning to their ancestral hometowns, a new school of Chinese engineers, business managers, and financialanalysts are landing in the new airports of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhouto form “the nucleus of a talented new generation of information technologyentrepreneurs that is forging commercial links with China” (Gilley, 1999: 50).These are returning Chinese students sent offshore in the post-Mao era tostudy Western technology and business skills. Many have worked, or are stillworking, in Silicon Valley and other American or European hi-tech centers.These legendary IT entrepreneurs are like Edward Tian, who grew up in theCultural Revolution, obtained advanced degrees in foreign universities, andthen returned to staff China’s top echelon of Internet entrepreneurs (Sheff,2002: 1–10). This trend of “brain circulation” (Saxenian, 2002) acceleratedafter the burst of the technology bubble in the global IT industry because ofmassive lay-offs in the West, but also because they were lured by China’s hugemarket potential, the temptation of going home, and, above all, the recognitionthat the developmental state could provide competitive jobs and goodsalaries. 24THE NETWORK OF CENSORS AND ITS ENEMIESChina’s effort to adjust to a new mode of development is not unique. The sameprocess is underway in neighboring countries and in economic sectors otherthan the Internet. The most intriguing idiosyncrasy about the Internet in Chinais that, despite the technology’s liberalizing potential, its high speed of growthcan be maintained within the framework of the current political system dominatedby the Communist Party. The case is excellent for comparative purposesbecause the technology is fostered, shaped, and contested under more restrictivecircumstances than in most parts of the world. Yet it developed rapidly,despite political factors that might have handicapped the Internet industry