Wu Jichuan

Wu Jichuan, 62, known among foreign businessmen as "Mr. No," the minister for Information Industries has positioned himself as standard-bearer for conservative bureaucrats opposed to a rapid opening of the country's economy. He comes from Hunan, a province famed for producing headstrong leaders like Mao and Zhu Rongji. Wu has spent his entire career in telecommunications, graduating from the Beijing Institute of Post and Telecommunications and working his way up to become minister of what was then Posts and Telecommunications in 1993. There he oversaw an unprecedented expansion of phone lines and mobile-phone usage--by 1997 China had 80 million lines, second only to the U.S.--while delivering huge revenues to government coffers. This has armor-plated his position as telecoms czar, so when he announced last month that China would not allow foreign investment in its Internet companies, the entire world took notice. The move was likely an opening gambit in the longer struggle for control of China's Internet market--and a lesson in how power politics works in Beijing.

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