Jimmy Zhong is a Beijinger who speaks English with an American accent and wears a baseball cap. He recalls the heady days of life in Manhattan after finishing his degree in maths and computer science at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgixuanxiang_tag_enameA. By then he was already rich, having sold his first company — an online marketplace enabling students to sell class notes — for $40m. He was in New York to help build another Internet startup which he had co-founded during his third year at university — a forum for students to buy tutorial help. The money was rolling in.
In early 2017, missing home, he went to spend the lunar-new-year holiday in Beijing. He had heard about the opportunities there, about startup companies such as the bike-sharing firms Ofo and Mobike that had grown into billion-dollar businesses in just a couple of years. “I realized, what am I doing in New York City It’s a complete waste of time.”
And so began his new ventures. One is a Beijing-based startup, Dora, that deals in self-service kiosks such as photo booths. Mr. Zhong says it already has 300 employees and is worth $100m. He is now focusing on another one, IOST, based in Singapore, which is developing software involving block chain, the cryptographic technology behind bitcoin. China recognizes the huge market potential for the underlying technology as an enabler of secure transactions. As in other digital domains, such as artificial intelligence, China is sparing no effort to establish itself as a world leader, so the government badly wants more people like Mr. Zhong to return.
They are doing so in droves, many of them drawn back to China by a boom in tech-related business. In 2016 more than 430,000 people went back to China after finishing their studies, nearly 60% more than in 2011. China’s official news agency, Xinhua, called this one of the biggest return flows of talent in any country’s history: the “magnetic effect” of China’s rise as a global power. About one-sixth of “sea turtles”, as returnees are jokingly known in Chinese, take up IT-related work, according to a survey published last year by the Centre for China and Globalization CCG , a think-tank in Beijing, and Zhaopin, a job-search website. Most of the 150 or so Chinese companies listed on NASDAQ were launched by returnees.
Officials have also offered them generous allowances, housing, health care and other benefits to move back to China. Today’s world not only has the West’s American dream but the East’s Chinese dream as well.
Officials say about 80% of Chinese students now return after finishing their studies, compared with less than one-third in 2006. Some, known as “seagulls”, flit back and forth between East and West. But the trend is clear.
The success of China’s plan to create world leaders in cutting-edge industries, known as “Made in China 2025”, will need returnees. And indeed they make up nearly half of the “core talents” involved in developing artificial intelligence in China, according to ChinaHR.com, a recruitment website. Growing numbers of them have not only been educated in America but have also gained crucial experience there.
About Jimmy Zhong’s ventures for startup companies, which one of the following is true
A.
When he came back to China, he based his two companies in Beijing.
B.
His first company was sold out because of mismanagement.
C.
He is quite successful in doing his business.
D.
He didn’t set up any companies until his graduation.