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In Business: Mao and Silicon

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In Business Maoist Square 281113

28/11/2013

Mao and Silicon

BBC Radio 4 - In Business, Mao and Silicon

Peter Day explores two very contrasting enclaves in China.

The music from Chairman Mao's era and the sound of posh coffee being brewed are two very different ways to start the day in China. Peter Day explores two contrasting enclaves.

It's 6.15am and over loudspeakers across quiet streets of Nanjiecun blares out a song more familiar during the days of Chairman Mao, "The East is Red". As the sun rises, a huge white statue of Chairman Mao, surrounded by four equally huge portraits of Lenin, Marx, Stalin and Engels become visible in the town's main square. This the last Maoist collective in China, a little enclave of the past in the socialist market economy that China has now developed. How does their economy work and what is it like to live there? Meanwhile, at 3W Coffee in Beijing's 'Silicon Valley' district entrepreneurs are queuing up for their early morning burst of caffeine. This is Beijing's first tech business incubator where you're catapulted to the China of the twenty first century, with young people pushing the boundaries of the internet to create a very different China to that of Mao sixty years ago.

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