Narrator:

In a world not too far removed from the chase of Silicon Valley, Jack Ma takes a rare moment to unwind. These days he spends most of his time on planes. He's one of China's leading internet entrepreneurs, and he has good reason to kick back. Global investors are hammering at his door.

Jack Ma:

I'm in long speeches in China. Tell everybody. Nobody can stop in this revolution.

Narrator:

Jack is amongst a growing band of self made private entrepreneurs, challenging the traditional way of doing business in China.

Duncan Clark:

The biggest impact of the internet on China is the growth of private capital and private entrepreneurship, in a new form, which is not just running small corner shops, but actually running companies which may employee hundreds or eventually thousands of people, but do not have a penny of state ownership. This is very new.

Narrator:

China has declared the information industry its new life blood. With predictions of 20% yearly growth for the next decade. Wall Street may be reassessing its love affair with the world wide web, but on the Great Wall, the lure is getting stronger by the day.

That phenomenal growth could also have a downside.

Duncan Clark:

There is a control freak element to this government. You can say it stems from the communist heritage, but increasingly it's impossible for the government to maintain the pretence of very tight controls over this industry, when the reality is that the internet loves a challenge.

Narrator:

It's a challenge that's creating untold freedom for millions, and wealth for a handful, and it could produce a brave new, and for the communist party, very unpredictable world.

Jack Ma has just stepped off a plane from Silicon Valley.

Jack Ma:

Hi, how are you?

Speaker 4:

I'm Jane. Nice to meet you.

Jack Ma:

Hi, nice to meet you.

Speaker 4:

Thanks for coming out.

Narrator:

It's a trip he's made dozens of times, since he launched Alibaba.com, in March last year.

Jack Ma:

You see, internet is a treasure island, and nobody knows the password to it. Alibaba, we open the password for those business people, for anybody there.

[Foreign language]

Narrator:

His mind is chopped full of ideas. He's impatient to get back to work, even though Alibaba's research centre is still a two hour drive away.

Two hours off the plane, he's back in the research centre, where there's a frantic search for his office keys.

Jack Ma:

I don't know where the key.

Narrator:

Before long, he gets down to work with his engineers, discussing the progress of a new website design.

Jack Ma:

[Foreign language] Silicon Valley, the team.

Narrator:

Five years ago, Jack was an English teacher who became obsessed with the latest western craze to hit China. He hit on an idea to create a global online market place for small and medium sized businesses.

Today his dot com empire takes in Hong Kong and Silicon Valley, while international investors have poured millions of dollars into his venture.

Jack Ma:

We change the way business people are doing work. If I'm export, I have to go all the way to other nation to attend trade affairs. What I do today, is communicate with people on the internet. Everything is just through clicks, so lots has changed.

Narrator:

Alibaba, like scores of Chinese dot com's, is after a share of the fledgling eCommerce market. A market that promises huge profits, because of the size and growing wealth of China's population. But those profits all depend on how the central government chooses to regulate the internet.

Duncan Clark:

On the one hand you have this desire for the economic benefits to increase China's power. On the other hand, you have this very deep seated fear of losing control. Unfortunately the two either, depending on your perspective, come together. There is a fundamental contradiction.

Narrator:

In Duncan Clark's view, the central government is still grappling with how to regulate the internet, so that it creates profit for the state without undermining it.

The power of the internet was revealed in a dramatic and unusual fashion last year, when more than 10,000 practitioners from the Falun Gong Spiritual Group formed a silent circle of protest around Zhongnanhai, Beijing's central leaders compound. Falun Gong's followers had grown from a handful to tens of millions, because it effectively harnessed the internet for communication. The protest was the single biggest challenge to the party in 10 years, and now the government blocks Falun Gong's websites together with other key controversial sites, relating to Tibet, Taiwan and human rights.

Duncan Clark:

Once it gets very popular, they start blocking it. But there's no way that they can block all the sites that they want to block, because there's too many of them. It would slow down the internet to a great extent in China. And also, it's very hard to find all of the sites. But the big sites, the really popular portals and things like that, there has to be some level of control for the government.

Narrator:

As chat rooms spring up around the country, so too does the risk of political sensitive discussion, on issues like political reform descent and human rights.

To reduce the threat of subversion on the net, science which cater to ordinary consumers, are developing innovative ways to sensor or in their parlance, clean up their sites.

Speaker 5:

My job is to help the people within the groups to provide the membership services, and to clean up the garb garbage's.

Narrator:

One of the most popular sites in China, Netease, which claims to have up to a million members, uses a system of so called class monitors.

Speaker 5:

Every member, when they register with us, they have to agree on the contract we play there. They're specifically indicated certain things they're not allowed at doing that: personal insult, pornography, so the other things also it has to be within the [inaudible] laws.

Narrator:

Despite the atmosphere of self censorship, many young people are discovering freedom on the net like they've never dreamed of.

Though it's not strictly illegal, homosexuality is still a social taboo in most parts of China. And yet, gay culture is flourishing in cyberspace.

Roger works for a technology company by day, and by night he operates one of more than 100 websites aimed at gay men.

Roger:

In traditional Chinese society, it's hard to find the sort of information that can help you figure out who you are, how you should live, and that there are many people like you, and that what you are is okay.

I started a webpage to help others like me.

Narrator:

He doesn't want to be recognised for fear of being harassed or treated as a social outcast. As long as Roger doesn't display sexually explicit material on the website, he has more freedom on the internet than he does in real life. This newfound freedom is becoming more difficult to control.

Roger:

If you take the issue of democracy, and compare it with homosexuality, democracy would be the more important issue by far, so the government can exert a certain level of control over these 'problem sites', but there's no way for them to impose absolute control.

Narrator:

These internet professionals meet regularly to discuss new developments in technology and government regulation.

Web designer [inaudible] knows the area better than most. Two years ago he was jailed for inciting the overthrow of state power, after he passed 30,000 email addresses to an online democracy journal in the United States.

Speaker 7:

I think I'm the first victim of the internet ... I did things according to how I felt. About two years ago, I felt very free on the internet. I love freedom ... I never even thought about laws and regulations, but now I have some understanding.

Narrator:

Seven months after his release, [inaudible] enjoys relative freedom again, despite frequent visits from the police. His favourite way to pass the time is with his wife and young son.

He's restarted his internet business, mainly to find a job for himself. He still clings to the dream of a more open society.

Speaker 7:

In my view, freedom is my permanent dream. I don't think I will give that up. The Chinese government likes control, but the internet doesn't like to be controlled, so there will be conflicts. I think I have to abide my society's regulations. If you don't grasp these tricks of survival, even though your ideals might be lofty, you'll accomplish nothing.

Jack Ma:

This is the city where I was born and grew up.

Narrator:

This is where Jack Ma was first exposed to foreign tourists, where he first learned to speak English 20 years ago. Today, he shows me the traditional way of sealing a business deal, over a drink or a round of Mahjong. It's perhaps the one part of doing business, he won't be able to change.

Despite the uncertainty of government regulation, he believes as long as there's money to be made, the Chinese government won't stifle this opportunity.

Jack Ma:

One thing no matter whatever changes, every government, every people love to have a business to see the prosperity of the business. Right? You have political problems here and there, but nobody wants business problems.

Duncan Clark:

The one remaining obstacle or barrier perhaps to an unfettered growth, is seen as government control and regulation, but I don't think this government is going to surrender control or walk away. This is a [inaudible] government still, which basically believes in control over all other things.

Narrator:

There are high hopes that the lure of a technology led boom, will allow the internet the freedom it needs to change Chinese society, even if for the moment, hype rules.

Genevia:

The goal really is to gain as much eyeballs as possible.

Speaker 9:

When we got half a million dollars from the United States.

Mitchell Wong:

What is our goal? Our goal is ... That's a good question.

Jack Ma:

China is not never going to change revolutionary. Two, we have over 30 million people using it.

Narrator:

So the real revolution hasn't even started yet?

Jack Ma:

No, I can hear the steps, but not started yet.

Narrator:

The internet has already created a pluralistic society, that in Chinese terms, is revolutionary, even after 20 years of rapid economic transformation. All that's needed now, is for the brave new cyber world to be beamed down to Earth.