Editor’s note for June 15, 2023
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn.
Dear reader:
When I first lived in China in the 1990s, one of the most common aspirations of young Chinese urbanites was to be “like Bill Gates.” After the launch of the iPhone, Steve Jobs became another hero, as did Jack Ma (马云 Mǎ Yún) and other Chinese entrepreneurs who were building fortunes and reputations as big as their American counterparts.
Elon Musk is perhaps the only American businessman left who still commands that type of respect and admiration in China, but it is Bill Gates who is probably going to get an audience with Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 in Beijing tomorrow, a mark of respect that was denied to Musk on his trip to China a few weeks ago, and that has been denied to most senior U.S. government officials for years.
Today however, it is Xi’s birthday. He is a big soccer fan, and he no doubt just watched Lionel Messi play in Beijing in a friendly game between Argentina and Australia. Argentina won 2-0.
Our Word of the Day is: Bill Gates (比尔 盖茨 bǐ’ěr gàicí)
—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief
