[Isaac Mao in a San Francisco Cafe. Photo by Shel]
China's Isaac Mao, according to Wikipedia, is "a venture capitalist, blogger, software architect, entrepreneur and researcher in learning and social technology. He divides his time between research, social works, business and technology." His main focus these days is as vice president of and director to the Social Brain Foundation, advisor to Global Voices Online and several China-based Web 2.0 businesses."
He is also among the most inspirational people I've met through my lengthy and meandering social media journey. It has been a very busy five weeks since I sat down for 150 amazing minutes with him in a San Francisco cafe. Yet, I still find myself flashing on our conversation and feeling myself elated by the pleasure of meeting him.
We had a history together.
I interviewed Isaac by email for Naked Conversations in June 2005. It started as a pretty free flowing exchange of ideas and facts, but then, Isaac became more guarded in what he had to say about China, censorship and government. When I asked him if he thought our conversation was being monitored, he answered crisply: "The policies of my government are well documented."
I got the message and backed off. In December, I looked forward to meeting Isaac at Les Blog 2, where he was supposed to be speaking as well as Scoble and me. But he did not show up. When I asked Rebecca MacKinnon, the former CNN China reporter and Global Voices China expert who had first introduced me to Isaac. She said told me her friend was having "a few difficulties with his government and it would be better if you left him alone for a while."
I did.
Then the book got published and my life got hectic. I never circled back to Isaac. But still I wondered what was going on and worried a bit. I kept checking his extremely popular blog and new he was posting regularly and, it seemed, in unfettered style. But I never inquired.
So when I met Angus Lau at Office 2.0 and learned that Isaac would be in San Francisco, I immediately contacted him to request a meeting. Isaac, China's most successful tech entrepreneur was in the Bay Area to find partners for UCI, his new venture fund (we'll get to that in Part 2).
I asked Isaac what had happened back in 2005. I had wondered if somehow the conversations we had held back then had hurt him with his government, a concept that he found funny. He had said nothing to me that he had not said in public many times.
But it was about that time, that he realized the government was monitoring his calls. He could hear them on the phone. "They just weren't good at spying quietly."
By the time Les Blogs 2 came along, he knew that the government was tracing his calls to see with whom he was meeting. That's when a car started following him around the streets of Shanghai. He knew it was a government car because the government always used the same kind of car for such purposes and the guys inside it looked like they came from central casting for surveillance."
Eventually, Isaac got pissed off. One day, he made a U-turn while walking down the street, going directly over to the car and knocked hard on its window. The window rolled down and he demanded of the two men inside, "Why are you following me?" They looked at each other for a moment, rolled the window back up and sped off.
A short while later, the same two men came knocking on his apartment door and very politely asked to come in. They told Isaac they did not mean to bother him. They had no evidence that he was doing anything illegal. "But we want more information on anyone Isaac knew," who were doing risky things to our government."
Isaac stood his ground. "I don’t know anyone like that. It is not my interest. I don't want to improve our government. I just don’t want you to not harass me," he told them. They agreed, but politely requested he not to leave the country for a while. Isaac concurred, which is why he did not speak at Les Blogs 2.
The eavesdropping and shadowing trailed off. After all, Isaac is a spearhead in China's effort to join the global tech community, something China-a country that needs to create millions of new jobs each year--wants desperately. Also, his VC activity brings foreign dollars into China, creating jobs for young, bright Chinese. He may cause them some discomfort, but one would think China wants Isaac to keep on doing what he is doing.
What he says may make government officials nervous from time to time, but all things considered, they are likely to cut some slack to this highly visible, internationally respected member of the international social media community.
Over lunch in San Francisco, one of the world's most tolerant cities, Isaac told me it's different for China's real human rights activists. "They are totally harassed. It's rarely about getting thrown in prison, although that remains possible. They usually remain free, but their lives are made totally miserable every day of their life."
But he is convinced that the determination of his government to command and control over the country's 1.3 billion citizens is becoming about as effective as baling water from a boat with a lawn rake. We joked about movies such as the Bourne Identity that show government agents who are incredibly adept at listening, watching and eliminating citizens.
In real life, neither China's government, nor America's are as good as Hollywood would have you believe, although both governments cause a fair share of unnecessary human suffering.
But the numbers go against the governments. In the two years since we first talked, Isaac estimates the number of Chinese bloggers has exploded from 1.2 million to at least 20 million. Others estimate that number is as high as 60 million, but Isaac discounts "blogs" that are diaries without RSS or Comments.
More and more these bloggers say whatever they damned please.
"Years ago, we had to self-censor, but more-and-more people are becoming more than Chinese. We are more now a part of the world because of social media and global business."
"This year," Isaac pointed out, "China had many problems [such as the lead paint in toys incident]. Government is more embarrassed by our own people, than from the outside, so they tried to tighten controls. In the blogosphere, the more government tries to squeeze, the more people fight back. More and more bloggers are daring to speak out."
He said government wishes it could remove "loud bloggers so the can say China is a 'harmonious society.' " He smiles and pauses.
"Bloggers go on the Internet and hack the word "harmony." In Chinese, you can change the word easily to mean 'River of Shit.' That's what we think of our government's 'harmonious society.' "
[ Part 2 will examine how Isaac got started in social media, social media in China as well as it's amazing growth and strength in the last two years. We'll also have a bit more on how bloggers deal with censorship.]
