| Mayor on a Mission
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(ZHANG MING) |
Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng paid a four-day visit to Taiwan from April 6 to 9. He was the first mayor of the mainland's four municipalities directly under the jurisdiction of the Central Government to visit Taiwan.
Promoting the Shanghai World Expo, which will soon open on May 1, was at the top of Han's agenda during the trip.
While in Taiwan, he made extensive contacts with people from all walks of life, visiting schools and hospitals and meeting local residents. He also attended the Taipei-Shanghai forum where the two cities signed memoranda of understanding on cultural exchanges, tourism and environmental protection.
Han, 56, became the mayor of Shanghai in 2003 and was re-elected for a second term in 2008.
Writer, Blogger and Racer
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(WANG YONGJI) |
Han Han, a young Chinese writer, has been nominated by Time magazine as a candidate for its annual list of 100 most influential people in the world.
Han was born in Shanghai in 1982. As a member of China's allegedly self-centered 1980s generation, he performed poorly at school. His academic progress as a high school student foundered in 1999, when he failed seven subjects, including Chinese. He spent another year trying to catch up but eventually decided to quit. Before dropping out, he won top prize in a national essay contest that encourages innovative student writing.
He published his first novel Triple Gate in 2000 based on his own high school experience. The bestseller sparked a debate on China's education system.
Apart from being a writer, Han is a professional rally car driver. He also writes a popular blog, which has registered more than 300 million hits.
Search Engine Entrepreneur
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(XINHUA) |
Robin Li, co-founder and CEO of Baidu Inc., is another Chinese candidate on Time magazine's 100 most influential people list.
Li, 42, founded Baidu in 2000, after returning from the United States, where he studied and worked as a software engineer. Baidu has since become the largest Chinese search engine and currently holds more than 70 percent of the search market in China. It was listed on NASDAQ in 2005 and became the first Chinese company to be included in the NASDAQ-100 Index two years later.
Li received a Bachelor of Science degree from Peking University in 1991 and a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1994.
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