One Billion Customers - James McGregor [103]
At first, Murdoch was genuinely befuddled by China. As one STAR TV executive put it: “He sort of thought the Chinese would give him the key to the biggest backyard in the world. Why wouldn’t they want him? He figured that he would be a trusted person for them. Rupert had a slightly colonial view of the Asian masses and all the things the white man could bring to them.”
During the Cold War, Murdoch had been a fierce anti-Communist. Now he wanted to help China and he thought he should be welcomed. As he told biographer William Shawcross: “I don’t think there are many Communists left in China. There’s a one-party state and there’s a Communist economy, which they are desperately trying to get out of and change. The real story there is an economic story, tied to the democratic story.”
While Chinese leaders shut him out, Murdoch began meeting with Chinese entrepreneurs. The more he visited China, the more he admired and enjoyed the people. China was a nation of people like himself, aggressive risk takers, practical people who focused on making money and were willing to adhere to whatever political line was necessary to do it. Around the time of his meeting with Ding, Murdoch met a STAR TV executive named Wendi Deng at a cocktail party. Murdoch was sixty-five. Wendi was twenty-seven, tall, thin, intelligent, energetic, and aggressive. Wendi began serving as Murdoch’s translator on trips to China, but it wasn’t all business. In May 1998, Murdoch separated from his wife, Anna, and his relationship with Wendi became public.
Wendi enlightened Murdoch about China. She explained to him how Chinese officials thought and what motivated them. Murdoch began repeating her explanations to News Corp. executives, who dubbed them “Wendi-isms.” Wendi was the perfect match for Murdoch at this point in his life. She shared his aggression and love of the business deal. She didn’t want him to slow down and retire. She wanted to join him in conquering the globe. And she was every bit as opportunistic as Rupert. The daughter of a state factory director in Guangzhou, she had parlayed an affair with a married American executive working in China into a short-lived marriage and a “green card” that allowed permanent residency in the United States. She went on to earn an MBA from Yale University. An internship at STAR TV in Hong Kong became a full-time job building distribution on cable systems in China for STAR’s music channel. Murdoch and Wendi were married in June 1999 aboard his yacht in New York harbor. Wendi left the company, but she continued to serve as an ambassador for Murdoch in China.
As Murdoch’s attitude toward the Chinese changed, so did their attitude toward Murdoch. In the wake of the London speech scare, the Chinese government began to accumulate a massive file on Murdoch. At first, officials were convinced that he was going to spend billions to force his way into China. They suspected that he had ties to the CIA and wanted to use satellite technology to destabilize the Chinese government. They watched his every move. At one point Ding boasted to a News Corp. executive about Murdoch’s budding relationship with Wendi: “We even know what is going on between the two of them in the hotels.”
Not surprisingly, the more the Chinese learned about Murdoch, the more they admired and understood him. It didn’t take them long to conclude that Murdoch was a carbon copy of the typical Chinese tycoon. The indecipherable, labyrinthine structure of his global holdings and cross-holdings, which allowed him to flit between tax jurisdictions and