Saturday, September 22, 2007

China's Hot Stock: Orwell Inc.

The American economy may be teetering on the brink of a recession, but there's an industry our hedge fund gurus believe has an almost limitless future: the Chinese police state.

In a stunning report in the New York Times last week, correspondent Keith Bradsher documented the rise of China's electronic surveillance industry, whose leading companies have incorporated themselves in the United States and obtained the lion's share of their capital from U.S. hedge funds. Though ostensibly private, these companies are a for-profit adjunct of the Chinese government.

Li Runsen, technology director of the government's ministry of public security and the top cop policing China's Internet usage against the occasional appearance of a dangerous idea, now also moonlights as a director of China Security and Surveillance Technology, a company soon to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. (more)