Dotcom venturer
Yu Shujun

Every foreigner in Beijing either knows what qu na’r means or must think it strange that only taxi drivers seem to substitute this greeting for ni hao. But to Fritz Demopoulos, its literal meaning, “Where are you going?” had far greater significance than a simple taxi driver’s information solicitation.
Now founder of Qunar.com, an aptly-named Beijing-based travel search engine, the 37-year-old American has gone a long way in the Chinese media, Internet and wireless industries since he first arrived in China in 1997.
Ironically at that time, the eventual founder of Qunar didn’t know where the heck he was going.
“My [old] company sent me to China,” Demopoulos said. “They gave me the chance to come out to Asia. But at that time, I didn’t know about China. I was lucky, super lucky!”
Arriving in China only by chance, Demopoulos quickly recognized there was a lot more where that came from.
“Opportunities are everywhere,” Demopoulos said. “I remember that the former Minister of Information Industry of China Wu Jichuan said, in some way, China is the most open market in the world.”
And it’s true, he said.
Demopoulos’ career path proves that.
What’s more, Demopoulos proves that a foreigner doesn’t need billion dollar company perks or a slick embassy aura to live out the American Dream in China. Actually, he shows one can be more successful without them-and maybe just by “showing up.”
Showing up
When Demopoulos talks, he exudes a bit of California cool, putting our Beijing Review staff at ease right away.
He’s the kind of guy who ends most sentences with “right?” and just makes you want to respond, “Right on, man!”
Indeed, Demopoulos was born in Los Angeles and went to college there.
But his father was from Greece and mother from Austria, immigrating to the United States in the 1960s.
That, in addition to his parents’ business success, gave Demopoulos a bit of a bug to do something other than surf.
“Back in the 1960s when my parents immigrated to the States, what was the American Dream?” Demopoulos asked rhetorically. “You had three kids, a couple cars, a house and a business. That’s what my parents did [even] as immigrants, right?”
Right Fritz, but what about your own dream, our staff wondered. And why do you stay in China?
“My dad’s an entrepreneur,” Demopou-los said. “That’s why I wanted to become an entrepreneur too, eventually.”
As for China, Demopoulos had a strange yet poignant answer.
“Sometimes here, you can do well just by showing up,” he said. Showing up, we wondered, without language skills? Without knowing the culture?
“In China, a lot of people don’t have all the experiences and reference points that I have,” Demopoulos said. “In the States my experiences and reference points are the same as everywhere else. In China there are these natural advantages. Part of the trick is we have to understand what we think we can do well and understand the limitations.”
Rejecting corporate office space
While Demopoulos doesn’t understand Chinese culture as well as locals, his resume boasts a stellar corporate pedigree, which enabled him to come here.
Demopoulos began his career in China in 1997 as business development manager for News Corp., having been involved in a range of initiatives with various News Corp.-affiliated companies including ChinaByte.com, STAR TV, NDS and Twentieth Century Fox.
But when you first meet Demopoulos, you know he’s not a company man.
Young and laid back, he speaks in quick purposeful bursts that likely incubate better in the clutter of a start-up rather than a company boardroom.
Demopoulos left News Corp. to co-found Chinese-language sports Internet portal Shawei.com in 1999, although he spoke almost no Chinese at that time.
“I just said this is the time to do it,” Demopoulos said. “I remember a friend said, ‘Get a desk, a phone and an office and just go for it.’ So I did that. I remember the first day we were sitting there-that’s when the clock is ticking because you’re burning your own money. It’s really a lot of pressure.”
Fortunately for Demopoulos, the pressure didn’t cause any key business ingredients to explode other than popularity.
“We thought we would have a newsletter and as we got more people we would have a proper website,” Demopoulos said. “We just grew that business.”
Shawei soon grew to become one of China’s largest sports websites. In 2000, before the Internet bubble burst, Demopoulos sold Shawei to Hong Kong-based Tom Group for $15 million.
But for Demopoulos, being anti-establishment didn’t mean cutting himself off from media networking in China.
Before starting Qunar.com, Demopoulos served as advisor to an array of well-known Chinese and international media companies including Titan Sports, Hai Run Media Group and InterActive Corp., as well as interim head of business development for Netease.com.
Last year, he co-founded Qunar.com with his former Shawei.com partner Douglas Khoo, a Malaysian, and former Shawei Chief Technology Officer C.C. Zhuang, a Peking University graduate. In June 2005, Qunar finished its beta test of a Chinese-language version and it was formally launched, thus becoming one of the first travel search engines in China.
SideStep look alike?
Demopoulos acknowledges Qunar.com is similar to SideStep.com, a well-known travel search engine in the United States.
But Qunar clearly has a better grasp of the region here, with far more listed searchable regional flights, and in the host country’s language of choice.
In developing his business scheme, Demopoulos and his partners examined Google. He found that Google worldwide gets about 23 percent of its revenue from travel-related advertising, and Google China gets about 18 percent.
Hence, Demopoulos realized there was an enormous travel advertising market waiting to be snatched. However, the Chinese online travel market had been dominated by two Nasdaq-listed companies: Ctrip.com and Elong.com.
How could Qunar carve a niche?
In fact, Ctrip and Elong are actually online agents of hotel accommodation and airfare groups.
But Qunar is just a search engine.
“Our business model is a little bit different,” Demopoulos said. “We fight with Baidu and Google for revenue and fight with Ctrip and Elong for customers.”
Currently, Qunar.com searches over 300 Chinese-language travel websites. These search results provide consumers with real-time pricing information and other descriptive details from more than 20 airlines and 10,000 hotels serving the Chinese mainland. Through Qunar.com, consumers can quickly, easily and in real-time compare virtually all available prices for air tickets, hotels, car rentals and tour packages online. Qunar aims to allow consumers the best choices and value in travel.
However, one big obstacle for Qunar is that many Chinese still are accustomed to the traditional way of booking air tickets and other services-in person with a known agent. Even Beijing Review’s foreign staffers, who in their own countries are more accustomed to ordering air tickets online, often find cheaper prices going to the travel agent down the street.
Certainly, the online travel market in China is tiny.
According to statistics from the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA), as of September 2005, online travel transaction volume was about 4-5 billion yuan, accounting for only 1 percent of the whole market. In the United States, revenue of the online travel market reached $54 billion in 2004, grasping 20 percent of the whole market.
According to a Deutsche Bank report, U.S. travel consumers drove the share of total bookings from around 1 percent in 1998 to about 19 percent in 2003. The report also pointed out that China consolidators will likely develop more slowly than the U.S. online, but the opportunities and profitability are likely to be greater in China.
The Chinese travel market itself is enormous.
CNTA statistics also show that in 2005 the number of Chinese travelers traveling within China was 1.212 billion (note the entire population is 1.3 billion), and those traveling overseas numbered 31.2 million, up 10 percent and 7.5 percent respectively over 2004.
Meanwhile, as of the end of the first half of this year, the number of netizens in China had reached 123 million, according to the China Internet Network Information Center.
These figures may give confidence to Demopoulos.
“We certainly feel we can change the travel landscape,” said Demopoulos, although he declined to discuss revenues or earnings, which would give some indication of his company’s growth.
If language is any indication of growth, however, Qunar is poised for the big time.
Besides its present simple Chinese and English versions, Qunar is slated to launch Japanese and Korean versions, as well as traditional Chinese.
In the final analysis, Fritz’ American Dream is a work in progress, but no doubt it’s happening. So if you happen to be a taxi driver, the next time you ask Fritz Demopoulos, qu na’r, listen carefully. He might tell you an inspirational story that could change your life to something a little more-say-American.

(The Daily Mail-Beijing Review Articles Exchange Item)


America depends on outside world for defence
Col (R) M. Zaman Malik

Today, America basically outspends the rest of the world on defence. Add up the entire world’s State spending on defence and America accounts for roughly half of the world’s. But when America’s Military build-up go over seas, it gains indomitably overwhelming force. However, Nuclear weapons trumped US. ‘No enemy can stop it, and frankly, none of US allies can rally project power on their own – unless it helps them. US decide under what conditions wars will be fought between states – except it can be trumped by nuclear weapons.’ That’s why, US for no rime or reason of its own but on the persuasions of its mighty Israeli Zionism is apprehensive of Muslim’s atomic power; not realizing that before trying to reduce Muslims both US and Israel themselves should disarm, to set personal example. Then the entire world will follow them, just as it had followed US example that it had displayed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in 1945.First deserve and then desire. Bush has accepted and defended the US’s right to use torture as a tool in the war on terror. So, on what grounds can the State Department continue to produce condemnatory reports on human rights abuses by other countries around the world – normally the developing states – although its allies like Israel never have anything to fear as they continue with their state terrorism?
Be that as it may, as far as Pakistan is concerned, it can never do anything right. The Washington Post, which now claims that the key to the whole resurgence of Taliban’s is simply Pakistan. Can’t they see one British officer who resigned and went Public with regard to NATO and its Allie’s faulty policy? Why are the NGOs who rely on fundings from their Western donors are paid very heavily for criticizing Pakistani life-style advocating India’s and Indonesia’s life style? Why the US threatens us that it can enter Pakistan at will to arrest Osama? How on earth American Imperialism declares that North Waziristan will be “monitored”? Are the set backs being suffered in Iraq and Lebanon by US and its Allies also because of Pakistan? The amount of disgrace and Casualties suffered recently by Israel at the hands of Hezbollah, should forbid the Zionists from committing aggression and usurping other’s territories!. The Americans raise hue and cry when something happens to India blaming Pakistan for every thing. What happened to dozens of Muslims in a Mosque in India deserved not a word of sympathy by the US / West. The West’s double standards are most malicious and reflect heinous racism.
But America is wedded to its own interests as directed by Jewish Zionism. Instead of following the path of peace and tranquillity, while keeping the hypothetical situation (created in US mind by Israel), the Pentagon thinks that when that condition exists, then our Leviathan rule-set defers to the larger rule-set known as mutually assured destruction, or MAD. Fortunately, the only countries able to launch such attacks vis-vis the United States all belong to globalization’s Functioning Core (United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, India), leaving only the “proliferators.” Otherwise known as Gap states, mind you, but only in the sense that the use of nuclear weapons on their part would represent a serious breach of that long- stable rule – set. America, instead of a hard retaliation for itself in turn, expects rose petals to be thrown upon it! Great Guy, self defence is the foremost basic right of any human kind, whether you believe in it or not?
What did Nelson Mandela, Michael Collins, Archbishop Makarios Menachim, Benazir, Begin, Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Shamir, Emonon Devellera, and JomoKanyata and above all for Americans, George Washington, and stand for – for freedom or for terrorism; they were also dubbed with terrorism, to begin with? The trouble with the blind is that it can not differentiate between black and white.
Wars between states were disappearing; only conflicts and skirmishes were in vogue which could also have been overcome, through the evolving situations in each country with the mechanism devised by SAARC – like regional formations. They emerged entirely due to US crime that never practically allowed equitable justice and never bothered to ensure that the UN Charter was followed in letter and spirit and UN resolutions were sincerely implemented. Today, US are the most maligned, highly disliked and least trust worthy states. It is the US itself that ignites the conflicts across the world. After all, what gives the right to America to render judgment on right and wrong?
America by its own actions proves that it was she herself and not the UN that matters; and one can quote a number of examples to the effect. The TOP priority should be given for organizing UNO into a real potent Organism capable enough to ensuring peace, justice, equilibrium and tranquillity in the world, which the American neocons and Israeli Zionists are pulling apart for their own interest for turning it into an organization for the kingdom of David. David would never ever have desired a Kingdom established on humanity’s ashes. No, they rather say that the underdog always seeks justice based on morality while the stronger one always seeks only its own interests. Here the revealed books and the politically designed Protocols of Zion find no place to sit together; rather they develop hatred for each other.
Instead of beating about the bush the US should stop aggression throwing away the pretensions of pre-emptives, during the period of its Unilateralism. Aggression is nothing but aggression; give it any name, any excuse with unusually best make up in the best beauty parlour in the US! The world is pretty much alive today, unlike the last about 71 years after Jesus Christ was crucified!


Darfur’s dispossessed need money, not pity
Antonia Guterres

FROM genocide in Rwanda to the agonies of Darfur, the world seems paralysed when called upon to make the really big gesture. It seems equally reticent when asked to provide comparatively modest financial support to those doing their best to make a difference for the growing numbers of uprooted and dispossessed people. Today (Dec 11), I will launch our annual appeal to the international community to provide a billion dollars so that the United Nations High Commission for Refugees can play its part next year in providing refugees with some measure of protection and life-saving assistance. If history is any guide, however, I will be disappointed and will receive pledges for no more than a third of total needs. Just over half-a-billion pounds may sound like a lot of money, but this year Britons will spend GBP250m on Christmas trees alone, not counting the mountains of presents underneath, or the war in Iraq, which is swallowing millions a day. In this context, UNHCR’s appeal for 2007 is equivalent to just 50 pence a week for each of the 20 million people we help.
Despite scarce resources over the past 18 months, we have helped more than a million refugees return to their countries of origin. We are working alongside other relief agencies to help the thousands now fleeing the conflicts in Iraq and Somalia. We are also dealing with the rapidly deteriorating situation in central Africa, where the crisis in Darfur is spreading into Chad and the Central African Republic. Looking ahead over the next 12 months, the multiplication of challenges is staggering. We are working hard to implement a new approach to emergency relief as part of the UN’s efforts to improve performance. Within UNHCR, we are looking at how to lower costs and direct more resources to beneficiaries on the ground. And yet, as the number of people under our mandate grows and we do our job better, too many governments sit on their hands when it comes to paying for an agency that relies on voluntary contributions to cover 98 per cent of its operating budget.­
The result is a precariously narrow funding base. We count on just 10 countries to provide 80 per cent of our annual income. Beyond a core group of donors in Europe, North America and Japan, most countries give little more than small change to support an agency that works on their collective behalf. History suggests that my expectations for this week’s appeal should be modest. Perhaps so, but this state of affairs cannot continue. As the eyes of the world are focused today on the humanitarian crisis in Darfur and the alarming insecurity that threatens to engulf not only the refugee camps in eastern Chad but the broader region, it is time for the world to go beyond angst to action. Universal values mean little without something closer to universal financial support for the world’s refugees.