Zhang Xin: China’s Real Estate Mogul. By Lesley Stahl. Video. 60 Minutes, March 3, 2013. Transcript. YouTube. Complete 60 Minutes episode for March 3, 2013 here.
Fareed Zakaria Talks to Chinese Developer Zhang Xin. Video. Fareed Zakaria GPS, June 20, 2010. YouTube. Transcript.
More interviews with Zhang Xin, here, here, and here.
Stahl:
No one symbolizes China’s rapid 30-year rise – from the backwaters of communism to the second largest economy in the world – better than real estate developer Zhang Xin.
What’s interesting about her is that while we think of China as being uncreative, repressive and as far as you can get from the American dream, she breaks every one of those stereotypes.
She’s a mogul who got her start not in China, but on Wall Street. But she missed the Great Wall, so she went back home, and made it big!
The mogul, Zhang Xin, is the fifth richest self-made billionaire woman in the world.
[Zhang Xin: This is us. The one outside is us.]
She’s pointing out her buildings. With her partner husband, she has built more of Beijing than almost any emperor in China’s history.
. . . . . . . . . .
Zhang Xin: China is the place that produced more self-made billionaires than any other country in the world.
Lesley Stahl: Do you know what the American dream is?
Zhang Xin: Uh-huh.
Lesley Stahl: It sounds like the American dream – doesn’t it?
Zhang Xin: Uh-huh. Very much so.
. . . . . . . . . .
Lesley Stahl: She believes open market tools like public auctions and transparent accounting will lessen the corruption and the cronyism. The woman who once slept on a dictionary, and now has about $3 billion in her bank account, may tout China as the new land of opportunity, but she knows it’s still not the land of the free.
Zhang Xin: You know, I hear a lot in the U.S., people praise Wall Street, people praise state capitalism in China, “Look at how efficient things get done. Decisions get made so quick and so effective. It can roll over a policy overnight nationwide. And here in the U.S., we need to go through Congress, Senate, and debate.” And you know, I have to say, for a Chinese living in China, Chinese—if you ask one thing, everyone craves for is what? It’s not food. It’s not homes. Everyone crave for democracy. I know there’s a lot of negativities in the U.S. about the political system, but don’t forget, you know, 8,000 miles away, people in China are looking at it, longing for it.
Lesley Stahl: Do you think there will be democracy here? Let’s say, I’ll put a time frame on it, in 20 years?
Zhang Xin: Sooner.
Lesley Stahl: You’re an optimist.
Zhang Xin: I am.
Lesley Stahl: A bold statement in a country with heavy government censorship and limited freedom of speech.
