T C L TA K E S O V E R T H O M S O N 79 magazine chose Li as its "Asia Businessman of the Year." The rel- atively anonymous factory that he had joined as a technician had evolved into TCL, one of the largest consumer electronics enter- prises in China, and Li was its chairman and CEO. TCL's ambitions extended beyond the Chinese domestic mar- ket. Its operations had gone global, and by 2005, TCL had trans- formed itself into a conglomerate with three subsidiaries under its umbrella: TCL Corporation, TCL Multimedia Technology, and TCL Communication Technology. From Humble Beginnings to an Industrial Powerhouse Huiyang Electronic Industrial Company, the small cassette-tape factory where Li began his career, had been started a year before Li's arrival with a $600 loan from the Huizhou city government. As