Despite his revelation, it seems that China also has an extraordinary ability to keep its nationals who go abroad connected-witness Dr. Wang’s home in Beijing as well as in Livingston, N.J. So deftly has he learned to reap the best of both worlds that at the age of 53, Dr. Wang is sought out as a start-up expert for healthcare and pharmaceutical companies keen to do business in China.

But if he is right that “China will become a democracy within 20 years,” Dr. Wang will find himself with much more than his foot in the door. Since 1978 he has been conducting and promoting research, or enabling companies in the U.S. and Europe to reach related Chinese pharmaceutical markets, which in a free economy would have everywhere to expand. Furthermore, from his very experienced viewpoint, Dr. Wang is willing to make another prediction: China and Taiwan will be one within 50 years. Now, historical, cultural and standard-of-living differences keep them apart. Doubters may recall that 50 years ago, no one believed that Hong Kong would ever be controlled by this same communist authority.

David Wang, as he is known, was born in Shantung, a peninsula near Korea that is famous for its silk and being Confucius’ birthplace. (Officially having added “David” to his passport, he admits choosing this middle name first from the dictionary, then from the bible because he liked the story of David beating Goliath.) While his mother cared for David and his seven siblings (he was number 6), his father-a law school graduate who never practiced-had been appointed deputy governor on the provincial level by Chiang Kai-shek. When Mao Tse-tung formed the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the Wang family fled by commercial airliner to Shanghai, then by ship to Taiwan where dad became a government minister in the agricultural department.

“I believed Chiang Kai-shek that one day we would move back to the mainland and have to feed all those people,” Dr. Wang recalls. “So I picked plant pathology, which involves botany and bacteriology, for my degree [a B.S. from National Chung-Hsing University in Taiwan]. But when I got to America I found there were no plant diseases, and that only 2 percent of the population were farmers. I decided to look for another interesting science and picked microbiology because I had had a lot of courses in undergraduate school.”

With a sister living in New Jersey, Dr. Wang settled on Rutgers University for his master’s in microbiology. While working part-time at American Cyanamid (now American Home Products) in Pearl River, N.Y., he heard about New York Medical College from a friend who was enrolled in the master’s program in cell biology and anatomy. Before long he was a Ph.D. candidate in the laboratory of Joseph Wu, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry and molecular biology.

“I appreciate my academic training at the College and the mentoring I received from Dr. Wu and Dr. William Gutstein [professor emeritus of pathology]. They not only taught me well, but also gave me their vision and personal guidance for my life,” says Dr. Wang. Dr. Wu is equally complimentary: "David had the courage and determination to make a life in untapped territory at that time. He also gave up a very nice job [associate director of production and cell biology at Synaptic Pharmaceutical, Paramus, N.J.] in a small biotech company and went to the frontier land of China. With the support of his family, a little bit of luck and much self-sacrifice-he actually lived in a factory he was building, without plumbing, heat or air conditioning-he was able to build several factories from scratch. What an example of the entrepreneurial spirit of America!”

That entrepreneurial word is what caught Dr. Wang’s eye from an advertisement in the China World Journal, a Chinese language newspaper in New York City. “A pharmaceutical company was looking for someone with an advanced degree and entrepreneurial spirit. That was me,” he says. So in 1992, Dr. Wang became vice president of Chia Tai (C.P.) Group and general manager of Chia Tai-Copley Pharmaceutical Co. in Beijing. Its parent company was a Thai multinational business with $4 billion in annual sales from various industries and interests. His primary responsibility was to establish a new healthcare division, overseeing and managing its strategic planning, implementation, project development and operations in China. He did it all-four times, with different financial partners, and made Copley the first U.S. generic drug company established in China. (All drugs in China are over-the-counter except for narcotics and radioisotopes.) And he is not too shy to boast that his idea to package the Zantac and Ampicillin generics together for the treatment of ulcers has been lucrative in the Chinese market.

For three years, Dr. Wang investigated more than 150 companies, negotiating, evaluating and then advising the home office about potential joint venture partners. The downside was he was only able to spend four months with his family in New Jersey. And, China always kept the bigger percentage of the joint venture deals. “But it was a very good period of economic growth,” he smiles, adding that the Asian financial crisis that reached China three years ago has left the country currently in a recession. Still, by 1996, Dr. Wang was ready to move on. He spent three years in Hong Kong, commuting bimonthly to Amsterdam, for a multinational company based in The Netherlands. And then last September, with an offer of stock options, he became executive vice president of Rogerson International Group in Hong Kong, an investment and trading start-up specializing in healthcare, biopharmaceuticals and electronics in the greater China area. Yet with all his experience, like anybody in a new job, Dr. Wang is anxious: “It’s a lot of pressure. I must perform.”

He will still enjoy only four months at home in New Jersey, and continue to miss bagels, The New York Times and movies on Sundays when he’s away. But the end is in sight. “I will retire at 65, and my wife and I will split our time between Beijing and New Jersey. I hope U.S. and Chinese relations are better by then, but I think it is always going to be a love/hate relationship,” he says.