Business Week has a nice roundup of U.S. web players' moves into China, which is already one of the largest internet markets with 94 million people online (second only to the U.S.) - and that's just a hint of the vast potential as Chinese internet companies register rapid growth. Would-be foreign "invaders" like Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Amazon, eBay and Expedia have are urgently trying to move in, encouraged by the lowering of China's wall of restrictions as part of its bid for WTO membership. Foreigners can now directly own 50 percent of Chinese internet companies, as long as they play nice. For example, keeping the country's censors contented requires that companies constantly monitor the content on their sites.

MSN is working with the son of former president Jiang Zemin to offer Chinese-language content from government-backed outlets and targeting, among others, China's 340 million-plus cellular subscribers, who use their phones to go online. Yahoo last year paid $120 million for a Hong Kong company that gives it control of Chinese search engine 3721. But Google has already sold about $24 million in ads in China (in 2004) and has about a quarter of the search market.

E-commerce player eBay paid $180 million for EachNet, a Delaware company that gives it control of Chinese internet auctioneer EachNet, and says it will spend at least $100 million in China this year. And last August Amazon bought a British Virgin Islands company that gives it control of Joyo.com, China's leading online bookseller.