Chapter 20 Chapter 19 Unclear "State-owned Enterprise Reform"

In August 2009, Wu Jinglian, who was about to turn 80 years old, reviewed the overall supporting reform plan in 1993 in his oral history. He commented that the foreign exchange reform was the most successful, followed by the fiscal and taxation reform, the state-owned enterprise reform was the third, and the social security reform was the least effective. Regarding the reform of state-owned enterprises in the early stage, the idea of ​​delegating power and transferring profits was dominant. As early as April and May of 1991, Wu Jinglian wrote two papers in succession, "Reforming the Traditional Economic System Is the Fundamental Way to Revitalize Large and Medium-Sized Enterprises" and "The Dilemma and Way Out of State-owned Large and Medium-Sized Enterprises", in order to discuss the current reform of enterprises by delegating power and giving up profits. Thought raised objections.

Regarding decentralization of power, he believes that "since 1956, there has been a tendency to classify the ills of the old system as 'over-concentration of power', 'too much control over enterprises and too much centralization', thus simply equating reform with According to the idea of ​​'delegating power and transferring profits', the economic system to be established through reform is the so-called system of 'use national plans to allocate resources and introduce certain market factors to mobilize the enthusiasm of localities, departments, enterprises and employees'" .Years of practice have proved that the enterprise reform carried out according to this basic idea has "little effect".

As for the contracting system, the highest form in the reform of decentralization and transfer of profits, he believes that there are "some fundamental flaws", including "impeding the flow of resources and hindering structural adjustment", and "the arrangement of the property right structure under the contracting system is not conducive to the correct handling of the relationship between the state and the Interests between companies". "So in my opinion, the contracting system is only under the condition that the comprehensive reform has not yet been carried out. In order to give enterprises a little leeway in the "cage" of the mandatory plan, the "improvement" of contracting can only make its The harm is mitigated to some extent, and it is impossible to 'perfect' it."

In addition, regarding the government’s taxation and credit policies favoring state-owned enterprises, he believes that this will cause unfair market competition and directly hurt private enterprises outside the system. The vitality of the most vigorous part of our economy has been suppressed, and the recession of the entire national economy has been delayed and has to be abandoned." At that time, some people proposed to use the method of "establishing an enterprise group" to "build a large ship so that it can go abroad", so that state-owned enterprises can win by their scale. Wu Jinglian concluded that this large group organized by administrative means will definitely return to the administrative centralization Going on the old road, "At the beginning, there is a herd, and then it will be dispersed."

After demonstrating that none of these methods would work, Wu Jinglian put forward his own ideas: "We propose to establish a joint-stock company in our country, with legal persons representing the public as the main shareholder and individual shareholders as the supplement, as a socialist commodity economy. micro-foundations." Wu Jinglian, like most Chinese economists, is in favor of reforming state-owned enterprises with the company system (often called "shareholding system" in China).However, he did not agree with the "joint-stock enterprises" that have been implemented nationwide since 1986, with state-owned shares as the mainstay, including some "enterprise shares" and a small amount of individual shares. Satisfied, it is believed that this kind of "joint-stock enterprise" does not conform to the norms of modern companies, and it is impossible to operate effectively.

Under the guidance of this idea, in 1993, he collaborated with Qian Yingyi to complete the article "About Corporatization". In the article, they suggested that state-owned large and medium-sized enterprises should speed up the corporatization transformation, that is, "reorganize existing non-corporate enterprises into corporate legal person organizations." The basic content includes three aspects: clarifying the company's legal person nature, defining Property rights relations and the establishment of "corporate governance structures".In his contacts with foreign counterparts, he has a detailed understanding of the corporate systems of large companies in various countries.

Wu Jinglian recalled: "At that time, Chen Qingtai, who led the enterprise reform research group in the drafting group of the plenary session, agreed with our point of view in this article, and wrote it into Jiang Zemin's speech at the Dalian State-owned Enterprise Symposium before the plenary session. In the "Decision" of the plenary session ("Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Issues Concerning the Establishment of a Socialist Market Economic System"), it has become a new theme of enterprise reform." Chen Qingtai is a rare senior official who was promoted from the front line of the enterprise. Director of the No. 2 Automobile Factory, in 1988 he was named "The First National Excellent Entrepreneur". In July 1992, Chen Qingtai was transferred to the Economic and Trade Office of the State Council as the deputy director, and immediately became the deputy director of the State Economic and Trade Commission in charge of the reform of state-owned enterprises.Like Wu Jinglian, he believed that the contract system had many disadvantages.

In the "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Issues Concerning the Establishment of a Socialist Market Economic System" passed at the Third Plenary Session of the Fourteenth Central Committee, the new term "modern enterprise system" appeared very conspicuously. Establish a modern enterprise system that adapts to the requirements of the market economy, has clear property rights, clear powers and responsibilities, separation of government and enterprise, and scientific management.”One month after the end of the plenary session, in December 1993, Wu Jinglian published the first domestic monograph on the company system, "Reform of Large and Medium-sized Enterprises: Establishing a Modern Enterprise System". This book has been reprinted many times and won the National Book Award.

Wu Jinglian was not completely satisfied with the part of the state-owned enterprise reform discussed in the "Decision" of the Third Plenary Session of the Fourteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 1993. He commented on it this way: "This comprehensive plan also has a lot of flaws, concentrated in the Regarding the reform of state-owned enterprises, in the 1993 document, it was quite confusing. What you said was good, it was the innovation of the modern enterprise system; Together, it's not clear." The reason for "stirring together" is still because of unclear ideas and endless debates.

In December 1993, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress passed the Company Law.Beginning in 1994, the central government began to carry out the pilot reform of the modern enterprise system throughout the country in accordance with the "Company Law". By the end of the year, the State Economic Reform Commission had selected 31 large-scale enterprises across the country to carry out the pilot reform. Just as the tax-sharing system has replaced the financial and tax contract system, the implementation of the "Company Law" means that the contract system is about to come to an end in China's enterprise reform.In fact, as early as the mid-1980s, Wu Jinglian concluded that state-owned enterprises must take the joint-stock road with clear property rights. A corporate governance structure that establishes checks and balances with operators” can operate effectively.Wu Jinglian and Qian Yingyi spent nearly half of their article "About Corporatization" in detail introducing and discussing an important concept that was still unfamiliar to Chinese people at that time - corporate governance (Corporate Governance, also known as corporate governance structure).They pointed out: "The gist of establishing a corporate governance structure is to clearly divide the respective powers, responsibilities and interests of shareholders, board of directors and managers, so as to form a check and balance relationship between the three." That is to say, the company must establish effective corporate governance.

It is a pity that corporate governance, which had become the core structure of the modern corporate system in the late 20th century, was still unknown in China at that time. Whether such a foreign term that cannot be clearly explained in one sentence could be included in the "Decision" became a problem.After several compromises, four simple and clear words were written into the document instead: "clear property rights, clear powers and responsibilities, separation of government and enterprises, and scientific management." "Corporate governance structure", the core concept of the corporate system, was not adopted until the Fourth Plenary Session of the 15th CPC Central Committee in 1999. It first appeared in the document "Decisions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Some Major Issues Concerning the Reform and Development of State-owned Enterprises" among. At that time, many people in the decision-making cadres still insisted that the main goal of the reform of state-owned enterprises was to expand the autonomy of enterprises, and they did not take the shareholding system or property rights reform seriously. Their thoughts and voices permeated many documents, reports and speeches. The modern enterprise system has become "decentralization of power and transfer of profits" when talking about it.As a result, there was a debate over whether to “speak only the three sentences of clear powers and responsibilities, separation of government and enterprises, and scientific management” or “speak the four sentences together.” Of course, Wu Jinglian supported the latter. On the front line of the enterprise, there are operational difficulties.Many enterprises put a lot of irrelevant and irrelevant things into the basket of "modern enterprise system".However, corporate governance that can establish checks and balances between owners and managers is absent.In this way, the newly established "company" often has a name but no reality, not to mention the improvement of performance. After entering 1995, the operating conditions of state-owned enterprises continued to deteriorate, almost to the point of being unsustainable. A report by the Development Research Center of the State Council showed that the loss of state-owned enterprises exceeded 40%.According to a survey by the National Bureau of Statistics of 2,600 state-owned industrial enterprises in 15 large and medium-sized cities including Tianjin, Harbin, Shenyang, and Chengdu, the total assets of these enterprises were 254.4 billion yuan, but their liabilities reached 200.7 billion yuan. As high as 78.9%, compared with 10 years ago, assets have increased by 4.1 times, and debts have increased by 8.6 times. The state is clearly unable to take care of millions of "natural sons".It is at the end of the mountain that the reform is once again "passively" advanced.After summarizing the lessons learned from the failure of the pilot project to establish a "modern enterprise system" in the past few years, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 15th CPC Central Committee held from September 19 to 22, 1999 passed the "Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Reform and Development of State-owned Enterprises". The Decision on Several Major Issues requires reformed companies to generally realize equity diversification and establish an effective "corporate governance structure". It's "real".