Chapter 25 1989 "Falling Spring"

Haizi, a poet of Peking University, put his 25-year-old head on the cold and long railroad tracks.It was late at night on March 26, 1989. China's most talented poet committed suicide by lying on the rails in Shanghai Customs.Two months ago, he just wrote the poem "Facing the Sea, Spring Blossoms", which will be often recited in the future: "From tomorrow on, be a happy person / Feed horses, chop firewood, travel around the world / From tomorrow, care about food and vegetables / I have a house, facing the sea, with spring flowers blooming / From tomorrow, talk to every relative / Tell them my happiness / What the happy lightning told me / I will tell everyone / Give every river and every mountain a warm name / Stranger, I also bless you / May you have a splendid life Future/May your lover be married in the end/May you be happy in the world/I only wish to face the sea and the spring blossoms.”

This is a happy and talkative poem, no one thought that its owner would choose to commit suicide two months later.In this world, people's hearts are as unpredictable as the world's affairs. Let's first look at the global situation in 1989. Politically, it was a year of turmoil and change.The Iron Curtain stretching across the eastern and western worlds is collapsing. Gorbachev's reforms in the Soviet Union have impacted the concept of the planning system. Walesa's Solidarity union is in full swing in Poland.Japanese-American professor Francis Fukuyama published "The End of History?" in the sixteenth issue of The National Interest this summer. ", arguing that the liberal democratic system practiced by Western countries may constitute the "end of history".This point of view quickly believed that the mainstream thinking in Western society has also profoundly influenced the overall thinking of thinkers from all over the world on this era.Observing everything that happened in China this year against the background of international current events and ideas, perhaps we can draw more real and objective conclusions.

Economically, Japan's economic expansion has reached its peak. On September 10, a shocking news was announced simultaneously in New York and Tokyo that Japan's Sony Corporation acquired Columbia Pictures for US$3.4 billion. On October 30, another news caused a global sensation. Japan’s Mitsubishi Real Estate Corporation acquired 51% of the shares of Rockefeller Plaza Corporation in the United States for US$846 million. Among them, Rockefeller Plaza, located in the center of Manhattan, New York and always regarded as a “symbol of the United States”, belongs to Mitsubishi In addition, five Japanese real estate companies have purchased four complexes in Houston, Texas for $300 million.That month's Newsweek cover featured the acquired Columbia Pictures logo—a lady on a pedestal holding a torch—and had him dressed in a Japanese kimono, with his hair in a Japanese bun, and a slogan He wrote: "Japan has invaded Hollywood." Almost at the same time, Japanese right-wing politician Shintaro Ishihara and Sony founder Akio Morita co-authored and published a sensational political book "Japan Can Say No". confidence.The Japanese economy began to revive in the 1970s. In the past 18 years, the gross national product has increased by 45%, and the national self-confidence has expanded unprecedentedly.

At that time, no one in the world would have expected that in September 1990, the market value of the Tokyo Stock Exchange would drop by 48% within four days. Japan's real estate bubble burst completely. Shi Jingqian, a sinologist at Yale University, once concluded when examining Chinese history: "The history we examine is full of cycles of collapse and reconstruction, revolution and evolution, conquest and development in the course of its evolution." In a sense, 1989 was a relatively sensitive and turbulent part of this "cycle alternation". Since New Year's Day, the whole country has been filled with a gloomy and tense atmosphere. On January 1, the People's Daily, which has always been rigorous and cautious, wrote unusually in its "New Year's Day Message": "We have encountered unprecedented serious problems. The most prominent is the obvious inflation in the economic life, the price rise is too large, and some negative corruption in the party and government organs and society are also shocking.” Although the central government has begun to adopt a tough macro tightening policy, the overheated The economy began to cool down, but the social mentality imbalance caused by inflation and failed checkpoints did not disappear quickly.

In February, just after the Spring Festival, millions of migrant workers "entered the city" and made local governments scrambled.Since the end of last year, the rectification has forced many infrastructure projects to stop, and about 5 million rural construction workers have returned to their hometowns. At this time, in the countryside, the rectification has also caused a large number of township enterprises to close down. Migrant workers had to flock back to the cities to find jobs. .After the Spring Festival, millions of migrant workers from Henan, Sichuan, Hubei and other populous provinces crowded the country's railways and stations to full capacity, putting huge pressure on employment and public security in major and medium-sized cities. On March 9, the General Office of the State Council issued an "urgent notice" calling for "strict controls on the blind entry of migrant workers into cities."

Throughout the year, the speed of economic development dropped to the lowest point since 1978, especially the budding private economy stagnated or even regressed.According to the "Economic History of the People's Republic of China", in the second half of 1989, the number of self-employed registrations nationwide decreased by 3 million, and the number of private enterprises dropped from 200,000 to 90,600, a reduction of more than half. This number did not recover until 1991. The turmoil in the economic situation, coupled with the continued "deterioration" of the political situation in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, has made the ideological debate very sensitive. Some people worry that the expansion and development of private enterprises will eventually cause the "discoloration" of socialist China. Questions about the policy are coming from all directions. "People's Daily" commentator Ma Licheng recorded in the book "Confrontation", "Those critical articles are flying all over the sky like a cannonball. This is a very rare phenomenon after the end of the 'Cultural Revolution'."

It was under the influence of this trend of thought that since 1981, the largest and most powerful rectification campaign against private enterprises began. The rectification first started with the crackdown on tax evasion and tax evasion by private enterprises.Jiangsu Province, where the private economy is developed, began to focus on the taxation survey of private enterprises in May, and concluded that "the current situation of self-employed tax evasion is very serious, accounting for 80% of the total number of enterprises." The tax payment was 51.7 million yuan, Wujin and other counties and cities with active private economy passed the "democratic appraisal", and the tax payment of private enterprises more than doubled compared with the previous year.Beginning in August, the State Taxation Bureau issued the "Notice on Rectifying the Tax Order of Urban and Rural Individual Industrial and Commercial Households", stating that "it is imperative to strengthen individual taxation, and breakthroughs must be made in individual industrial and commercial taxation", requiring industrial and commercial households to conduct self-examination and report truthfully within 20 days At the same time, the industrial and commercial and taxation departments made a comprehensive investigation, focusing on "large households among individual industrial and commercial households, contractor households called collectives but individual contractors, and key industries in self-employed businesses."A nationwide crackdown on tax evasion began.

The second step of rectification is to start to clean up and rectify emerging enterprises outside the state-owned system.They are blamed for competing with state-owned enterprises for raw materials, causing inflation and uncontrolled markets.Emerging home appliance industry has become the focus of rectification, among which the fastest growing refrigerator industry is the top priority.At that time, with the recovery of household consumption, refrigerators became the most popular commodity in short supply, and all domestic refrigerator companies were newly equipped factories, that is, they directly imported compressors from abroad, then assembled and sold them, and the technical content was generally not high. , thus resulting in the situation of numerous refrigerator factories.As early as 1985, in order to protect state-owned enterprises, the State Planning Commission, the Economic Commission and the Ministry of Light Industry jointly issued a "red head document" and selected 42 manufacturers in 20 domestic provinces and cities as "designated" refrigerator manufacturers. The basis is "to take into account the balance between the various sectors", the vast majority of which are of course state-owned enterprises.The advantages of designated factories are: the state supplies spare parts such as imported compression molding machines, and priority is given to loans, sales, and advertising.In the past three years, although various departments have suppressed and cleared non-designated enterprises, according to regulations, they are not allowed to import a single compression molding machine, not to get a meal of steel products, not even to get test reports, and not to advertise in the media However, these companies still obtained domestic or imported raw materials through various channels—that is, thanks to the blessings of various sources.Non-fixed refrigerator factories have not decreased, but more and more have been built. Among them, the most densely affected area is Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, where private enterprises are developing the fastest. There are actually 66 large and small refrigerator factories, some of which Non-designated enterprises have reached an annual output of 100,000 units, which is larger and more advanced than many fixed-point enterprises. In contrast, according to reports, some state-owned enterprises have not assembled a production line after four years of obtaining designated qualifications. , Even the factory building is not capped.

This situation undoubtedly made the government both embarrassing and troublesome, so with the assistance and cooperation of various departments, a more vigorous rectification began.There are two main methods, one is to directly declare them as "inferior products", and then forcibly suspend production and close the factory; the other is to ask them to stop production on the grounds of violating central documents. The Bureau of Industry and Commerce shall no longer issue licenses to non-designated refrigerator factories after a certain day of the month.Relying on such a multi-pronged approach, the number of refrigerator factories in Hangzhou dropped sharply by 44, but more than 20 survived tenaciously. When reporters from Beijing went to interview, those terrified survivors collapsed Bitterness: "We are all legally registered, so why deprive us of the right to produce and advertise with a single document?" It's too unfair to hit us." "The fixed-point can eat the imperial food, and the non-fixed-point doesn't even have the right to survive. Isn't this the new iron rice bowl?"

These doubts sound very bleak and unreasonable. When a reporter asked the Bureau of Household Appliances of the Ministry of Light Industry about this, a cadre named Zhou Xiaoqiu responded: "Hangzhou's non-fixed point exploits the vacuum created by the state's control of other provinces and develops rapidly. , obtain high profits, and cause losses to consumers and the country. This is a short-term situation. The country implements fixed points to consider issues from a higher perspective. In the long run, it will benefit Hangzhou.” By the end of the year, there will be nearly Ten factories were ordered to close their doors.

In addition to strict taxation and industry consolidation, another measure is to start cleaning up the circulation.At that time, thousands of professional markets had already appeared across the country, and they became distribution centers for urban and rural consumer goods, as well as hubs for dumping and purchasing by township enterprises. In August, Shanghai City raided the "Hardware Street" on Beijing East Road for four consecutive days. The reason was that "this year, many self-employed people from other provinces and cities have come here to distribute production materials in the name of local state-owned and collective enterprises." They were confiscated within four days The illegal income was 2.09 million yuan, and five "state-owned and collective enterprises that sheltered self-employed and engaged in illegal operations" were also punished.This rectification of the professional market quickly spread across the country and continued for more than a year. On September 25th, "Fool" Nian Guangjiu finally failed to escape the second prison disaster. This illiterate who could not read big characters and could not understand the account books was arrested and imprisoned for the crime of embezzlement and embezzlement of public funds. The company closed its doors.Two years ago, this nationally known "fool" jointly established a melon seed factory with the suburban government. He couldn't understand the standardized accounts prepared according to the accounting system, so the financials in the company were naturally a mess. He argued: " I know how much money comes in and how much money goes out.” His case dragged on for two years, and it was finally determined that although his accounts were unclear, he did not constitute corruption and embezzlement. However, the court finally sentenced him to two years in prison for hooliganism.Interestingly, in 1992, Deng Xiaoping suddenly mentioned this "fool" again during a conversation on his southern tour. Nian Guangjiu was acquitted and released home more than a month later. As a specimen figure of the early reform, what happened to Nian Guangjiu in 1989 was no accident.This year, China's enterprise reform fell into a "cold spring". The dual pressure from politics and economy caused great panic among many private owners. At that time, the "Cultural Revolution" was not too far away, and people still had deep memories of the ultra-left era more than ten years ago. On October 16, the "Economic Daily" admitted in a headline on the front page, "Recently, individual businesses in some places have applied to suspend operations or closed their businesses on their own, which has become a hot topic in society."Liu Yongxing, one of the Liu family brothers in Xinjin, recalled that the environment was very tense that year. No one was willing to work in a private enterprise, and Hope Group could hardly recruit anyone.Xu Chuanhua, director of the chemical factory in Xiaoshan County, Zhejiang Province, who spent 2,000 yuan to buy back a spoonful of salt, wanted to close his factory. The mayor was afraid of losing this big taxpayer, so he declared him a county model worker at the end of the year. It finally made him feel at ease. In order to avoid a greater impact, some people took the initiative to hand over the factory to the "collective".Wang Tingjiang is the director of a private white porcelain factory in Shenquanzhuang, Linyi City, Shandong. In September, he suddenly announced that he would donate the white porcelain factory worth 4.2 million yuan and 1.8 million yuan of funds to the village for free. Collectively, at the same time, he submitted an application for joining the party.Two months after he donated his property, he became the director of the village committee, and then he was elected as a national model worker and a representative of the Tenth National People's Congress.Very similar to Wang Tingjiang is Jiang Xipei, a 27-year-old cable factory director in Yixing, Jiangsu. He also gave the ownership of the factory, which he invested 1.8 million yuan, to the collective, thus obtaining the "red hat" of "collective ownership" enterprises.In this year, Li Shufu, who later became famous for making cars, donated the factory. At that time, he built a refrigerator factory called "Beibeihua" in Taizhou. Of course, it was a non-designated factory without a birth certificate. Amid the yelling and beating of the non-designated refrigerator factory in Hangzhou, he hurriedly donated the factory to the local township government, and then took a sum of money to go to a university in Shenzhen to study. Wang Tingjiang’s later experience is: after he donated property selflessly, he immediately became a well-known figure in the country. The Shandong Provincial Government also launched a “Learning from Comrade Wang Tingjiang” campaign, and the company he founded also received more loans and loans from the local government. Policy Support.By the end of 1996, the number of village-run enterprises in Shenquanzhuang had grown to 20, and the per capita income of villagers had reached 6,000 yuan, making it the richest village in Yimeng Mountain. In 2005, the Huasheng Jiangquan Group led by Wang Tingjiang had total assets of nearly 7 billion yuan, and he had the absolute right to deploy this enterprise.Some of Wang Tingjiang's relatives are starting to become billionaires.In the ranking of the 500 richest people launched by "New Fortune" magazine that year, Wang Tingjiang's youngest brother Wang Tingbao ranked 233, with a wealth of 660 million yuan.His nephew Wang Wenguang is also estimated to have 330 million yuan in property.According to the "21st Century Business Herald", "Wang Tingjiang's son and daughter have long been wealthy."Jiang Xipei was also elected as a national model worker and a representative of the National People's Congress after donating his property. He repurchased his shares in 2002 and became the asset owner of the company. It is estimated that his assets at that time exceeded 1 billion yuan. The experiences of Wang Tingjiang and Jiang Xipei are somewhat universal.In the future, most of the enterprises that "reverted their private property to the public" in 1989 returned to their original nature of property rights through various means. At that time, this was indeed a manifestation of people's panic.In Guangdong Province, where the private economy is the most developed, there was a small (prohibited) flight of entrepreneurs. In addition to the most famous Wanbao Deng Shaoshen, there were also Hu Chunbao from Shenzhen Jinhai Plexiglass Company, and Yu Zhenguo from Foshan Zhongbaode Nonferrous Metals Company. Wait.According to a report by Xinhua News Agency reporter Gu Wanming, as of March 1990, a total of 222 factory directors and managers in Guangdong Province had fled abroad, carrying 180 million yuan. The sudden cooling of the economy caused by macro-control has indeed curbed the overheated investment under inflation, but it has also turned all business activities into a mess. First of all, the hasty resumption of planned regulation and control has caused the commodity to turn from overheated to unsalable in vain.Take color TVs as an example. During the panic-buying frenzy in 1988, color TVs in warehouses across the country were robbed. Some ministries and commissions of the country probably thought it was a piece of “big fat” and began to levy high special consumption tax and Localization development fund, about 4000 yuan 18-inch color TV to pay 900 yuan, at the same time, announced the implementation of color TV monopoly.The 2,000 sales points in Shanghai were reduced to 120, and only 3 of the 29 townships in Dongguan County, Guangdong Province were allowed to sell color TVs. Only six months later, the national inventory soared to 1.72 million units, and the joy of panic buying has not yet come Manufacturers who came back suddenly encountered "ice and fire", complained endlessly, and the supply was reversed instantly. The rebates given by manufacturers to commercial channels increased from zero to 8%, up to 30%.The monopoly policy dealt a fatal blow to the fledgling color TV industry. The average production-to-sales ratio of the 62 major color TV companies across the country was less than 70%. What's more serious is that due to the tightening of policies, the original normal goods and capital exchanges between enterprises were instantly disrupted, and the circulation of funds in arrears formed a strange circle that never started and ended, so a new term quickly became the number one in the economic circle. Problem: "Triangle Debt". Since the beginning of the year, the news from all over the world has been bad.In Zhejiang Province, where private enterprises are well-developed, mutual arrears of loans between enterprises has caused a general shortage of funds. Factories have no money to prepare materials, businesses have no money to purchase goods, and foreign trade purchases have suppressed orders. Many enterprises had to suspend operations and production.In Shandong, the triangular debt of the whole province is as high as 4.3 billion yuan, and the distress caused by this far exceeds the difficulties caused by the shortage of coal and electricity. The triangular debt of Liaoning is 4.5 billion yuan, that of Heilongjiang and Jilin is 6 billion yuan, and that of Jiangsu has exceeded 100 million yuan. billion.According to the statistics of bank collections and commitments, by the end of March, the total amount of arrears of enterprises across the country beyond the normal settlement period had reached 108.5 billion yuan. In addition, some arrears that were not included in collections and commitments, the amount far exceeded the policy limit commercial credit range. Among them, those large state-owned enterprises that were not very responsive were the ones that were hit the hardest.The largest heavy machinery factory in Asia, Qiqihar Fulaerji Heavy Machinery Factory, was forced to shut down and stop production due to the "triangular debt". The desperate factory manager sent two urgent telegrams to Premier Li Peng.The largest iron and steel base in the country - Anshan Iron and Steel Company, due to the "triangular debt" caused no savings in accounts and no coal in inventory. The company had no choice but to raise funds from among its 200,000 employees. rise. Xu Youpan, director of the Shenyang Cable Factory, was even more upset when he read the news that Li Huazhong could not afford to bow, because Angang still owed him a loan of 3 million yuan.At the symposium held by the Ministry of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering in August, he admitted: "Now the outside world owes me 119 million yuan, and I can't get it back. I also owe others 54 million yuan and can't pay it back. To put it bluntly, I am crying because of this matter." Three times. In January and February this year, I couldn’t live on. I begged everywhere and signed more than 30 million yuan with my old friends. This was all cheated by my old friends. It’s a game of dead chess.” The next paragraph of director Xu is the most interesting: “Although it has been ten years since the reform, judging from the current situation of the enterprise, it is still necessary to have a mother-in-law. The enterprise not only needs to find the market, but also has to find the mayor. If the government does not help solve the problem, relying solely on enterprises will not have such great capabilities.” State-owned entrepreneurs “need to find both the market and the mayor”—this is where the clever saying came out, and it later became the basis for all state-owned enterprises. The only way for operators. In September, Beijing held the "first barter trade fair" since the founding of New China—the second session was not held later. In just three days, a barter business worth 800 million yuan was achieved. "Beijing Daily" commented in an unpredictable tone, "Although barter trade is a relatively primitive form of exchange, it is a flexible and effective way to overcome difficulties under the current situation of generally tight funds." Compared with the barter trade fair, some local governments that have suffered deeply are more urgent and extreme. Zhejiang, Heilongjiang, Hebei and other provinces have successively adopted measures to set up transit inspections and restrict the entry and sale of foreign products. After the reform, the initial formation of the national large-scale The market is in danger of being dismembered again. On the trains and planes this year, you can see debt collectors in a hurry and frowning everywhere, and the doors of the offices of factory directors and managers are surrounded by these people day and night. It is said that in many places, "debt collection study classes" have become The most popular courses. In May, the State Council announced that under the leadership of the People's Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Bank of China and Bank of Communications would join forces to clean up the "triangular debt" of enterprises nationwide in an organized manner.This work is very difficult to advance due to the wide range of aspects involved and the complicated connections.A debt-clearing operation in Heilongjiang was widely publicized as a model: Ning'an County Department Store defaulted on a loan of nearly 2 million yuan to Mudanjiang Sugar and Wine Company, and the latter defaulted to a loan of 1.4 million yuan to Ning'an County Sugar Factory.After negotiations between the governments of the two places and the banks, the Mudanjiang branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China first lent 1.4 million yuan to the sugar and wine company and paid it to the sugar factory. It was used to repay the loan owed to the sugar and wine company, and finally the Mudanjiang branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China recovered the same amount of loan from the sugar and wine company.Through this complicated "peer-to-peer debt settlement", the triangular debt of 2.08 million yuan of the three companies was finally solved.The special feature of this case is that the debt occurred between two cities and counties, and if the default radius of the "triangular debt" was slightly expanded, the difficulty of its operation would be greatly increased. In addition, the bank played an intermediary role during the period. But once it is involved, a new debt relationship will be created.Therefore, by the end of November, local governments and banks had worked hard to settle about 70 billion yuan in debt. However, the total debt chain was still as high as 100 billion yuan or more due to the fact that the debt was cleared first and owed later. The lifting of the "triangular debt" will not be completed until the economy recovers again in 1993. Objectively speaking, it is caused by the serious imbalance of the economic structure and the bank's tightening of money. On a deeper level, it directly reflects the credit system of the whole society. major crisis.Since the Jinjiang counterfeit drug case a few years ago, driven by commercial interests and the lack of corresponding laws to restrain it in time, the public's value judgments have begun to become disordered, and the business ethics of the whole society has finally revealed cracks in the collapse. Money tightened, consumption cooled, factories were underoperated, township enterprises closed down on a large scale, unemployed people increased, and capital circulation was not smooth. In 1989, Chinese companies were in a state of depression. In September, the national industrial output value increased by only 0.9% over the previous year, setting the lowest record since the reform and opening up.At the same time, the raw material market also experienced an abnormal slow-moving phenomenon. At the Autumn National Production Means Fair held in Taiyuan, the situation of grabbing raw materials for many years disappeared. The raw materials available for the fair were 6 billion US dollars, and the actual turnover was 4 One hundred million U.S. dollars. 1989 was one such vintage.In the previous 11 years, people began to gradually break away from political life and turned to economic construction.During this process, the conflict between the old and the new system was very serious, the original state-owned enterprises were getting into trouble day by day, and the new private capital began to accumulate bloody primitives. An unbalanced national mentality is quietly accumulating.It is during this process that due to the design of the system and policies, a class of downgraded officials has emerged. A group of people use their power to continuously transfer resources from within the system to outside the system. Development provides a gray channel, and on the other hand, it is also hated by the public because of the accumulation of a large amount of assets. Since the end of June, the state has started to rectify some companies that are relatively controversial. Companies run by party and government agencies at all levels across the country have been required to clean up and rectify. A total of 17,930 companies have been dealt with, accounting for 90.5% of party and government agency companies. On August 16, the National Audit Office announced the punishment opinions on China Kanghua Development Corporation, China International Trust and Investment Corporation, Everbright Industrial Corporation, China Industrial and Commercial Economic Development Corporation and China Rural Trust and Investment Corporation, and found that they violated administrative regulations A total of 51.33 million yuan in fines and back taxes were imposed. Those violations are very typical, such as speculating in dollars, importing cars without authorization, reselling coal and steel, evading taxes, raising credit interest rates without authorization, and so on.The most notable of these is Kanghua Corporation, which for the past few years has been one of the largest domestic equipment importers and overseas travel agents, while enjoying special tax breaks because it is affiliated with the China Disabled Persons Welfare Fund Policy, in October of the previous year, the State Taxation Bureau has issued a special notice to cancel the tax reduction and exemption of Kanghua Company, and pay 55% of the income tax and energy transportation fund according to the regulations.And at the end of the year, it was closed. China in 1989 was difficult. The image of change and growth momentum accumulated over the past 12 years of reform have suffered setbacks.The U.S. government announced sanctions against China, Fortune magazine observed: “Most Western companies in China have ceased operations and are just waiting to see what happens. The feeling, says one American businessman, is like before taking part in a big game.” Locked in the house. We really thought we could make a better exchange by reopening the contract and using new leverage. But when we went out, we found that there was really nowhere to go.” Jim Mann, the China correspondent of the "Los Angeles Times", published a book called "Beijing Jeep: The Brief and Unhappy Marriage of American Business in China", which was listed as the recommended business book of the year by "Fortune" magazine.This is a story about the joint production and sales of jeeps by American automobile company AMC and Beijing Automobile Manufacturing Company.Jim concluded that what China wanted was the technology that would make it a world power, and what American companies wanted was a billion Chinese consumers and cheap Chinese labor so they could gain an edge over Japan . In the early 1980s, the Beijing Jeep project was the first and the largest joint venture between an American company in manufacturing in China.The joint venture was established in 1983 under the agreement that American Motors and Beijing Automobile will jointly produce Jeeps in China.Jim wrote: It is the most visited place by the leaders of both countries.Jeep is what the Chinese really need, and American car companies are struggling and need every bit of sales Beijing Jeep can contribute. From the beginning, both parties thought it was a match made in heaven, but around 1989, the dream and reality clashed.Jim wrote in the book: "China does have 1 billion consumers, but few people can afford what this American company makes-although labor costs are already very low. Moreover, China's labor force is not as good as Americans. So cheap and efficient as expected. Plus, there's a lot of unavoidable culture clashes, Americans can't stand the Chinese habit of taking a lunch break after lunch, and Chinese can't stand the American curse. In the eyes of the Chinese, it means , you are not well educated. Chinese people never respect people who speak bad things.” The reporter who is good at describing also recorded a scene. At that time, the Chinese and American cooperation parties held a signing ceremony in Las Vegas, the American casino: the night fell calmly, and the traders seemed to have drunk a lot, but during the ceremony they Seemed very composed.Jose Dedeurwaereder, the new president of American Motors, addressed the dealers, and after the dealers ate their desserts, the lights dimmed and the music kicked up to bring the evening to a climax.Two red AMC Comanche trucks start cruising the restaurant floor, girls in bikinis throw volleyballs in the back lot, two Native Americans roll up the bandstand curtains, and the Beach Boys kick in—the rock band is Specially found for middle-aged traders at AMC.In the whole noisy environment, the Chinese representatives were at the center, they just sat quietly around a round table without saying a word.Soon, Wu Zhongliang, a senior Chinese official, got up and left the meeting with a blank expression. After the summer of 1989, the cooperation projects of Beijing Jeep gradually became bleak. Although the United States invested a lot of funds and technical strength, and China spared no effort in financial support, the corporate benefits were still not ideal.Jim said helplessly at the end of the book: All people have dreams, but these dreams are different. The example of Beijing Jeep is a good illustration. Among the foreign investment cases in 1989, the most eye-catching and strange one was the Panda Automobile investment case in Huizhou, Fujian. Until many years later, it was still shrouded in a thick layer of mystery. According to publicly disclosed information, the general process of the panda investment case is as follows: a Korean-American businessman named Jin Changyuan is said to have been engaged in the import and export of auto parts for a long time. In September 1988, he registered in Delaware, USA. Registered a company called "Panda Motor Company" (RMC). In that month, he first contacted Huizhou, claiming that he would build a large automobile factory here, with a planned area of ​​81 square kilometers, an investment of 1 billion U.S. dollars, and an annual output of 300,000. cars, all of which were exported.In December of that year, the two parties signed a memorandum of understanding, and the land was acquired in April 1989. The Panda Company held a foundation laying ceremony on June 27. The chairman of the Panda Company and the grandson of MacArthur, a famous American World War II general, cut the ribbon in person. This project is a lot like a piece of pie that suddenly fell out of the sky.It has many memorable places: the name of the company is "Panda", and it should be a company specially established for China. However, the strange thing is that this car factory with an annual output of 300,000 vehicles has no professional international car dealers. In terms of background, Huizhou, which it chose to invest in, is not a base for the auto parts industry, and there is no industrial base for automobile manufacturing.But if it is a scam, it doesn’t seem like it. According to the Huizhou government’s announcement, Panda’s first phase of investment of 250 million US dollars has been in place before the groundbreaking ceremony, and the factory building will soon start construction.In order to confirm the authenticity of the project, the State Council and Guangdong Province sent a team of senior technical and legal experts to the United States to investigate the investor's background, credit, market, etc. It is said that the experts visited the stamping and engine purchased by Panda Company Production line and other equipment, and also tried to sit in a small-displacement mini-car that has been developed and is said to have a retail price of only 60,000 yuan.The experts concluded: "Panda's financial strength is strong. Investors have strategic vision. They have their eyes on the next century." The so-called US$1 billion Panda Automobile Investment Project was the largest wholly foreign-owned project in China at that time, and it received widespread attention. In the following two years, almost all central leaders visited it.Although many people have doubts about its background and real motives, they still hope that it is a "real pie".For Huizhou, the place of investment, the arrival of Panda cars immediately made it a hot spot for investment and speculation. The southern media shouted the slogan "Look at Shenzhen in the 1980s, and Huizhou in the 90s", and the local land prices skyrocketed in a short period of time. , Real estate companies entered one after another, at most there were more than 1,000, and the housing price in the central urban area was fired from 200 yuan per square meter to 11,000 yuan.Danshui Town, where the car factory is located, has grown rapidly from 20,000 to 200,000 in three years. At the end of 1990, Lin Gang, a reporter from Nanfang Daily, went to interview, "The foundation works such as underground pipelines and pouring concrete have been completed, and the steel beams and columns are being hoisted. According to reports, this is the latest steel structure factory building in the United States. I heard that it will be launched next year, but now I didn’t even see a single piece of equipment.” Richard Cummins, executive vice president of Panda Company, replied, “I was dissatisfied with the original design and made some modifications, which caused a slight delay in the construction period. However, at the end of June and early July next year, the first The equipment required for the first phase of assembly must be installed. In August, the first car can be rolled off the production line." However, the fact is that since the foundation of Panda was laid, it has been caught in rounds of negotiations. Foreign businessmen have changed their commitment to 100% export and instead demanded 30% to be sold in the Chinese market. There are indications that Panda’s investors have a With a gambler-like mentality, they hope to enter China in the name of all exports, and then seek the possibility of domestic sales.Since this project "falls out of thin air", it has not been included in the planning of the national automobile authority from the beginning, and many people have doubts about the real motivation of the project. Therefore, whether it can be sold domestically and the proportion of domestic sales has become a quarrel where the focus is. In 1991, the Panda Company applied to Beijing for the last time, proposing to give up the domestic market for "Panda Auto" for two years, and during the two years, "the products are mainly sold in the country", which was politely rejected by the Chinese government.Since then, the project has come to a complete standstill.Until 2004, when people went to Danshui Town, they could still see a huge silver-gray castle covering an area of ​​160,000 square meters. This was the largest panda car assembly workshop in Asia, which was half built. Above the weedy wilderness stands squarely, like a mystery that has never been solved. At the Fourth Plenary Session of the Thirteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China that ended on June 24, 62-year-old Jiang Zemin was promoted from the post of Shanghai Party Secretary and elected as the new General Secretary.In Deng Xiaoping's words, Jiang Zemin is the core of the new generation of CCP leaders. 11月13日，邓小平在人民大会堂会见日中经济协会访华团，并借这个机会，正式向政治生涯告别。 邓公侃侃而言。这位已经85岁高龄的老人亲手发动了中国的经济变革，在过去的11年里，他遭遇险滩无限，始终信心满满，他告别政治生涯前的最后一次讲话，仍然坚定于改革的继续，这无疑给全国的改革者以无限的信心。更让大家始料未及的是，三年后，他还将以一种十分新奇而意外的方式，再次启动中国经济快车的引擎。 必须指出的是，1989年的中国，尽管经济严重滑坡、政治范围空前紧张，所有行业出现了种种的不顺利，然而，几乎全球重要的媒体都在评论中认为“中国改革不可能倒转”。美国的一家独立调研公司对《财富》500强CEO开展了一次调查，其中涉及对中国未来的看法，调查的结果显示：“尽管经济变革看似进展困难，但西方的投资者们仍然把赌注下在长远的发展上。美国的执行官们仍然把赌注下在长远的潜在价值。而且CEO们都相信中国的经济在未来五年内将更加开放，更加市场化。尽管这一进程可能比预想更久、更曲折，但他们认为这一天的到来终将不可避免。”一些已经在中国开厂的跨国公司也表明了自己留守的决心，意大利菲亚特汽车制造公司的驻华首席代表秦诺迪对国务院副总理李岚清说，我们从来没有想过要撤离。 举国萧条中，并非全无亮点。 至少有一个细节就很值得一提，在当年度《财富》评选出的世界500强排行榜中，中国银行成为第一个出现的中国公司。这意味着在全球的商业观察家眼中，中国企业已经成为了一个不容被忽视的群体。在当时国内，这条新闻几乎没有被人关注到，直到1996年前后，“进入世界500强”才突然间成为中国公司的共同梦想。 在潮湿而温热的南方，尽管也受到宏观调控的影响，但是那些年轻的企业还在成长中，一群有野心的青年人正纷纷抛弃“体制盔甲”，义无反顾地南下创业。 当年在华南工学院同窗共读的那三个大学生现在都已经崭露头角。毕业后就分配到惠州的李东生在今年终于当上了厂长，他主持的TCL电话机产销量已经雄踞全国同行业的第一名，班长黄宏生几经创业，总算在香港注册了一家遥控厂，取名创维。有一天，李东生路经香港，跟黄宏生碰面，两人谈及各自行业都规模偏小，缺乏扩张性，李诡秘地说：“我现在看中了一个新的行业。”黄盼顾四周无人，低声说：“是不是搞彩电？”两人相视大笑。很快，TCL和创维都转型到彩电制造业。另一个叫陈伟荣的同学，则在毕业后分配到了深圳的康佳电子公司，后又去日本留学了两年，回来后被任命为总经理助理，主管公司所有的彩电生产业务，两年后，他成为公司的领导者。日后，创维、康佳、TCL和四川长虹一起被并称为“中国彩电四强”。 在珠江三角洲一带，一些乡镇企业的装备和规模已经不稍让于国营工厂。《经济日报》记者在对广东珠江冰箱厂的访问记中惊讶地写道：“这家位于顺德容桂镇的乡镇企业拥有固定资产8000万元，进口设备占45%，许多大中型国营企业都不具备如此好的条件。该厂的原则是，谁的最好就买谁的，整条生产线长达六公里，全是由欧美、日本的最好设备配套组成的，这又是许多大中型企业望尘莫及的。”这家由潘宁创办的冰箱厂在这时已经名声远播，他在“冰箱热”中引进世界上最先进的生产线，跳过单门冰箱，直接制造双门直冷式冰箱，因而在国内大受欢迎，自万宝电器邓韶深出走事件一蹶不振后，潘宁潘宁的“容声”冰箱成为珠三角最知名的家电品牌。 在这一年的3月，还发生了一个很有趣的细节。潘宁某日在《经济参考报》读到一篇头版头条的新闻，一个刚刚30岁、名叫顾雏军的青年科学家发明了“顾氏循环热力理论及技术”，据称他的技术应用于冰箱和小型空调可以节能20%—40%，而且不用氟利昂，报纸对他的技术称慕不已，还配发了一条《快抢财神顾雏军》的评论。潘宁专门剪下报纸，让部下去认真了解一下，一个月后，部下汇报，说是顾雏军年轻气盛，自称已有100多家国外的冰箱公司在跟他接触，并且不太愿意把技术转让给国外的冰箱公司，这件事就合用不了了之。谁也没有料到的是，12年后，这位“财神”科学家会以极其暧昧的方式入主科龙（1994年，潘宁将珠江冰箱厂变身为科龙集团，同时进入空调制造业），并最终将之送上了衰落的不归路。 一个叫靳羽西的华裔美国人在夏天来到了深圳。这个留着一头童花短发、会讲一口地道的纽约英语、中文也非常流利的甜美女子正成为中国妇女的新偶像，她主持了一档叫做《世界各地》的电视节目，每周两次在中央电视台里向数亿观众介绍地球上有趣的异域风情，这对于久未外出的中国人来说，无疑有强烈的诱惑力，她在中国的知名度迅速上升，被合众国际社称为“新的中国超级明星”。就在节目热播的同时，这位很有商业头脑的女性在深圳开始筹划创办一家口红工厂，两年多后，靳羽西化妆品（深圳）公司成立，它很快成为中国知名度和销售量均为第一的化妆品制造商。2004年，靳羽西把自己的公司股份悉数出售给全球最大的彩妆企业欧莱雅，据《中国企业家》的据算，收购价格为7600万欧元。 也是在深圳，7月，精瘦纳言的安徽青年史玉柱一脸茫然地站在宽敞而脏乱的大街上。七年前，史玉柱以全县第一的成绩考进了浙江大学数学系，三年前，他又考到深圳大学读软科学管理，毕业后他被分配到安徽省统计局。已经在深圳的创业氛围中浸泡了三年的史玉柱实在无法忍受内地机关单位的平静和呆板了，仅仅几个月后，他便毅然辞职，又回到了那片狂热而充满了机遇的南国土地。此时，史玉柱的行囊中，只有东梛西借的4000元以及他耗费九个月心血研制的M-6401桌面排版印刷系统软件。 史玉柱长相文弱，一眼望去便是一幅南方书生的模样，可是他却有着超出寻常的惊人的豪赌天性，这种天性在他今后的创业历程中将一再展现。便是在初到深圳的那几天，他做出了一生中的第一个豪赌决定，他给《计算机世界》打电话，提出登一个8400元的广告“M-6401：历史性的突破”，唯一的要求是先发广告后付钱。“如果广告没有效果，我最多只付出一半的广告费，然后只好逃之夭夭。”事后，他这样说。 13天后，他的银行账号里收到了三笔总共15820元的汇款，两个月后，他赚进了10万元。这是他经商生涯中的“第一桶金”，他把这笔钱有一股脑全部投入了广告，四个月后，他成了一个默默发财的年轻的百万富翁。 1990年1月，史玉柱一头扎进深圳大学两间学生公寓，除了一星期下一次楼买方便面，他在计算机前待了整整150个日日夜夜。这次他拿出来的是M-6402文字处理软件系列产品。当他昏天暗地走出那家脏乱的学生公寓的时候，发现家里的所有家具都已不翼而飞，数月未见的妻子不知去向。However, he stood at a new starting point for his career.他从深圳来到珠海，这位身高1米80、体重不到120斤的瘦长青年给自己的新技术公司起了一个很响亮的名字——巨人。He announced that the giant will become the IBM of China and the giant of the East. 从一开始，史玉柱的豪赌天性以及他在营销上的超级天才就毕现无疑。在公司刚刚成立不久，他就做出了一个所有部下都反对的决定：全国各地的电脑销售商只要订购10块巨人汉卡就可以免费来珠海参加巨人的销售会。一时间200多为经销商从天南地北齐聚珠海，史玉柱以数十万元的代价，闹腾腾地编织起了一张当时中国电脑行业最大的连锁销售网络。第二年，巨人的汉卡销量就击败联想、四通和北大方正等公司，一跃而居全国同类产业之首，公司获纯利1000多万元。随后，史玉柱又连续开发出中文手写电脑、中文笔记本电脑，巨人传真卡、巨人中文电子收款机、巨人财务软件、巨人防病毒卡等产品。从产品特征可以发现，所有的巨人产品都是针对中国市场的“汉化”产物，它在技术上并不复杂，却比中关村里那些只知道一味引进、专事倒卖的电脑公司要有竞争力得多。巨人很快成为中国知名度最高、成长性最好的高科技企业。 史玉柱的故事符合人们对“创业牛仔”的所有想象：一个身无分文的边城少年，孤身来到冰冷陌生的大城市，凭着自己的本事，在最短的时间里打拼出一片新天地。史玉柱很快成为全国知识青年的偶像，“到深圳去当史玉柱”成为当时无数学子昂然南下的梦想，他被评为“中国十大改革风云人物”、“广东省十大优秀科技企业家”。这个从不安分的安徽青年迎来了他企业家生涯的第一个巅峰。在未来的十多年里，他的生命将像“过山风”一样的跌宕、传奇，他将陷入疯魔，然后破产，然后再在争议和质疑中重新倔犟地站起来。