Chapter 41 1997 "The world is no longer fascinating"

On New Year's Day, Beijing Xiaoxue.Deng Xiaoping, who lived in the 301 Hospital in Beijing, asked someone to turn on the TV. He saw a documentary being played by CCTV, and he watched it intently, but he couldn't make out who the person on the TV screen was walking from a distance.Who is that over there?He asked doctor Huang Lin.Huang Lin said: "That's you. You can see clearly." The person on the screen approached, and he finally saw himself clearly, moved the corners of his mouth and smiled.Huang Lin told him that the TV film was called "Deng Xiaoping", which had just been filmed and had 12 episodes.He didn't say anything, just watched episode by episode.Huang Lin knew that he was deaf and couldn't hear, so she leaned over to his ear and repeated the lines one by one.Whenever there were words praising him on TV, Huang Lin always had a strange shyness on the old man's face.

Fifty days later, on February 19, the 93-year-old politician came to the end of his life. For the Chinese, this is a great sorrow.In the past 20 years, this broad-minded and resolute old man has been the most important defender and promoter of China's economic system reform, and he has deeply imprinted his own mark on this revived Chinese history.When he died, China's oriental ship had sailed through the most thrilling section of the "Three Gorges of History".In a commentary the day after his death, Reuters said that Deng Xiaoping had dared to put aside the rigid planning system in favor of free market forces and open China's door to the world. He really changed China.

The death of Deng Xiaoping made China unable to completely shake off the grief throughout the first half of the year. The return of Hong Kong on July 1 was originally a day of joy for the whole country, but it was also tainted with inexplicable regrets for no reason.In the last days of Deng Xiaoping's life, the smooth return of Hong Kong was always his top concern. He also promised to go to Hong Kong Island to witness the return, but unfortunately he did not wait for that day.On the night of his return, among the fireworks in the sky, there should be one blooming exclusively for him. A cloud of sadness hung over 1997, from beginning to end.

This year, the most popular movie in the world is "Titanic" filmed in Hollywood, the world's largest luxury liner known as "unsinkable" at the beginning of the 20th century. It sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean with screams, and the love between the young wandering painter Jack Dawson and the noble lady Rose.When the Chinese audience walked out of the theater with mixed feelings, in the business world, tragedy is about to be staged, and the grief is exactly the same. This is a watershed year.In the past three years, local companies such as Lenovo, Haier, and Changhong relied on price wars and held high the banner of national brands to win successively in the fields of consumer goods such as home appliances and beverages.Entrepreneurs are immersed in the "top 500 dream", and the confidence of the government and enterprises is almost bursting.However, a series of unexpected events that followed in the Asian and Chinese business circles made countless dreams burst like bubbles.

The most significant vicious event is the financial turmoil sweeping across Asian countries.An American investor named George Soros has been regarded by Asian politicians as a mysterious and evil financial giant for many years to come.Since February, the Quantum Fund led by Soros has aimed at Thailand, which has an overheated economy and a deficit crisis, and began to sell the Thai baht aggressively, causing the exchange rate of the Thai baht to fluctuate sharply against the US dollar. The Thai government used US$5 billion in foreign exchange reserves and US$20 billion in loans to intervene in the foreign exchange market , but still can not stop the baht all the way down.By July 2, the Thai government was forced to announce the free float of the exchange rate, and within a day, the Thai baht plummeted by 20%.After sniping the Thai baht, Soros turned to attack Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, South Korea, and Hong Kong, China. All the countries and regions attacked suffered huge financial damage.

The Asian financial turmoil began in the summer of 1997 and lasted for more than four months. It had a major impact on Asian countries and all industries.The property of the middle class in the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia has shrunk by 50%, 61% and 37% respectively, while the property of residents in Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand has fallen by 44%, 43% and 41%.New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman happened to be in Thailand when the storm hit. Eight years later, he described the scene in his best-selling book with lingering fear: the Thai government announced the closure of 58 major financial institutions, and overnight, those private bankers went bankrupt.I drove to a party on Asok Street in Bangkok, Thailand's Wall Street, where most of the financial institutions have failed.As my car slid past these bankrupt banks, the driver murmured at each one, "Crash...crack...crack...crack..." These Thai banks became the new The first domino in the first global financial crisis of the era of globalization.

Even the most developed countries in Asia are not immune.In South Korea, the Korean won under attack has depreciated by 50% in more than two months, and the national economy is almost on the verge of collapse.The South Korean government had to ask for emergency aid from the United States, Japan, and the International Monetary Fund. The loan amount was a record 55 billion U.S. dollars, and was forced to promise to implement a strict economic stabilization plan and reduce economic growth rate. Economic autonomy was once lost.The South Korean government has issued a "belt-tightening" policy for all civil servants, requiring them to deposit at least 10% of their salaries in banks.The people spontaneously donated their gold and silver jewelry at home.In the storm, South Korea's unemployment rate was as high as 11%, South Korean companies suffered at least 3 trillion won in exchange difference losses, and the repayment of foreign debt principal and interest increased by 400 million won.Many large companies declared bankruptcy or fell into a desperate situation. Among them was the Daewoo Group, which had a great reputation in the past few years and was regarded as a benchmark by Chinese companies.By the time the storm hit, Daewoo, which had been expanding rapidly, was already heavily indebted, with the company borrowing $20 billion.Facing the crisis, Jin Yuzhong adopted a series of contraction plans, but at the same time doubled his bets on the auto business, raised 13.5 billion US dollars of short-term debt funds by issuing a large number of high-interest bonds and commercial papers, and successively took over Ssangyong Motor and Samsung Motors, and continues to advance its strategy as an international auto giant.By the end of the year, Daewoo's main lender refused to make any further loans to it. In October 1999, Daewoo, which had a debt of 80 billion US dollars, finally declared bankruptcy. Kim Woo-jung left for the United States, and Korean public opinion roared with "chaebol subjugation theory".

In Japan, although the yen was not directly hit, the deflationary effects of the turbulence spread rapidly to all industries. On September 18, Yaohan, a star enterprise in the Japanese retail industry, filed for bankruptcy with the Shizuoka District Court.This is a legendary company that Chinese consumers are very familiar with. Its founder, Wada Jiajin, is a traditional Japanese woman who started working as a child laborer at the age of 10. She started her business by running a small vegetable and fruit shop. After 40 years, it has developed into an annual sales company. A US$5 billion large multinational corporation with 400 department stores and supermarkets around the world.The Japanese TV series "Oshin" based on her life model once created the highest ratings record in China. At the end of 1995, "Shanghai No. 1 Yaohan" opened for business, and a total of 1.07 million customers poured in that day, setting a Guinness World Record.In the past few years, Yaohan has been the most ambitious department store in Japan. It has 26 large department stores in Japan and more than 40 shopping malls in Southeast Asia, Europe, America and China.When the financial turmoil hit, many of its shopping malls in Southeast Asia were forced to close, and the crisis of the company's capital chain was quickly exposed.At this time, the Bank of Japan was too busy to take care of itself, and Yaohan's total liabilities at the time of bankruptcy were as high as 1.3 billion US dollars.

The Asian financial turmoil broke out one by one in China's neighboring countries, and the tragic scene made people tremble with fear.Financial capitalism and globalization have shown a ferocious and powerfully destructive side.This will naturally affect China's industrial economy and public mentality.In the global stock market crash, the Chinese stock market, which was quite active in the past, also fell into a downturn, and the consumer market was even more sluggish.After several years of macro-control, the pressure on inflation has gradually been released, and the inflation rate has almost dropped to zero. However, the phenomenon of overcooling of consumption has appeared at the same time.According to the report of the National Bureau of Statistics, by the middle of 1997, the total value of industrial inventory products in the country exceeded 3 trillion yuan, and the phenomenon of "structural surplus" appeared. 95% of industrial products were oversupplied. In June, the State Economic and Trade Commission, the Ministry of Internal Trade, and the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation had to jointly establish a national inventory adjustment center in order to speed up the circulation of commodities in enterprises. This backlog only occurred once in 1990.

It was in such a harsh environment that those well-known companies that developed at a high speed without warning of risks all had terrible avalanches due to various reasons, making this year a "year of collapse" in the history of enterprises.In this 30-year corporate history, there have been two years of collapse, the first in 1997 and the second in 2004. In January, Shandong Qinchi Distillery, which was famous for its "Biaowang", was exposed to the scandal of "white wine blending".Prior to this, Qinchi's sales had been buoyant, and the number of liquor canning lines had increased from 5 two years ago to 47. It was also rated as "the unit with the best corporate image in China".When Ji Changkong excitedly went to Beijing to receive the award, the "Economic Information Daily" published an explosive news. After investigation, the reporter found that Qin Chi's base in Shandong could only produce 3,000 tons of raw wine per year, which could not meet the needs of the market. Therefore, the factory purchased a large amount of raw wine from some wineries in Sichuan, and transported it back to Shandong for blending.The reporter found a Sichuan company that supplies wine to Qinchi, and they also described in detail the actual status of what they saw as the most advanced liquor canning line in China, "Qinchi's canning line is basically operated by hand. There are more than ten operators around the line, and the inner cap of the wine bottle is knocked in by one person with a wooden hammer.” The report spread like thunder to all parts of the country, and it was reported by countless people in almost a short period of time. Newspaper reprint.Ji Changkong, who has been highly praised by the media, doesn't know how to deal with such a situation. The only way he can think of is to send someone to the newspaper office to do public relations, expressing his willingness to "purchase" this group of reports with millions of yuan. "Biao Wang" "fallen", and Qinchi's sales fell from 950 million yuan to 600 million yuan at the end of the year, and fell to 300 million yuan a year later. In July 2000, Qin Chi did not pay the payment of 3 million yuan. The court ruled to auction the trademark "Qin Chi".

Also in January, in Zhuhai in the south, the passionate Shi Yuzhu walked to the edge of the cliff.The giant group was exposed to be in financial crisis, and the health care products war it launched consumed all the funds. The giant building under construction during the same period stopped due to lack of funds after the completion of the underground project. On January 12, dozens of creditors and a group of media reporters who heard the news came to Giant Group headquarters to collect debts.The crisis was quickly magnified, and all kinds of negative news about the giant group's assets being seized, employees' wages being owed, and senior managers absconding with money appeared in the newspapers one after another.During those days, Shi Yuzhu, who was hailed as an "idol of the times" by the media and lacked the ability to communicate with the public, locked himself in a 300-square-meter president's office, pulled down all the curtains, and refused to have any contact with the outside world. Sitting alone in a big house without a ray of sunlight.According to the situation at the time, only about 10 million yuan of funds was needed to restart the construction of the Giant Building, and many conflicts would be alleviated, but Shi Yuzhu just couldn't find the 10 million yuan.He paced back and forth in the big office all day, trampling on the rugs in all the pits, but he still couldn't do anything.Later, he lamented, "I finally know what it means to be stumped by a penny." The fierce reports finally completely destroyed the giant group, the brand was seriously damaged, the sellers defaulted on payment, and the branches all over the country collapsed one after another.Only half a year later, the giant group announced its disintegration, and Shi Yuzhu was penniless, so he left the sad land of Zhuhai in panic.He wandered all over the country, and finally went to Nanjing and lay down.Shi Yuzhu's defeat caused a huge shock that year. In the following three years, young people have been writing to him, asking about his current situation, hoping to see him stand up again.One of his juniors from Zhejiang University wrote to him, "You have to stand up, you know, your fall has hurt the feelings of our generation." Three years later, Shi Yuzhu, who licked his wounds clean Sure enough, he stood up in a very weird way. Sanzhu Group, another star enterprise in the health care product industry, is in no better condition than Giant Group.After achieving a staggering 8 billion yuan in sales last year, the chaos in the company's management has reached the verge of getting out of control.In order to pursue high speed, Sanzhu has recruited a wide range of people. It has more than 300 subsidiaries at the regional level, 2,210 county-level offices, and 13,500 workstations at the township level. The number of employees directly absorbed is More than 150,000.This sales force of more than 100,000 people scurried around like locusts, and various incidents of exaggerating their efficacy and slandering their opponents were frequently staged. In the first half of 1997 alone, the three plants were sued for more than a dozen cases due to "false advertisements".Wu Bingxin said angrily at the internal summary meeting, "Now there is a bad phenomenon. Temporary workers coax the executive manager, the executive manager coaxes the manager, the manager coaxes the regional manager, and finally they come to the headquarters. Wu Bingjie (Wu Bingxin's younger brother) went to the countryside to see After looking at it, I was so angry that I had a stroke, and the actual situation is completely different from what I reported to him." At the end of the year, the sales of the three plants fell sharply, a sharp drop of 1 billion compared with the previous year.Wu Bingxin lamented the "Fifteen Big Mistakes" at the year-end meeting, including the serious inadaptation of the market management system, the serious "dinosaur disease" of large enterprises, and the serious loss of control of financial management. The three crises shocked the whole country. As the most high-profile enterprise in the mid-1990s, the overall collapse of the Sanzhu Group originated from an accidental event.Chen Boshun, a retired veteran boatman in Hanshou County, Changde, Hunan Province, bought 10 bottles of Sanzhi Oral Liquid for 428 yuan. At the end of 1997, the Changde Court determined that Sanzhu oral liquid was a substandard product, and ruled that Sanzhu lost the lawsuit in the first instance.After the case was published in the newspaper, it dealt a fatal blow to the precarious three plants.By May 1998, the three plants had completely ceased production.Surprisingly, in April 1999, the Hunan Provincial Higher People's Court ruled in the second instance that Chen Boshun's death had no causality with Sanzhu, and Sanzhu Group won the lawsuit.At this time, Sanzhu's sales system has collapsed, leaving only an intriguing question for the Chinese business community: why is a health care empire with annual sales of 8 billion yuan so fragile? The credit collapse and rapid shrinkage of the health care products market has affected all radical companies in the industry.Like Sanzhu, Shenyang Feilong, which started out by bombarding advertisements with big words, was also dying at this time. The president Jiang Wei published a 10,000-character "My Mistakes" article to the media, publicly admitting that he made 20 mistakes, including Romanticization, ambiguity, impatience, etc. of decision-making.Jiang Wei reprimanded himself in a somewhat "romantic" tone: "The president is often in a state of impatience, panic, and imbalance, causing all the cadres to be in a state of fright. In this In this top-down mentality, there are one-sided decisions, wrong decisions, and dangerous decisions." In that extremely violent adolescence, entrepreneurs were very forthright, and they were not afraid to confess their mistakes to the public. , without taking into account how this kind of "public review" will cause damage to business operations. At the end of the year, amidst the turmoil, Huai Hanxin, the founder of Guangzhou Sun God Company, also sadly announced his resignation.Helios was one of the first notable companies to pay the price for its diversification strategy.Just after the sales reached a record 1.3 billion yuan, Huai Hanxin blew the horn of diversification. He changed the company strategy of "mainly vertical development, supplemented by horizontal development" that he had insisted on for many years to "vertical development". Going hand in hand with horizontal development”, launched 20 projects including petroleum, real estate, cosmetics, computers, border trade, and hotel industry within one year, and successively established “economic development corporations” in Xinjiang, Yunnan, Guangdong and Shandong, Conduct large-scale acquisitions and investment activities.Huai Hanxin has high hopes for these projects, and even put forward a rhetoric that is almost "how bold the people are, how productive the land is".In the following two years, Helios invested 340 million yuan in these projects, but unfortunately, none of these projects succeeded, but heios exhausted his funds and energy.Huai Hanxin said bitterly in the future: "When pursuing high-speed development, we did not establish a professional system, did not pay attention to the establishment of standardized investment review and operation, and tracking, evaluation, and monitoring systems, resulting in confusion and unnecessary resource consumption. "In 1996, the company suffered a loss of 11 million yuan. In 1997, the loss expanded to 159 million yuan, and the stock price of the stocks listed in Hong Kong fell to a disastrous 9 cents of Hong Kong dollars. In December, Huai Hanxin resigned from the position of president. Zhengzhou Asia Asia Company, which has a unique reputation in the chain business field, is also in a desperate situation.Wang Suizhou, who is determined to follow the example of Yaohan in Japan and wants to become the number one businessman in China, seems to be an entrepreneur with overly ambitious ambitions, and none of the Asian shopping malls he opened in various places has made a profit.From the end of 1996, a series of vicious incidents occurred frequently. The general manager of the Shanghai branch was placed under house arrest by the manufacturer, dragged to the bank of the Huangpu River and beaten violently.Shopping malls in Tianjin and other places were even sold out of goods. Suppliers from all over the country went to Zhengzhou to ask Wang Suizhou for money. Don't pay?" banner. On March 15, 1997, Wang Suizhou announced his decision to resign to his subordinates. The Asia Group had a debt of 615 million yuan, and the asset-liability ratio was 168%.He said, "I have learned many, many lessons, and each of us has gained experience and lessons. If Asia collapses, I am afraid that my pillar of shame will be bigger, and yours will be next to me." On this day, he was 40 years old. birthday. In the newly emerging Internet field, the first defeat is about to appear.Yinghaiwei has never found a direction for growth, and its omnipotent and fee-based operating model has obviously not been recognized by netizens.By September, the monthly income of the website had dropped to 300,000 yuan, and despite a large-scale promotional tour, the number of registered Internet users nationwide was only 60,000.Zhang Shuxin felt the cold from the market. In his Christmas diary this year, Zhang Shuxin, who once served as the president of the university poetry club, described a real scene very emotionally: "We just returned home from the suburbs in the middle of the night. There was heavy fog. On our way home, due to the heavy fog, all the cars were slowing down. The taillights of the car in front reflected the direction of the car behind with weak penetration. When we encountered a fork in the road, the car in front turned, Our car was at the forefront. Our field of vision was blurred, and we were concentrating on groping forward carefully, followed by a convoy of convoys...I couldn’t help but think, isn’t this the same situation as Ying Haiwei today?” June 1998 , Due to continuous losses, Zhang Shuxin was forced to resign.She said, "It was a misfortune that we entered the IT industry in late 1994 and early 1995. We were the ones who made the most mistakes in this industry." Four months later, 15 executives left collectively.In the "China Internet Influence Survey" in 2000, Ying Haiwei, who used to rank first, fell to 131st.Since then, the site has faded out of sight.For the detailed cases of Yinghaiwei and Sun God, Sanzhu, Feilong, Asia, Giant, and Qinchi, see (Zhejiang People's Publishing House, revised edition in 2007). When we look back at 1997, we always think of the famous saying of the German thinker Max Weber: "The disenchantment of the world is no longer fascinating."In the past ten years, most of China's most outstanding and fastest-growing enterprises have appeared in the field of daily consumer goods and household appliances. These collapses that occurred in 1997 meant that the "hurricane era" of these two star industries had basically come to an end. China's economic reforms often make people feel that things have turned around and that things are going well.This period of history has never progressed meticulously along the route people expected.What's more, one fork after another always appears at the most unexpected moment, which challenges people's intelligence and endurance to the limit.Just like what happened in 1997, no one expected that the sudden outbreak of the Asian financial turmoil and the unprecedented depression in the domestic market "accidentally" accelerated the process of market-oriented transformation of China's state-owned enterprises. As a matter of fact, the experiment of reforming the property rights of small and medium-sized state-owned enterprises based on the "Zhucheng experience" did not go smoothly at the beginning, and it was attacked by ideology. Some people have written "thousand words" to question the reform of property rights, believing that this will inevitably lead to the loss of large areas of state-owned assets.Whether state-owned enterprises should withdraw, and what exit path to choose, will continue to be debated in the next few years, and another large-scale debate will occur during the macro-control period in 2004.They believe that the "letting go of the small" reform is "in the name of reforming the socialist public ownership of the means of production, denying the reality of public ownership" and "the private economy and foreign capital economy, which are supplementary to the socialist economy, are developing extremely rapidly and have already threatened the main body of the public ownership economy." status".These remarks appeared in some theoretical journals and news media, forming a very strong critical atmosphere.Scholars who supported the reform also launched tit-for-tat rebuttals. Wu Jinglian wrote that "the reform has advanced to the core of the traditional system, and the influence of traditional ideas in this field is particularly strong and harmful." During the debate, the opponents could not propose an economic plan that would improve the actual situation, and the state-owned and collective enterprises across the country have indeed reached a situation where they must be reformed, or they will die if they do not reform. In January of this year, the results of the third national industrial census were released. Various data showed that the situation had reached a very dangerous bottom. The return on capital of state-owned enterprises was only 3.29%, which was much lower than the interest rate on deposits with a maturity of more than one year.Among the 39 major industries, 18 are industry-wide losses. The total liabilities of state-owned industries have accounted for 1.92 times the ownership rights and interests. The company's own assets are not enough to cover its debts. insolvency situation.In a report submitted to the State Council, the relevant department proved with a series of data that under the condition that all other conditions (including working hours, taxes, etc.) are the same, the labor cost of state-owned enterprises is much higher than that of private enterprises. A major reason for competition among private firms. The Far Eastern Economic Review called the new round of state-owned enterprise reform a "point of no return," saying, "It's no secret that China needs to carry out structural reforms on more state-owned enterprises, no matter how painful the process may be." .Without structural reforms, China will only try to recover its losses but lose more, and eventually lose even its original capital.” This gunpowder-flavored debate came to an end on September 12, when the 15th National Congress of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing. General Secretary Jiang Zemin made major revisions to the traditional theory of public ownership in his report, proposing "mixed ownership" "The concept of the non-public economy is not only a "supplement", but also an "important component". The reduction of the proportion of the state-owned economy will not affect the nature of socialism. "People's Daily" commentators Ma Licheng and Ling Zhijun in the best-selling book "Confrontation--Records of Three Thought Emancipation in Contemporary China" (published in 1998), regard this debate on the "public" and "private" surnames as a The third major ideological confrontation after 1978 (discussion on the standard of truth) and 1992 (discussion on the surname "she" and "capital"), and the convening of the 15th National Congress of the Communist Party of China indicated that China had begun the third "ideological confrontation". liberation". Under the impetus of the central government and social reform forces, a large-scale property rights clarification movement came as scheduled, and it will reach its climax in 1998.In this far-reaching property rights reform movement, the end of the Southern Jiangsu model is a very typical and significant event.In the past 20 years of corporate history, the Southern Jiangsu model dominated by the collective economy and the Wenzhou model dominated by the private economy are two major growth paths for enterprises.The latter has encountered countless doubts and tribulations but has always grown in twists and turns, while the former has gradually fallen into the predicament of a lagging system with countless admiration and support. Like the “Wenzhou Model,” sociologist Fei Xiaotong was the creator of the concept of the “Southern Jiangsu Model.” He wrote in his 1983 article “Small Towns Re-Exploration” that in the early 1980s, farmers in Jiangsu did not The commune and brigade enterprises were separated, but the collective economic entity was preserved through industry, and with the help of the radiation and diffusion of Shanghai's economic technology, it continued to develop in the name of township enterprises, "I call it the Southern Jiangsu model."Many scholars refer to this model as "Local State Corporation" in Western economic terms. In the first 15 years of reform and opening up, it quickly became the most advanced enterprise model in the country relying on its public ownership, a more flexible operating system than state-owned enterprises, and the advantages of "the ship school is easy to turn around".While the Wenzhou model was constantly being suppressed, the Southern Jiangsu model shined brightly because of its pure and prominent collective nature, and this has become one of the most active and developed regions in China's township economy.However, after the mid-1990s, the disadvantages of the collective economy gradually emerged and became serious, mainly reflected in two aspects. First, there is no distinction between government and enterprises.The characteristic of the Southern Jiangsu model is that the party, government, economy, and society are integrated into one. Many well-known enterprises are administrative companies that were turned over from an administrative village as a whole. .This situation has directly led to the diversification of the business objectives of the enterprise. Once the enterprise becomes bigger, it becomes a "freak". The second is "hollowing out property rights". The property rights characteristic of "everyone owns it, everyone doesn't own it" makes the originally flexible enterprises gradually suffer from the "state-owned enterprise disease", and phenomena such as "the factory director bears the profit but not the loss" and "the poor temple rich monk" and so on.Dong Furen, an economist known for his outspokenness, said bluntly after inspecting southern Jiangsu, "Who knows, the southern Jiangsu model is a two-state operation." The third is the "political performance" of enterprises. The "cadre economy" has directly led to the "political achievement economy". In order to boost the GDP, various places in southern Jiangsu have engaged in large-scale redundant construction and vicious competition. Fourth, benefits have fallen sharply, and fraudulent performance has become commonplace.Over the years, the Southern Jiangsu model has become a model for the whole country because of its roots in Zhengmiaohong, and its reform effect is related to the promotion of many officials.Therefore, in order to make the "economic figures" rise every year, fraud is prevalent in southern Jiangsu.Shanghai's "Wen Wei Po" once published an article "Don't Blow the "Exaggerated Wind"" on June 24, 1995, exposing the ongoing digital war in southern Jiangsu. The industrial output value of some counties and cities accounted for nearly half of the water. Sarcastically suggested that a "cowhide tax" should be levied on those bragging southern Jiangsu cadres.Scholar Hui Haiming revealed that some enterprises in southern Jiangsu, which are regarded as "national models", receive visitors and learners from all over the world every day despite their declining profits. "In order to receive visitors, they would rather have their machines idle. The lanterns are all good, but once people leave, the holes are so big that some can fit a cow, and some can even fit a small mountain." The institutional dilemma of the Southern Jiangsu model has been fully exposed by the mid-1990s. Except for a very small number of enterprises that have completed the property rights restructuring by special opportunities, most enterprises are still deeply trapped in a halo that is getting dim.Hongdou Group in Wuxi is one of the very few pioneers. In 1993, Zhou Yaoting, who compared himself as an "illegitimate child", obtained the tacit approval of the local government and began to reform the company's equity.He said, "In the beginning, someone advised me to get more shares, preferably more than 50%, but I was worried that if this happened, the collective nature of the enterprise would change, and the risk was too great, so I only wanted 39% in the end." Or completely changed the fate of red beans.By 2007, Zhou Yaoting was pleasantly surprised to find that when he first started property rights reform, his company ranked 34th in Wuxi, but 14 years later, the top 33 had disappeared.The growth rate of TVEs in Jiangsu was significantly lower than in Zhejiang, where the system was more relaxed and flexible.Professor Wu Jinglian commented, "In the economic fluctuations at the end of the 20th century, it not only failed to take the lead, but fell behind." Since 1995, some cadres and entrepreneurs in southern Jiangsu began to quietly go to Wenzhou.They put down their arrogance and began to study the unfamiliar "non-donkey, non-horse economy" that they had ridiculed in the past.Soon, the joint-stock cooperative system was introduced to southern Jiangsu and tried in Yixing, Wuxi and other places. By 1997, as the wave of property rights reform was increasingly recognized by the central government, reflections on the Southern Jiangsu model gradually became the mainstream voice. In October, Chen Huanyou, Secretary of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee, said at the Seventh Enlarged Meeting of the Ninth Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee, “With the in-depth development of the socialist market economy, the Southern Jiangsu model has encountered new situations and new problems, which are prominently manifested in the ownership structure. Relatively simple, government and enterprise rights and responsibilities are not separated, enterprise property rights are not clear, and the vitality of the original mechanism is gradually weakening. Collectively owned township enterprises have gradually been "assimilated" by the old system, and their vitality has declined sharply. Moreover, many local leaders still cling to the Soviet Union. The southern model, one-sided emphasis on collective public ownership, hinders the development of the non-public economy.” Chen Huanyou’s speech was quickly disseminated by the domestic media, causing an earthquake-like sensation in Jiangsu and even the whole country. The Southern Jiangsu model should be publicly reflected.Criticism arose all the time, and Chen Huanyou was under tremendous pressure, so that he had to "refute rumors" at the Jiangsu Economic Forum a few days later, claiming that he never wanted to deny the Southern Jiangsu model.Nevertheless, the political halo around the Southern Jiangsu model began to dissipate day by day.In the next few years, there were endless reflection articles. From the loosening of the southern Jiangsu model to the end, it will experience several years of pain and twists and turns. By the end of 2002, 93% of the township enterprises in the southern Jiangsu area had been "restructured" in various ways. became a private enterprise. The end of the Southern Jiangsu model means a rebirth of the collective economy. In a wider span of time and space, it marks the complete fading out of the cooperative system and the later people's commune system in grassroots economic organizations that have been experimented with since the 1950s. .A more market-oriented enterprise system characterized by the personification of property rights has finally become the mainstream enterprise growth model. The onslaught of the Asian financial turmoil brought another far-reaching impact on the transformation of Chinese enterprises, which completely shattered people's worship of the corporate model of Japanese and Korean conglomerates, especially the plight of the Daewoo Group, which is regarded as a model to follow. The decision-making level rethinks the cultivation ideas of large enterprises.Famous Korean conglomerates that fell in the financial turmoil include the 14th largest company in Korea and the second largest steel company Hanbo, the 19th largest company and the largest brewer Jinro, the 8th largest consortium Kia, and the 12th largest company Halla Group, Sanmei Group, the 24th largest enterprise, and Dailong Group, the 34th largest enterprise.The strategy of "grasping big" that had just been formed in 1996 "accidentally" changed course. At that time, the idea of ​​"grasping big" was "led by the state, focusing on supporting several advantageous enterprises to develop into a consortium model, so that they can become giant companies with international competitiveness and representative of China's strength."However, the fragility exposed by the Japanese and South Korean consortia in the financial turmoil made the central government completely lose confidence in this path.Even a company like Daewoo cannot resist the attack of international financial capital, so can China's "Daewoo-like" companies escape this fate?As a result, a new strategy of "retirement of the state and advancement of the private sector" emerged. Its basic idea is that state-owned capital withdraw from the field of perfect competition on a large scale.In a report, experts suggested that state-owned enterprises should "resolutely withdraw" from 164 competitive industries, while forming a strong monopoly in upstream energy industries, including steel, energy, automobiles, aviation , telecommunications, electric power, banking, insurance, media, large machinery, military industry, etc.In these fields, the government will try its best to exclude the competition of private and international capital, and ensure the vested interests of state-owned enterprises by strengthening monopoly. As the owner of state-owned capital, its role will not be weakened but strengthened. This Chinese-style transition appeared very subtly in 1997.Obviously, this is a completely different "grasp the big" strategy from the previous year. It has been firmly implemented in the following ten years, and finally brought China into an era of national commercialism.One suspense that remains in 1997 is, if the financial turmoil did not break out or broke out two years later, what kind of weather would Chinese companies show later? History makes no assumptions.Chinese companies have turned back on the road of consortium-style growth.The most direct consequence of it is that those "seed companies" that were previously included in the top 500 cultivation list fell into a very embarrassing situation, because according to the new principle of withdrawing state-owned assets, Haier and Changhong in the home appliance industry, Peking University in the computer industry, etc.方正、制药业的华北医药以及造船业的江南造船厂等都不处在被政策保护的垄断性行业，而这也正是当初它们被选中的原因，因此对它们的倾斜扶持便一一落空了。我们即将看到的事实是，到2007年底，中国已有22家企业出现在《财富》“世界500强”名单中，它们无一例外都是垄断型国有控股企业，而10年前确定的6家“种子公司”，除了宝钢之外，其余5家企业都没有按照“既定时间表”进入“世界500强”。 在晦明不定的1997年，还是有令人兴奋地商业事件发生。值得记住的起码有两件，第一件当然还是在互联网产业，丁磊、王志东和张朝阳三个年轻人把中国带进了“互联网元年。”另一件也很有历史意义，那个创办了深圳华为公司的任正非搞出了一个“基本法”。 尽管张树新的瀛海威迷路了，但是在互联网的历史上，1997年却是一个科技狂潮的起点。在领跑的北美市场，最显赫的互联网英雄是华裔青年杨致远。当年三季度，雅虎的市场价值升至28亿美元，超过了炙手可热、让比尔·盖茨都十分畏惧的浏览器大王网景公司，杨致远从起家时的网页目录服务出发，大举向满足互联网所有需求的综合服务转型，“门户网站”成为第一个成熟的商业网络概念。在雅虎效应的推动下，美国最大的新闻门户网站美国在线突破了1000万注册用户的大关，电子商务领域的亚马逊公司公开招股引起轰动，从事在线拍卖的eBay公司创建。一个以网络为主题的高科技投资狂潮由此掀起。在中国，中国互联网络信息中心（CNNIC）发布了第一次《中国互联网络发展状况统计报告》，确认全国共有上网计算机29.9万台，上网用户数62万，WWW站点约1500个。星星之火，已经隐约闪现。 这年6月，26岁的丁磊在广州创办了网易公司，员工3人，注册资金20万元，办公面积7平方米。丁磊的想法很简单，如果人们要在互联网上联系，那一定要一个自己的“房间”和“信箱”吧。于是，他写出了第一个中文个人主页服务系统和免费邮箱系统，网站域名他想到用数字163来表示。至于网易怎么赚钱，他日后说，“如果当初就想靠做站点赚钱，我可能就把路走错了，当时我一心想着靠些软件赚钱。”丁磊无意中证明了中国互联网产业的一个“真理”——“唯有免费才能生存”。免费的网易邮箱和个人主页让它的注册用户快速增长，到1998年5月，在CNNIC公布的全国中文网站排名中，网易名列首位。9月，丁磊顺势转型，将网易改造成了一个类似雅虎的门户网站。 10月，29岁的软件工程师王志东领导的四通利方获得了来自美国华登集团，美洲银行罗世公司及艾芬豪国际集团的650万美元风险投资，这是中国互联网获得的第一笔风险投资。四通利方创办的中文网站最早是想卖王志东写的软件赚钱，为此，他搞了几个问答论坛，没有想到的是，技术论坛反应平平，而体育论坛却异常火爆。10月31日，中国足球队在大连金州体育场参加世界杯亚洲十强赛，结果输给了只有52万人口德石油小国卡塔尔，第六次冲击世界杯失利。第二天凌晨2点15分，一个叫老榕（真名王峻涛，他后来创办了中国第一家B2C网站8848公司）的网友在四通利方体育沙龙上发表了一个帖子《大连金州没有眼泪》，48消失内它被点击阅读两万多次，这是第一篇引起公众轰动的网络文章，互联网的草根特征和惊人地传播效应第一次真实地展现出来。两周后，发行量很大的《南方周末》用一个整版的篇幅报道了这个事件。到1998年夏天的法国世界杯足球赛期间，四通利方的体育论坛已经十分火爆，创造了日点击310万次的访问记录，网站还拿到了18万元的广告收入。不过就是在这样的时候，王志东们还是不知道该把公司带到哪里去。在一个产业胚胎刚刚成形的时候，并不是所有的人都知道出口在哪里，于是有时候，偶然的机遇或不经意的一瞥竟会成为日后成功的起点。就是世界杯期间，体育文字编辑陈彤去北京国贸中心拜访惠普公司。在一间办公室等朋友的时候，陈彤在一张桌子上随手翻看一份公司内部刊物，无意间他读到一段文字，说在美国，互联网访问量最高的是新闻频道而不是其他。回到公司，他向王志东提出了开办一个新闻频道的意见。那是一个忙乱不堪的日子。年底，四通利方宣布并购北美网站华渊资讯网，并更名为新浪网。日后，它成了中国网络界影响力最大的第一新闻门户网站。 也是在这一年的1月初，美国麻省理工学院的博士生张朝阳也创办了他的网站爱特信ITC，他22.5万美元的创始资金来自两位美国教授，其中一位就是写出了的尼葛洛庞帝。网站一开始没有内容，张朝阳就把先放了上去。对于未来怎么赚钱，他也一点没有底，最初的想法就是承揽网页制作业务。到12月，22.5万美元就花光了，张朝阳只好再向投资人求救，磨破嘴皮子好说歹说又拿到10万美元。1998年2月，张朝阳也跟丁磊一样想到了在中国“克隆”雅虎，他搞出了一个中文网页目录搜索的软件，连网站名字都模仿雅虎叫“搜狐”。跟当时英文不好的丁磊和王志东比，“海归派”的张朝阳有先天的国际优势，他以尼葛洛庞帝的弟子自居，在国内和海外媒体上频频露面。很快，他融到了英特尔和道琼斯的215万美元投资，10月，他以“中国代表”的角色被美国《时代周刊》杂志评为“全球50为数字英雄”之一。就这样，这个陕西青年成了中国网络经济中心的第一个英雄式人物。 丁磊、王志东和张朝阳的集体出现，宣告了中国互联网元年的到来。在这个创始时刻，我们已经看到了门户网站、搜索引擎以及风险投资等全新的商业概念。更有意义的是，这些网络公司从诞生的第一天起，就自觉地置身于全球化的背景之中，并有着清晰地产权结构，完全摆脱了过去十多年的所有制困扰。这是一个没有“制度原罪”的产业，是一次发生在阳光下的财富革命。 一家企业把自己的战略规划命名为“基本法”，听上去是一件很奇怪的事情。做这件事的人就是后来被视为“企业家偶像”的任正非。 这一年，尽管任正非的华为已经是一家规模不小的企业，但是在企业界，它几乎没有什么知名度。1996年，中关村四通公司的一位名叫李玉琢的副总裁打算跳槽到华为，四通总裁段永基问，“你准备到哪里去呢？”李玉琢说，“是去华为。”段永基惊诧地说，“华为？没听说过，没什么名气吧？” 没有名气的华为在此时的电信行业却已经露出它锋利的钢爪。从90年代初开始，中国的电信市场复苏，随着程控技术的推广，全国电信网络面临一次全面的更新改造，这无疑是一个巨大的商业机遇。对于拥有自主程控交换技术的华为来说，这是千载一遇的机会。在这个行业里，诺基亚、爱立信等跨国公司具备绝对的竞争优势。任正非在起步之初，依靠“农村包围城市”的策略，从一些偏远的城镇电信局突破，迅速抢去了一块大公司们还没有来得及顾及的“蛋糕”。随之，华为与跨国公司们的正面战争便爆发了。由“农村”而进入“城市”，华为遭遇了强大的竞争，很多中心城市和发达省份的电信部门不信任华为的产品。便是在这时，任正非想出了一个外国同行做梦也不会想到的方法：他游说各地电信局，由华为与电信职工集资成立合资企业。任正非与电信局成立合资公司的尝试最早开始于1993年。当时华为资金紧张，银行又不给予民营科技企业贷款，任正非便说服17个省市级电信局合资成立了一家名叫莫贝克的公司，后者出资3900万元，任正非承诺每年给予33%的高额回报。这个细节与沈太福案相比照，又是一则“有人免费、有人死去”的案例。在华为的一份内部文件中，任正非如此阐述他的策略：“通过建立利益共同体，达到巩固市场、拓展市场和占领市场之目的。利益关系代替买卖关系；以企业经营方式代替办事处直销方式；利用排他性，阻击竞争对手进入；以长远市场目标代替近期目标……”与政府部门建立利益共同体的做法在当时很盛行，另一个著名的实践者是三株集团。1995年，吴炳新要求“各分公司在所在的省与卫生厅、工商局、医药管理局建立经济共同体关系”，其具体做法是，“跟他们搞合作搞联营，药政部门每个月都要搞宣传，你宣传我出经费。与工商，每年《广告法》的宣传我都出钱，由他们去操办，劳务费等打进去，让基层卫生局做我们的代理商……” 华为的合资模式率先在四川取得成功。1997年，四川电信管理局由工会出资，与华为公司组建四川华为公司。到年底，华为在该省的业务合同就从上一年的4000万元猛增到5亿元，一下子涨了12倍。作为合资方，四川电信分到了25％的丰厚利润。四川模式当即产生了连锁效应，在一多年的时间里，华为先后与天津、上海、山东、浙江等省市组建了9家合资公司，其主要业务就是把华为的设备卖给合资的电信公司，这一模式让华为转眼之间成了各地电信局的“自家人”，自家人采购自家人的设备便俨然成了最合理的事情。电信局的设备采购费用是由国家财政出的，而产生的利润则可以分一部分给内部的职工，这实在是让各地局长难以拒绝的好想法。对于华为来说，合资模式让它成为电信市场的垄断型供应商。在河北省，华为的业务从零一下子做到10亿元，在山东省，则从原来的2亿元销售额猛增到惊人的20亿元。从四通跳槽到华为的李玉琢出任过合资合作部的部长，是华为合资工程的主要操盘手。他回忆说，当时有的电信局甚至拆了其他公司的设备，改装华为的机器。在短短的一年多时间里，华为陡然坐大，成为国内增长最快、暴利率最高的电信企业。1997年，华为的销售额实现41亿元，同比增长60。 为了组建这些合资公司，任正非日夜奔波于全国。他个性内向，脾气暴烈，不喜与人交流，但是与电信部门的谈判却无往不利，其原因只有一个，那就是他开出的合作条件实在让人难以拒绝。在后来的很多年里，他一直拒绝接受任何采访，屏蔽了自己与传媒界的任何关系。而在电信行业，无论是省部级官员还是一个小县城里的局长，只要是能够给华为带来业务的，他都来者不拒，亲自接待。他说，“我只见给我市场的人，因为他们是我的衣食父母。”对于竞争，他则说得更为直接，“华为的核心竞争力，就是客户肯选择我们的产品而不是别人的。” 从一开始，华为的合资模式就受到同行的攻击，它被质疑是“不正当竞争”。任正非曾经试图在每一个省都组建合资公司。但是由于告状的国内外企业实在太多，到1999年之后，任正非被迫整编这些合资公司，但事实上，华为的市场目标已经实现，合资公司的使命已然完成。它成为全国电子企业中成长最快的黑马企业。 如果仅仅靠这种颇为可疑的商业模式，任正非和华为很可能并不会走得太远。在一个转型的时代，法制的滞后以及对灰色行为的宽容让无数企业家获得了超越式的成长和惊人的利益。而这中间隐藏着的种种毒素也同样让这些人无法从这种非正常的商业逻辑中挣脱出来。任正非跟同时代的企业家相比，他的超人之处是，在从事不无争议的原始积累的同时，他也正在进行一场坚决的自我救赎。从三年前开始，他聘用中国人民大学教授吴春波等人为华为起草一个企业战略规划。它参照当时的《香港基本法》，很有想象力地被命名为《华为基本法》。任正非要求吴春波等学者弄清楚三个问题：华为是谁？华为从哪里来？华为要到哪里去？1997年3月27日，八易其稿、103条的《华为基本法》通过最后一次审稿。日后，它被认为是改革开放以来，中国企业制定的第一部企业管理大纲。 在《华为基本法》中的第一条，任正非就明确提出，“华为的追求是在电子信息领域成为世界级领先企业。”为了实现这个目标，任正非十分严苛地设定了专业化的发展战略，“为了使华为成为世界一流的设备供应商，我们将永不进入信息服务业。”此外，《华为基本法》还确定了两条十分惊世骇俗的原则，一是实行员工持股制度，“普惠认同华为的模范员工，结成公司与员工的利益与命运共同体。将不断地使最有责任心与才能的人进入公司的中坚层。”作为企业的创始人，任正非大量稀释自己所拥有的股份。据他自己透露，“我在公司中占的股份微乎其微，只有1％左右。华为70％的管理层和员工拥有华为的股份。”二是在技术开发上近乎偏执地持续投入，任正非坚持将每年销售收入的10％用于科研开发，这在中国著名企业中是一个无人可及、无人敢及的高比例。 正是这些原则使得默默无闻的华为蜕变成一家前程远大的中国公司。