Chapter 16 Chapter 14 "Software" - the soul and light shining with the spirit of Eastern and Western civilizations

Today, everyone who comes to Suzhou Industrial Park will naturally come to the conclusion that what he feels and sees and the level of culture and civilization revealed therein is that such parks are rare in China and rare in the world.That is to say, the harmonious and balanced relationship between the natural environment and modern industry here is arranged in such a coordinated, unified, or perfect order, which is difficult to see in other places. You can't help but be amazed and admired by the speed of economic development and the benefits beyond imagination. Regarding the current state of Suzhou Industrial Park, many readers may be disappointed if I do not describe it. However, if I only sketch a few strokes, I feel sorry for the creativity of the builders who have worked hard here for more than ten years. And sweat, especially sorry for Lee Kuan Yew and Singaporeans - because in their minds Suzhou Industrial Park is the image of Singapore, but I seem to be inconvenient to make too many exaggerated descriptions in this article, because I want to leave readers Some expectations and space, and I suggest that when you have the opportunity to travel to Suzhou, you must go to the park for a walk and have a look. The scenes and things there are far more exciting than what I have described...

What I want to tell readers here is that the current state of Suzhou Industrial Park is the result expected by Lee Kuan Yew and Singaporeans, and it is also the charm of Singapore's "software" that Lee Kuan Yew and Singaporeans have always been proud of. The success and shining points of Singapore's management model are displayed and reflected in Suzhou Industrial Park.No wonder Lee Kuan Yew always talked about "SIP" in the international arena.He once boasted that China's Suzhou Industrial Park is the result of Singapore's spirit and management model "out of blue".However, in order to be able to successfully transplant this Singapore "software" and achieve the goal of "better than them" as Deng Xiaoping demanded, the Suzhou people have made great hardships and efforts together with the Singaporeans...

"At that time, the area of ​​Jinji Lake was full of bumps and valleys. 'Ten years and nine floods, boating can't raise the sails, and you have to turn in five minutes' walk', which means: there are many lakes and ponds, but they are all big and small. The rules and roads are even worse. Singaporeans prefer such a piece of land, and they say they want to build the most modern new industrial city in the world on such a piece of land. Although we were members of the preparatory team for the park, we really didn’t believe it at the time This possibility. We also discussed in private: So Singaporeans are more 'left' than us Chinese! We Chinese have been dreaming of a utopian communist utopia for decades, and Singaporeans are more convinced than we are! Some people also said that the money belongs to Singaporean capitalists anyway, and we don’t feel bad about using their money. The reason is simple: we just don’t believe that this place, which is not favored by us Suzhou people, will create a new world under the ambition of Singaporeans. But it turned out that we were wrong..." an "old park" said with emotion.

The "SIP" plan determined according to the preliminary agreement is: 8 square kilometers will be developed first, and 70 square kilometers will be developed in the mid-term cooperation.According to Singapore's "software" model, the 70 square kilometers area must be completed in one step before the formal investment and development of the 70 square kilometers, and it must be completed in one step according to the standards of the world's most advanced modern industrial city. What is "one step in place"?To put it simply: roads, environment, fire protection, communication, sewage treatment, ground greening, etc., must be equipped according to the most advanced conditions of the world's modern industrial cities when foreign businessmen enter the park!

Because there is no money, the Chinese who are accustomed to "planning and construction at the same time" have never seen such a method!But Singaporeans say that this is our "software" spirit - underground facilities must go ahead of surface construction, and require underground facilities to "not lag behind for a hundred years". At first, Suzhou people didn't understand why they had to do this.After more than ten years, looking back at the development of the park today, the current Suzhou people admire the brilliance of this "software" in Singapore - after one step is in place, the cost of countless repeated constructions is avoided. A vicious cycle of multiplication and diminishing returns.

"What impressed me the most about the spirit of Singapore's 'software' concept is that they proposed that within an area of ​​70 square kilometers in the park, it can achieve the ability to prevent floods from flooding in a hundred years. That is to say, the entire 70 square kilometers of the park should be filled with 70 centimeters high. No one believed it when we heard it at the time! How is this possible! Not to mention 70 square kilometers, it is the 8 square kilometers of the first phase of development, not to mention how the lakes and ponds are filled, it is on the low-lying ground Do you know how much it will cost to fill in one meter higher and 8 square kilometers? At that time, it cost 8 US dollars to fill a square kilometer, and 8 square kilometers was 400 million US dollars! 400 million US dollars, equal to more than 3 billion yuan. Nothing was done, just leveling the ground , Just spend more than 3 billion yuan at once. We thought at the time that it was impossible. Moreover, some experts also said that since the day Wu Zixu built the city in Suzhou, we have used ponds and embankments to block floods, and Suzhou City will not leave. It has a history of more than 2,500 years! But the park is now jointly built by China and Singapore, especially it has been agreed to use Singapore's "software" to manage and operate, so it must be done according to what the Singaporeans say. That is to say Soil must be filled, and all those low-lying lands, rotten river ponds, and large and small lakes must be filled to prevent floods that do not occur in a hundred years." Zhou Zhifang now talks about the situation at that time, and he is deeply moved, "When the land filling war started, On the roads around the entire Suzhou city, there are hundreds of earth-moving trucks running day and night, and the city is full of dust. The common people scold us like hell, because it really brings a lot of inconvenience to everyone's life. But the chariots of the park construction It has already started, and we must move forward, and Singaporeans have a very strong sense of time, whoever delays will have to pay a lot of money! Besides, there are Chinese and Suzhou people in the money, and no one wants to waste it. Latu The cars here are all produced in Shaanxi, the license plate is yellow, the color of the body is yellow, and the soil is yellow, so the people say that Suzhou is amazing now, and the city is full of "three yellow chickens"... Let me say something: The Suzhou Industrial Park is built so well today, but the people of Suzhou made sacrifices back then. We should thank them.”

The sacrifice spirit of the citizens of Suzhou has brought about the beauty of the park, which can undoubtedly be recorded in the history of the construction of "Western Suzhou". In just over one month, the first phase of the 8 square kilometers of landfill project was successfully completed. In 1998, Jiangnan really experienced a once-in-a-century flood. At that time, Changzhou, Wuxi and other areas in southern Jiangsu were almost completely covered in a vast ocean.When General Secretary Jiang Zemin looked down from the plane, he suddenly found a green field in the middle of the ocean, and asked his entourage where it was?When someone replied that it was the newly built Suzhou Industrial Park, Jiang Zemin said happily, "I want to go there and have a look."Later, he really came to the park and sighed: It seems that many of the construction concepts of Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore are worth learning.

The 70-square-kilometer area later developed by Suzhou Industrial Park followed this model to fill up the original low-lying and rotten lake, like a strong and vigorous chest muscle standing out on the Jiangnan land, full of strength and vitality.It is said that many places in China are applying the Suzhou Industrial Park’s development experience of "one-step completion" of underground engineering before ground construction to their own development zone construction. "Planning is law", this statement sounds a bit whimsical when compared to ordinary administrative regions and cities.This is because in many places in China, the opinions of the leaders come and change much faster than the "plans" and plans. Therefore, there are too many things that are not carried out according to the plans and plans, but are carried out according to the will of the officials. Also too "regular".But in Suzhou Industrial Park, "planning is the law", like an unchangeable law.No matter how big an official you are, or how many officials you have changed, it is impossible to change what has been planned.For example, at the beginning of the development, the basic principles of "planning first, then construction" and "underground first, then aboveground" established by the two sides in the development of the park, no matter how many times you change the leadership of Suzhou, no one can easily change the overall development of the park. The mayor does not have the power to change things that have been decided in the plan, even if it is a road, a tree, or a pole.

"It is one of our important experiences to draw a blueprint to the end and make the planning benefit the biggest benefit of the park." Wang Jinhua talked about this issue, his eyes flashed, "When we took over, the entire park was heavily in debt on the books. But the Singaporeans have left us a huge asset, which is the blueprint of the park that has been planned and is under construction. This blueprint contains extremely high expected benefits. The successful operation of the park depends on the one-step planning blueprint of the park.” In the industrial area within dozens of square kilometers in the Suzhou Industrial Park, more than 3,000 multinational companies have settled in, among which 79 of the world's top 500 companies have invested in 126 projects, but you don't feel it at all. In the park, there is the unavoidable noisy and polluted scene in the environment of general factories and enterprises. On the contrary, what you see are elegant garden-like buildings hidden among camphor gardens, maple forests, osmanthus bushes and lotus ponds. Credit for planning the blueprint.Now, the entire park has passed the national ISO14001 environmental quality system certification, and Suzhou Industrial Park has taken the lead in becoming a national eco-industrial demonstration park and a circular economy pilot park.

"The high standard of infrastructure construction is one of the main reasons why the park planning can stand the test of time." People who participated in the early park construction told me that before the park project started, experts from both China and New Zealand had comprehensively compiled various foundations. The professional planning of facilities has taken the lead in implementing the high-standard "nine connections and one leveling" in China. "Nine connections" refer to the full access of roads, power supply, water supply, drainage, sewage, gas, heating, communications, and cable TV, and "one leveling" refers to land filling and leveling.Its standard of "nine connections and one leveling" is not inferior even in developed countries.

Lee Kuan Yew once proudly boasted to others, "Our software is actually based on many hardware in many aspects." A foreign company with an investment of 150 million US dollars requested to open an entrance and exit on the green belt in front of the gate when it settled in the park to build a factory. It was not approved by the park due to insufficient reasons, but this did not affect the company's management of the park. Appreciating it, they said: "The development and construction planning of the park is very good. The development blueprint we got 5 years ago is very close to the current status drawing we got later." This kind of planning is the law, which is a "software" management model that cannot be changed at will. The results achieved are often very rigid, and the effects produced are also conceivable. "Software" is not soft.This is an important aspect that Suzhou people feel deeply in the process of learning and transplanting Singaporean management and operation. "But we Chinese and Suzhou people also have a lot of 'software' that moves Singaporeans." Wu Kequan, who has personally experienced the whole process of the park's initial construction, said, "When we first cooperated with Singapore, they always paid attention to the work efficiency of us Chinese. They were skeptical, so after the preliminary agreement was signed, we have been observing our work. It was we who later used our actions to convince them that we Chinese and Suzhou people are trustworthy and the most efficient, especially our Their hard-working spirit made them deeply feel that our Chinese 'software' is also very remarkable." In the park, I heard many stories like this, and each story moved me very much—this is the creation and innovation of Suzhou people.Let’s start with before and at the beginning of the construction of the park: The growth of a city is actually similar to the growth of a person. When you start, you are usually overwhelmed by some of the simplest things, and some of them can’t even be put on the table.We know that Singaporeans are asked to help set up industrial parks because we Chinese have no experience and the most important thing is that we have no money.But when the construction of the park started, Singaporeans were paid in US dollars or Singapore dollars for everything they did.But Suzhou people can't, even if the 14 "Park Veterans" who have been clearly members of the preparatory team, they can only get their original wages. "According to the agreement between the two parties, the lawyers of the Singaporean side get one SGD per word—one SGD is 5 RMB, but our Chinese lawyers can only get a 'basic salary'. The staff of the Singaporean side can get double or even more for working overtime. However, we Suzhou people usually give us a loaf of bread or a pack of instant noodles when we work overtime. When the park preparatory group was established, it didn’t even have an office. At first, we borrowed the old cadre activity room of the municipal government. Later, when people had objections, we had to move out. Fortunately, with the support of the Finance Bureau, we borrowed 1 million yuan from them as the preparatory funds for the preparatory team of the park. Since the preparatory team has started work, there must be a place to work! Finally, in order to save money, we found a An unused resort has rented a few houses and counted it as a "base area". This was achieved through the friendship between Mayor Zhang and the secretary of the suburbs. There is a photo in the development history of Suzhou Industrial Park that is left in Singapore. The old house where the preparatory team worked. Finally, there was a temporary place for the office, but at that time, in the Jinji Lake area, there were not many houses within a few miles, and it became a problem for our staff to eat and drink water. In the end, all of them were outsourced. Sending big pots of rice solved our difficulties, so later some comrades concluded that our Suzhou Industrial Park started with four buckets when it was preparing: a bucket for soup, a bucket for rice, and a bucket for vegetables. And there are our 'meat barrels' that have soaked outside all day and got dark..." Wu Kequan recalled. "After China and Singapore established the joint company, I served as the general manager. In order to show the equal dignity of our Chinese people, we required that the Chinese personnel participating in the joint company should also receive the same salary as the Singaporean employees. Although this was won later, I this The salary of the administrative general manager is 110,000 yuan per month. But we know that this is an honorary salary, and the money I get back will not reach me. In fact, I still get the original 2,500 yuan a month. There is no loss, because all the comrades who participated in the construction of the park knew in their hearts: We are doing a great event for Suzhou and China that has never been done before. Dedication is our full responsibility!" Zhou Zhifang said. Of course, the treatment of comrades working in the park has been relatively improved, but compared with the staff of the new party, it is still "one country, two systems" in terms of salary, which is far inferior to them. Some are jealous, because in their eyes, if those who work day and night in the park do not have high wages and good treatment, how can they work desperately for the "capitalists"? In response to this kind of discussion, Yang Xiaotang, Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee, once said very seriously at a cadre meeting: "Don't keep staring at their treatment. Have you ever thought about two questions: First, how many people are they? How many people do the work? The second is how much GDP they have created for us in Suzhou? How much financial revenue? Besides, pulling them down, what good will it do for us and for Suzhou as a whole?" Yang Xiaotang said, in the future Basically, no one mentions such things anymore, but the dedication and hard work of the people in the park often spread to the municipal authorities and citizens.The most fundamental thing is that people can see the changes that are happening every day from the Jinji Lake, which was a rotten lake and a dead pond in the past.This change is really changing with each passing day, and the scene is myriad, and it brings out the wave of the times with the world's most advanced management model and the color of the new global economy... So the previous suspicion and even gloating mentality turned into freshness and joy , Moved and actively cared about the enthusiasm of the park's major construction. Singapore's "software" is indeed very scientific and unique in representing the most advanced management and modern city operation in the contemporary world.Not to mention the huge filling project of tens of centimeters in the low-lying land of rotten lakes and ponds in the first phase of 8 square kilometers and the subsequent 70 square kilometers, not to mention that the experts in charge of planning have to ask the whole world when considering the style of a street lamp The design industry of the lighting industry conducts bidding, just for water, electricity, wires, pipes... Those cumbersome and complicated underground projects, they can achieve a success once, and decades later, they will no longer need the perfect and advanced planning of "disemboweling" The design has won the admiration of colleagues in Suzhou and China. Before the surface engineering and investment attraction had yet to be seen, the Singaporean side insisted on building a sewage treatment plant with an investment of hundreds of millions of yuan, and required that the sewage within the 70 square kilometers of the development zone be fully self-flowing.Such a standard and advanced level can be said to be unheard of in the history of Chinese construction engineering, but Suzhou Industrial Park has been doing so since the very beginning.The construction started. Singaporean contractors drove giant excavators to dig into the center of the earth at a depth of 9 meters, while the ground was undamaged... Suzhou people saw it in their eyes and sighed in their hearts: their "software" is actually It is built on hardware, and such hardware is built on the "software" of scientific ideas. However, in the process of cooperating with Singapore to build the park, Suzhou people and Chinese people are not only sighing and sighing, they also have a lot of Chinese people's own "software" that they can be proud of—— According to the agreement reached between China and Singapore, the construction of the park is operated by the Sino-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park Development Co., Ltd. (referred to as CSSD), a Sino-Singapore joint venture.The CSSD company (at that time) was the major shareholder with a 65% stake, and the Chinese side accounted for 35%.The registered capital of the company is 50 million US dollars.Although Singapore is a small country, it is a rich country, and for privately funded companies, the 32.5 million U.S. dollars that should be credited are all in cash. At that time, Suzhou had no money. According to the registered company's 35% shares, it should be more than 100 million yuan.Since there is a joint venture, you have to contribute money together, and foreigners are very particular about the authenticity of the registered capital. "Our money has arrived, and your money must also arrive." Singaporeans made this request very reasonable.But the Suzhou people almost fell ill, why?No Money! After the government lent us 1 million yuan as a preparatory fee, we had to figure out the rest by ourselves.But where can I find a way?In the early 1990s, all aspects of Suzhou were undergoing great development and construction, and every aspect was reaching out to the government.Our park is a Sino-Singaporean joint venture. Outsiders know that Singaporeans paid a lot of money. What reason do you have to reach out to the government?Get the top of the earth!Some people say that dozens of square kilometers of land have already been assigned to you!Singaporeans became anxious when they heard the news: no, the land is our common resource after cooperation, and now it is a registered company, how can it be a shareholder with empty accounts? "No way, we had to find another way. At the critical moment, the municipal party committee and the municipal government paid attention to it. I remember that the mayor personally held a special meeting and organized nine 'consortiums' in our city to discuss matters. In the end, the bank said that we agreed to borrow money. , but the bank loaned us more than 17 million U.S. dollars and we still have to go through approval procedures. We have come together and we are going to do it, but if our first registered capital fails to enter the account, what reputation does Suzhou have? What reputation does China have? Just as we are desperate, the Singaporeans are eager to transfer the registered capital to the bank. When I registered the account, there was a problem—the company name hadn’t been approved yet, so the money couldn’t be transferred to the bank, because the bank had to have the company name and account number! They came to me when they encountered difficulties. I was secretly happy, and thought: This time we can be saved! How can there be a way? I told them that your "Sino-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park Development Co., Ltd." is going to Beijing for approval. They asked me when Can it be approved? I said that it might not be approved within a month or two. They were dumbfounded when they heard it, and said how? I said you don’t need to worry. You have to use our "software" on this point. They just Ask me very seriously what the "software" method is? I told him: We don't care if the company is established or not, we will do it first, how can we afford to wait for a few months! Singaporeans asked: Why do we do it if the company is not established? Method? I said: Yes, we can prepare some funds first. They asked again: How much? I said you should get more than 10 million US dollars first. They agreed. I have no money! But I came up with a trick that Singaporeans don’t know: because the company has not officially approved it, so I told them that we can only set up a temporary account first. It is not necessary for us to set up a temporary account. Difficult, just go to your own bank and talk about it. So the Singaporeans put in more than 10 million US dollars. They put the money into the account on the first day, and the money was used as a payment to the Chinese side to buy the land. We immediately transferred part of the money to the previous temporary account, so it became our "registered capital"? So we immediately informed the new party that our money has also arrived. The accountants of the new party went to the bank to check, no, the funds from the Chinese side are also in place, and Suzhou people still respect credibility! This is a secret that I made public for the first time. On the one hand, it can be seen that we set up the park at that time Second, I also want to explain that we have never broken our trust with the new party, and the cooperation between the two parties has always been honest..." Wu Kequan's story is intriguing, and it allows us to recognize the ingenuity of Suzhou people from another perspective And the modern first-class Suzhou Industrial Park we see today also came from scratch.In many cases, it is often human-made. According to people in the "Old Park", at that time Suzhou hoped to receive financial support from the central government.Once, when Vice Premier Zhu Rongji, who was in charge of the economy at the time, came to Suzhou for inspection, Suzhou people tried every means to "get" some start-up funds from him.Zhu Rongji is a very demanding boss. As soon as he heard this, he told the Suzhou people with a straight face: "Don't use my brains. The national planning meeting has just finished, and hundreds of billions of dollars in finance have been distributed. But I have an idea. , you may wish to try: you can go to the bank to borrow money, loan at the beginning of the year, and repay at the end of the year, so that the money that does not belong to our national plan "pan"." Suzhou people thought: No!The money has been loaned, but it has not yet entered the national budget!Later, people in Suzhou felt the kindness of Zhu Rongji, the deputy prime minister with a "sharp mouth and a bean curd heart". After returning to Beijing, he quickly approved a 100 million yuan start-up fund for the park in Suzhou. There is another thing that Suzhou people can't forget: Later, with the rapid development and expansion of the park, the joint venture between China and Singapore needs more and more capital injection. The real money is transferred to the account!People in Suzhou sweated again and again.At this time, the central government, Zhu Rongji, Li Lanqing and other responsible comrades of the State Council came forward. Under their organization and dispatch, the big bosses in China participated in the Suzhou Industrial Park one after another, and the "Chinese consortia" actively subscribed for the shares of the Chinese shares. , even CCTV has a stake in Suzhou Industrial Park... The first phase of development of the park is 8 square kilometers, the main development area is 70 square kilometers, and the final park area reaches 288 square kilometers (of which the Sino-Singapore cooperative development zone is expanded to 80 square kilometers).According to the Sino-Singapore cooperation agreement, the park land handed over by the Chinese side to CSSD for operation must be "zero" handed over.The so-called "zero" handover means that on all the land to be developed, you Suzhou people cannot leave any valuable objects that affect my development and investment. To put it more directly, since you Suzhou gave us the land, we will When developing and attracting investment here, you can't leave a little bit of messy things like resettlement of farmers and house demolition, otherwise it will be a violation of the agreement between the two countries.There is a heavy price to be paid for international breaches of agreements. People in Suzhou are aware of this. There is another key issue: Singaporeans are also looking at us Chinese, whether our Chinese people are trustworthy after the reform and opening up. The Chinese government has There is no strong ability to govern. This is not only a real job, but also an issue related to the image of the party and the country. Suzhou people dare not neglect it.However, everyone knows that with the continuous extensive and comprehensive development of economic construction, the problem of resettlement of residents and house demolition on industrial and urban construction land is the most troublesome problem.This involves the interests of tens of thousands of people, and no one dares to pat their chests on this issue. Residential resettlement and house demolition during the construction of Suzhou Industrial Park have been done meticulously and thoughtfully. Over the past ten years, 200,000 to 300,000 residents of various types have been resettled. They live a very stable, peaceful and happy life, and the benefits and social security brought by the park are better than those of ordinary citizens. There is basically zero unemployment in the park.However, there were conflicts when demolishing houses and relocating farmers and residents in the area. It was due to the appropriate policies of the Suzhou government and the construction planning of the park, coupled with meticulous work, that the good results were achieved.However, at that time, the park involved the cancellation of the administrative establishment of several towns and the need to "cut flesh" from others, and the resistance was not small. The first ones to object were naturally the "landlords"—Wu County, which had not yet been merged into Suzhou City at that time, has now been divided into two and merged into Suzhou City, becoming Xiangcheng District and Wuzhong District in Suzhou City.When the industrial park was first built, Wu County was one of the "Six Tigers" in Suzhou, ranking among the top 100 counties in the country.People in Wu County must be distressed that the industrial park will take away hundreds of square kilometers.In fact, even in Suzhou City, some people did not vote in favor of the above matter. In November 1993, after the document was sent to Suzhou to place the four towns of Wu County and the then Loufeng Township in the suburbs of Suzhou into the Suzhou Industrial Park decided by the office meeting of the governor of Jiangsu Province, the opponents and those in favor were evenly matched.Even the province is in a hurry. Just after the Spring Festival in 1994, Chen Huanyou, Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee and Governor, brought more than 20 cadres above the provincial level to come to Suzhou to work on site.First I did the work in the city, and after the city’s thinking was unified, I rushed to Wu County immediately. Several officials from the province personally held a meeting with the secretary and county head of Wu County, and asked them face to face: whether to implement the provincial government’s decision or not?That posture does have a taste that you have to agree with if you don't agree.The result is naturally "resolutely obey the decision of the provincial party committee and the provincial government." When I was interviewing in the park that day, I happened to pass by the "city square" in the park, so I walked along the Lakeside Avenue by the lake for half an hour.During this half hour, I really felt like I had entered heaven, and I even doubted whether this was really my hometown Suzhou.Because it is so beautiful, so perfect—the wide avenue along the lake, all kinds of precious trees and green carpet-like green space, countless unique, water-style and modern decorations, as well as the rippling blue waves and egrets playing in the water. The lake and the silver yachts moored on the shore, as well as the children laughing, running and playing... At that moment, I really wanted to stay and enjoy the beautiful scenery and listen to the music from the flower speakers. The melodious and soft hometown Pingtan from within... This is a corner of the current Suzhou Industrial Park.Such beauty is everywhere in the park.But in such a fairyland on earth, you can't imagine that such a place is actually the most advanced and developed modern industrial base in China that can realize a GDP of 100 million yuan and create a fiscal revenue of 100 million yuan every day! This is the "software" that Mr. Lee Kuan Yew and Singaporeans conceived and transplanted to China, and it is also the Chinese-style modern industrial park that we Suzhou people and Chinese people have successfully transplanted and recreated.