How harmful is the tyranny of the masses? Nongfu Spring fell overnight, and the precursor of the Cultural Revolution was coming; where is China’s political situation headed? What are the biggest dangers for Chinese entrepreneurs in the next few years? (Provided by “Elite Forum”)
[The Epoch Times, March 15, 2024]The most popular incident on the Internet in China right now is the Nongfu Spring incident. The latest news is that Zhong Suisui, the founder and boss of Nongfu Spring, has resigned as the legal representative of multiple branches of Nongfu Spring. Position. The reasons for attacking Nongfu Spring on the Internet make people feel very ridiculous and unbelievable. For example, a red bottle cap can be accused of being the Japanese flag, but such absurd accusations can be overwhelmingly popular in mainland China, and are made by the Internet Words were quickly translated into concrete actions, resulting in heavy losses for Nongfu Spring’s enterprises. So what kind of force is behind this entire movement to bring down Nongfu Spring? What are their reasons for promoting this movement?
The Cultural Revolution is really coming
Independent TV producer Li Jun said in NTDTV’s “Elite Forum” program that we often said that China seems to be heading towards the Cultural Revolution, and it is becoming more and more like the Cultural Revolution. I don’t think the Nongfu Spring incident looks like the Cultural Revolution, but rather that it looks like the Cultural Revolution. That’s basically it. Because the performance of the Cultural Revolution at the grassroots level was madness and irrationality, they would accuse you of an unfounded political crime, and then punish you until you were very miserable in the end, and even tortured you to death.
The current charge against Nongfu Spring is that the bottle is white, the cap is red and white, and it looks like the Japanese flag from above, so you are fond of Japan. If this crime can be established, I think there is a company in China that has been popular for many years, that is Moutai. Moutai also has red caps and white bottles. Then he said that Zhong Suisui’s son is in the United States, so buying his drinks is equivalent to supporting the United States in attacking China. These things have absolutely no basis or logic at all, but Nongfu Spring’s stock market lost 30 billion, and one day’s sales actually dropped by 90%. This kind of damage is a catastrophe for a company. . The scariest thing about this kind of thing is that it has a demonstration effect. If this thing continues to happen, can it be targeted at other companies tomorrow?
Li Jun said that when this matter first started, he accused Zhong Suisui of being ungrateful and sorry for Zong Qinghou, the boss of Wahaha, or poaching Zong Qinghou at the time. Later, Zhong Suisui himself wrote an article “Two or Three Things Between Me and Mr. Zong”, explaining that he actually respected Mr. Zong, and basically explained the matter clearly. Originally this matter should have been over. But then it started to get weirder and fermented, and the latter process was completely beyond imagination and inference. This incident happened just after Zong Qinghou passed away, which is a bit strange. People doubted whether Wahaha did something behind the scenes.
Moreover, the two enterprises are not the same. Nongfu Spring itself is indeed a purely private enterprise. Wahaha Group’s current largest shareholder is Hangzhou Shangcheng District Investment Group, a state-owned enterprise. These two enterprises are not a competition between private enterprises against private enterprises, but a competition between private enterprises and state-owned enterprises.
Shi Shan, senior editor and chief writer of The Epoch Times, said in the “Elite Forum” that I doubt that an ordinary company can create such a big force in China, including deleting posts on the Internet, which means that those who refute it will be deleted. Drop it, etc., and then expand it in various places, even to some small media, and follow the trend. I’m afraid this is not that simple. I have always highly suspected that behind the whole incident, there are official agencies or some official figures promoting this matter. In the past few years, in China, one industry after another has been overthrown, overthrown, and purged, such as high-tech, tutoring, and the gaming industry, and now bottled water is actually available.
Zhong Suisui, too much money brings trouble, and involution is the norm in the CCP’s rule
Hu Liren, a former Shanghai entrepreneur living in the United States, said in the “Elite Forum” that I had contact with Zong Qinghou once. Zong Qinghou gave me a relatively righteous feeling. I met him about eight years ago. He was probably around 70 years old at that time. When I met him at the time, he had 76 bases, each of which was a large base with hundreds of acres of land, very large, extremely large. What is the difference between him and Nongfu Spring? It seems that similar products are all made of water, but what Wahaha makes is purified water. Its factories are usually located in relatively large plains. It uses tap water to filter and then sterilizes and cans it. The level of Nongfu Spring is relatively higher than that of Nongfu Spring. The water source requirements of Nongfu Spring are very high, so Nongfu Spring has only a dozen bases in China. One of the most important bases is Qiandao Lake in Chun’an, Zhejiang. These more than a dozen bases all provide natural clean water. If you ask for this kind of water source, its price is relatively higher than that of Wahaha.
There is a very important difference between Nongfu Spring and Wahaha. Zong Qinghou only owns about 20 to 30% of Wahaha’s shares, and most of the 40% or so shares are in the hands of the government, with another 2%. More than a dozen shares are in the hands of his management. I know some senior executives at Wahaha, and these executives told me that their annual income after dividends can reach two to three million, or three to four million. Zong Qinghou really pays dividends to his employees every year. These old employees have been with him for a long time. They were all transferred from the factory in the mid-1980s. At that time, they also spent their own money to invest in it, so Zong Qinghou has great influence on the entire group. The company’s reputation is very good.
After the Zhong Suisui incident happened, I think this is the case. The current atmosphere in the entire China is an obvious pig-killing list, that is, the more money you have, the more you will become the target of public criticism. Zhong Suisui now owns about 80% of the company’s shares. He is the absolute majority shareholder. I checked his data and found that his total assets should have reached more than 100 billion U.S. dollars a few years ago, which is about nearly Less than one trillion yuan. It should be said that an entrepreneur and rich man of his stature must have been targeted for a long time. This thing cannot be caused purely by the Internet. You see, Jack Ma’s image should be much better, and he has no treachery. Why was he killed? Why become a virtual exile?
There is a word in China called involution. Nowadays, it is difficult to get involved in external involution. Many export companies find it difficult to do so. So what should we do? It’s involution. In fact, we can also call all the movements of the Chinese Communist Party as involution. In the past, land reform and corporate joint ventures, weren’t they involution? That is involution, robbing all the people’s assets. Nowadays, the Internet is controlled and monitored by the government. If the government is unwilling to do it, and it happens to be during the Two Sessions, it is constantly increasing the confidence of private enterprises and at the same time constantly advocating that we allow private enterprises to continue to be stable and stable. On the premise of making the company bigger and stronger, this happened to Zhong Suisui. Therefore, this matter was definitely not spontaneous, and it was definitely not due to water. The main reason was that Zhong Suisui was too rich. This was the real reason. At present, the Zhong Suisui incident is breaking out all over the country, and many people are being targeted. There are various reasons for being targeted, but the most important thing is that these people are too rich. This is the case in China, that is, everyone thinks that if you are too rich, they must find a reason to kill you.
Li Jun said in the “Elite Forum” that once Zhong Suisui’s company reaches this level, some powerful people will definitely be jealous. In this case, someone may talk to him about whether to let us take shares. , or let state-owned enterprises take shares, and then we can make money and become prosperous together. Regarding Zhong Suisui, we can look at the road behind him. Now that he has withdrawn the legal person, let’s see who is the legal person coming up below? Secondly, see if his company’s equity will change? I personally think that there may be some changes in the equity of Nongfu Spring and Zhong Suisui’s biological company in the near future, which can confirm some of our inferences.
The profit from selling water exceeds that of oil. Is Zhong Suisui involved in a power struggle among senior officials?
“The Epoch Times” editor-in-chief Guo Jun said in the “Elite Forum” that I think there are two levels to analyze this incident. The first is the official policy level and the macro level. The second one is at the level of personal grudges or infighting in officialdom.
Let’s talk about the first level first. The CCP’s expropriation of private entrepreneurs has actually never stopped. There were early practices in the early days, and there are current practices now. In the past ten years, the situation has actually become worse and worse. Officials do not allow a certain company or individual to become the leader in an industry. This is determined by the ideology of the Communist Party of China. State-owned enterprises and the state-owned economy are the main body, and private enterprises are the supplement. If the supplement exceeds the main body, then we will face problems.
There were many such things in the past. For example, Wenzhou people invested in coal mines in northern Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Inner Mongolia. Just in time for the great economic development, the price of coal mines continued to rise. The local government became jealous and took action, citing reasons such as pollution and safety. Private capital was swept away, and many people lost their money. Because the public opinion of coal bosses was too bad in China at the time, their experiences did not arouse social reaction. However, private investment capital was actually very wary of this matter. Bo Xilai’s approach in Chongqing is also a good example. After he came to power, he sorted out his previous enterprises, arrested hundreds of people in the name of singing celebrities and cracking down on criminals, and confiscated more than 200 billion yuan in assets.
In 2014, the CCP launched a PPP model, which is a cooperation plan between private individuals and the government, intending to invest in various public welfare projects. As a result, the public was not enthusiastic about it. One reason was that the benefits were not high, and the other was that the risks of cooperation with the Chinese Communist Party officials were extremely high. Therefore, the private sector has a saying that eliminating us is the CCP’s lofty ideal, and supporting us is their last resort for their own interests. Now that China’s economy is in a bad state, the government urgently needs private capital to invest, so various places have introduced protective measures, including Li Qiang, who also proposed legislation this time.
Zhong Suisui’s Nongfu Spring incident is a bit strange. I tend to think that Zhong Suisui must have offended someone. The most likely reason is that someone is interested in his company. Zhong Suisui personally has an absolute controlling stake in Nongfu Spring. This is his independent kingdom. Selling water to sell such a large group may have never occurred to many powerful families. It is said that the gross profit of Nongfu Spring bottled water is 60%, which is higher than that of Nongfu Spring. Oil is still profitable, so someone may want to take a stake, or someone may want to do some operations in the capital market through this company with huge cash flow, but they were rejected by Zhong Suisui, or the cooperation was not successful. So I took action against Zhong Suisui. I think this possibility is very high. The problem is that you can manipulate the Cyberspace Administration of China, and you can also carry out large-scale actions online and offline together across the country. This is definitely not something ordinary people or ordinary so-called powerful families can do. I even suspect that there may be families of high-ranking CCP officials here. Reasons for internal power struggles.
The new TV program “Elite Forum” launched by NTDTV and The Epoch Times is a high-end TV forum based in the Chinese world. The program will bring together elites from all walks of life around the world to focus on hot topics, analyze the general trend of the world, and provide viewers with relevant information on current social affairs and An in-depth look at historical truth.
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——”Elite Forum” production team
Editor in charge: Li Hao#
2024-03-15 00:28:57
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