Trade War with China
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Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Yup it is a dangerous game when the good stop crossing the border, soldier will. Anyway here is another article. Basically it said no more pork and fruit export
Double whammy: U.S. pork, fruit producers brace for second wave of Chinese tariffs
FILE PHOTO: Nick Johnson harvests cranberries in a bog at Gilmore Cranberry Company in Carver, Massachusetts September 14, 2015. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo
By Dominique Patton and Tom Polansek
BEIJING/CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. producers of pork, already saddled with duties enacted in an earlier round of the escalating trade dispute with China, are bracing for further pain after Beijing hit the products with additional tariffs due to come into effect next month.
China implemented a 25 percent duty on most U.S. pork items on April 2, and a 15 percent tariff on a range of fruits and nuts, in response to U.S. tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum products.
Last week it included both categories in a second round of tariffs to be imposed on July 6. No other products have been listed twice.
Pork now faces cumulative import duties of 71 percent, not including value added tax, according to a formula published on the website of China's finance ministry last week. Cumulative duties on fruit amount to 50 percent.
"The additional tariff will put us out of business," said Zhong Zheng, founder of China-based Heartland Brothers, which sells U.S.-produced Berkshire pork to Chinese supermarkets and restaurants.
The United States shipped $489 million worth of pork to China last year, and had the biggest share of import volumes in the first quarter of 2018, at about 117,000 tonnes, according to Chinese customs.
But shipments have since ground to a near halt following the 25 percent tariffs implemented in April, said U.S. meat analyst Brett Stuart, president of Global AgriTrends.
"They've pretty much stopped our pork," he said.
Total duties on U.S. pork will reach 88 percent from next month, after factoring in the 10 percent value added tax, according to one industry expert's calculation.
That comes as margins at some of the biggest U.S. pork processors reach their lowest level in three years, dragged down by surging hog prices and mounting worries over trade with China and Mexico.
With the new duties on U.S. pork, Chinese buyers will turn to other suppliers in Europe and Brazil, said Pan Chenjun, senior analyst at Rabobank.
UNCERTAINTY AND CONFUSION
Compounding the pain, most in the industry were still unsure about how to calculate the new tariffs, leaving them unprepared for the impact.
"We're trying to get confirmation of how the duties will be implemented and we have not been able to," said Joe Schuele, spokesman at the U.S. Meat Export Federation on Wednesday.
The industry association represents firms like Tyson Foods Inc (TSN.N), JBS USA [JBS.UL] and WH Group Ltd's <0288.HK> Smithfield Foods.
Smithfield and Tyson declined to comment. JBS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The North American Meat Institute, an industry group that represents Hormel Foods Corp (HRL.N) and others, is also still waiting to learn the size of the tariff from the American embassy in Beijing or trade officials, said a spokeswoman.
Uncertainty about the size of the tariff makes it harder for meat packers to plan how much pork to process, said Bill Westman, senior vice president of international affairs for the institute.
"When you're planning your production process, you need some lead time and you need some certainty in the market to do it," he said.
"That's why there's some hesitation here. Do we produce for the Chinese market when the tariffs may go up significantly July 6?"
Mark Powers, president of the Northwest Horticultural Council, who handles trade issues for apples, pears and cherries from farms in Washington, Oregon and Idaho, is also seeking confirmation from the U.S. government about how the tariffs will be applied.
Chinese customers had informed him on Wednesday that the latest tariff would replace the earlier one, he added.
A Shanghai-based produce company manager, who declined to be identified, said he believed the new tariffs would not be compounded on existing tariffs, and their inclusion on the latest list was a bureaucratic "oversight".
However, he added that "the document itself is a bit vague so we can't rule out this possibility, if the trade situation further deteriorates".
Imposition of both duties would cause Chinese purchases to fall sharply, he said, and air-freighted cargoes of cherries currently on their way to China would be canceled.
China is the third-largest export market for U.S. fresh cherries, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. U.S. exporters shipped $119 million of fresh cherries to China, just under a third of total shipments worth $605 million in 2017.
Apple and pear shipments would be even harder hit when the season starts this autumn as they face more competition from other markets, said Powers.
"These tariffs amount to some serious money and it makes it difficult to compete," he added.
(Reporting by Dominique Patton and Yawen Chen in Beijing and Thomas Polansek and Karl Plume in Chicago. Additional reporting by Stella Qiu. Editing by Philip McClellan)
Double whammy: U.S. pork, fruit producers brace for second wave of Chinese tariffs
FILE PHOTO: Nick Johnson harvests cranberries in a bog at Gilmore Cranberry Company in Carver, Massachusetts September 14, 2015. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo
By Dominique Patton and Tom Polansek
BEIJING/CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. producers of pork, already saddled with duties enacted in an earlier round of the escalating trade dispute with China, are bracing for further pain after Beijing hit the products with additional tariffs due to come into effect next month.
China implemented a 25 percent duty on most U.S. pork items on April 2, and a 15 percent tariff on a range of fruits and nuts, in response to U.S. tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum products.
Last week it included both categories in a second round of tariffs to be imposed on July 6. No other products have been listed twice.
Pork now faces cumulative import duties of 71 percent, not including value added tax, according to a formula published on the website of China's finance ministry last week. Cumulative duties on fruit amount to 50 percent.
"The additional tariff will put us out of business," said Zhong Zheng, founder of China-based Heartland Brothers, which sells U.S.-produced Berkshire pork to Chinese supermarkets and restaurants.
The United States shipped $489 million worth of pork to China last year, and had the biggest share of import volumes in the first quarter of 2018, at about 117,000 tonnes, according to Chinese customs.
But shipments have since ground to a near halt following the 25 percent tariffs implemented in April, said U.S. meat analyst Brett Stuart, president of Global AgriTrends.
"They've pretty much stopped our pork," he said.
Total duties on U.S. pork will reach 88 percent from next month, after factoring in the 10 percent value added tax, according to one industry expert's calculation.
That comes as margins at some of the biggest U.S. pork processors reach their lowest level in three years, dragged down by surging hog prices and mounting worries over trade with China and Mexico.
With the new duties on U.S. pork, Chinese buyers will turn to other suppliers in Europe and Brazil, said Pan Chenjun, senior analyst at Rabobank.
UNCERTAINTY AND CONFUSION
Compounding the pain, most in the industry were still unsure about how to calculate the new tariffs, leaving them unprepared for the impact.
"We're trying to get confirmation of how the duties will be implemented and we have not been able to," said Joe Schuele, spokesman at the U.S. Meat Export Federation on Wednesday.
The industry association represents firms like Tyson Foods Inc (TSN.N), JBS USA [JBS.UL] and WH Group Ltd's <0288.HK> Smithfield Foods.
Smithfield and Tyson declined to comment. JBS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The North American Meat Institute, an industry group that represents Hormel Foods Corp (HRL.N) and others, is also still waiting to learn the size of the tariff from the American embassy in Beijing or trade officials, said a spokeswoman.
Uncertainty about the size of the tariff makes it harder for meat packers to plan how much pork to process, said Bill Westman, senior vice president of international affairs for the institute.
"When you're planning your production process, you need some lead time and you need some certainty in the market to do it," he said.
"That's why there's some hesitation here. Do we produce for the Chinese market when the tariffs may go up significantly July 6?"
Mark Powers, president of the Northwest Horticultural Council, who handles trade issues for apples, pears and cherries from farms in Washington, Oregon and Idaho, is also seeking confirmation from the U.S. government about how the tariffs will be applied.
Chinese customers had informed him on Wednesday that the latest tariff would replace the earlier one, he added.
A Shanghai-based produce company manager, who declined to be identified, said he believed the new tariffs would not be compounded on existing tariffs, and their inclusion on the latest list was a bureaucratic "oversight".
However, he added that "the document itself is a bit vague so we can't rule out this possibility, if the trade situation further deteriorates".
Imposition of both duties would cause Chinese purchases to fall sharply, he said, and air-freighted cargoes of cherries currently on their way to China would be canceled.
China is the third-largest export market for U.S. fresh cherries, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. U.S. exporters shipped $119 million of fresh cherries to China, just under a third of total shipments worth $605 million in 2017.
Apple and pear shipments would be even harder hit when the season starts this autumn as they face more competition from other markets, said Powers.
"These tariffs amount to some serious money and it makes it difficult to compete," he added.
(Reporting by Dominique Patton and Yawen Chen in Beijing and Thomas Polansek and Karl Plume in Chicago. Additional reporting by Stella Qiu. Editing by Philip McClellan)
Jura The idiot
General
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
American effort to deny China semiconductor advance will come to naught. By hook and crook they will advance their semiconductor industry. I am not sure if we can believe all of this article Of course there is some truth in it . In history there is no way you can keep invention a secret China printing and silk technology were smuggled too
As I say China should keep Taiwan separate for her own benefit as she become the conduit of high tech to China
From New YOrk time for full article click the link interesting
Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power
0:05Vast Factory Shows China’s Chip Drive
Fujian Jinhua, a new semiconductor maker, is building a chip factory with 100,000 square feet of office space in a region formerly known for manufacturing shoes.
By June 22, 2018
JINJIANG, China — With a dragnet closing in, engineers at a Taiwanese chip maker holding American secrets did their best to conceal a daring case of corporate espionage.
As the police raided their offices, human resources workers gave the engineers a warning to scramble and get rid of the evidence. USB drives, laptops and documents were handed to a lower-level employee, who hid them in her locker. Then she walked one engineer’s phone out the front door.
What those devices contained was more valuable than gold or jewels: designs from an American company, Micron Technology, for microchips that have helped power the global digital revolution. According to the Taiwanese authorities, the designs were bound for China, where they would help a new, $5.7 billion microchip factory the size of several airplane hangars rumble into production.
China has ambitious plans to overhaul its economy and compete head-to-head with the United States and other nations in the technology of tomorrow. The heist of the designs two years ago and the raids last year, which were described by Micron in court filings and the police in Taiwan, represent the dark side of that effort — and explain in part why the United States is starting with China.
calls for the country to become a global competitor in an array of industries, including semiconductors, robotics and electric vehicles. China is spending heavily to both innovate and buy up technology from abroad.
Politicians in Washington and American companies accuse China of veering into intimidation and outright theft to get there. And they see Micron, an Idaho company whose memory chips give phones and computers the critical ability to store and quickly retrieve information, as a prime example of that aggression.
Three years ago, Micron spurned from a state-controlled Chinese company. Today it faces a lawsuit and an investigation in China, which accounts for about half its $20 billion in annual sales.
Then Micron was the target of the heist in Taiwan, according to officials there and a lawsuit the company has brought against the Taiwanese company that employed the engineers, UMC, and the Chinese company it says wanted access to the technology, Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Company.
Other companies may face similar predicaments to Micron, industry experts said.
One state-backed factory in the city of Wuhan, owned by Yangtze Memory Technology Company, or YMTC, will be turning out chips that look similar to those made by Samsung, the South Korean chip maker, said Mark Newman, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein.
YMTC’s production facilities, one way China’s leaders show their endorsement for projects.
China defends Made in China 2025 as necessary for its economic survival. It still depends on other countries for crucial goods like chips and software, and China is offering funding for homegrown labs and for entrepreneurs who hope to grab a piece of the future.
But Trump administration officials in a recounted how Chinese officials have at times helped local companies get intellectual property from American firms, including in the energy, electronics, software and avionics sectors.
American business groups worried about Made in China 2025 point to Micron. The account of its struggles was based on Taiwanese and American legal documents.
In 2015, representatives from Tsinghua Unigroup, a Chinese chip maker with major state backing, approached Micron with an acquisition offer, which the company rejected. It later also turned down several partnership offers from Chinese companies out of concern for protecting its technology, said a person with knowledge of the situation, who asked not to be identified because the person lacked authorization to speak publicly.
the price jump, also gave a multimillion-dollar grant to Jinhua.
Jinhua and other Chinese chip makers in catching up. Production of semiconductors involves a highly complex and automated production process that controls everything down to the atomic level.
As I say China should keep Taiwan separate for her own benefit as she become the conduit of high tech to China
From New YOrk time for full article click the link interesting
Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power
0:05Vast Factory Shows China’s Chip Drive
Fujian Jinhua, a new semiconductor maker, is building a chip factory with 100,000 square feet of office space in a region formerly known for manufacturing shoes.
By June 22, 2018
JINJIANG, China — With a dragnet closing in, engineers at a Taiwanese chip maker holding American secrets did their best to conceal a daring case of corporate espionage.
As the police raided their offices, human resources workers gave the engineers a warning to scramble and get rid of the evidence. USB drives, laptops and documents were handed to a lower-level employee, who hid them in her locker. Then she walked one engineer’s phone out the front door.
What those devices contained was more valuable than gold or jewels: designs from an American company, Micron Technology, for microchips that have helped power the global digital revolution. According to the Taiwanese authorities, the designs were bound for China, where they would help a new, $5.7 billion microchip factory the size of several airplane hangars rumble into production.
China has ambitious plans to overhaul its economy and compete head-to-head with the United States and other nations in the technology of tomorrow. The heist of the designs two years ago and the raids last year, which were described by Micron in court filings and the police in Taiwan, represent the dark side of that effort — and explain in part why the United States is starting with China.
calls for the country to become a global competitor in an array of industries, including semiconductors, robotics and electric vehicles. China is spending heavily to both innovate and buy up technology from abroad.
Politicians in Washington and American companies accuse China of veering into intimidation and outright theft to get there. And they see Micron, an Idaho company whose memory chips give phones and computers the critical ability to store and quickly retrieve information, as a prime example of that aggression.
Three years ago, Micron spurned from a state-controlled Chinese company. Today it faces a lawsuit and an investigation in China, which accounts for about half its $20 billion in annual sales.
Then Micron was the target of the heist in Taiwan, according to officials there and a lawsuit the company has brought against the Taiwanese company that employed the engineers, UMC, and the Chinese company it says wanted access to the technology, Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Company.
Other companies may face similar predicaments to Micron, industry experts said.
One state-backed factory in the city of Wuhan, owned by Yangtze Memory Technology Company, or YMTC, will be turning out chips that look similar to those made by Samsung, the South Korean chip maker, said Mark Newman, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein.
YMTC’s production facilities, one way China’s leaders show their endorsement for projects.
China defends Made in China 2025 as necessary for its economic survival. It still depends on other countries for crucial goods like chips and software, and China is offering funding for homegrown labs and for entrepreneurs who hope to grab a piece of the future.
But Trump administration officials in a recounted how Chinese officials have at times helped local companies get intellectual property from American firms, including in the energy, electronics, software and avionics sectors.
American business groups worried about Made in China 2025 point to Micron. The account of its struggles was based on Taiwanese and American legal documents.
In 2015, representatives from Tsinghua Unigroup, a Chinese chip maker with major state backing, approached Micron with an acquisition offer, which the company rejected. It later also turned down several partnership offers from Chinese companies out of concern for protecting its technology, said a person with knowledge of the situation, who asked not to be identified because the person lacked authorization to speak publicly.
the price jump, also gave a multimillion-dollar grant to Jinhua.
Jinhua and other Chinese chip makers in catching up. Production of semiconductors involves a highly complex and automated production process that controls everything down to the atomic level.
Jura The idiot
General
not directly related to China, but very interesting is the tweet
Based on the Tariffs and Trade Barriers long placed on the U.S. and it great companies and workers by the European Union, if these Tariffs and Barriers are not soon broken down and removed, we will be placing a 20% Tariff on all of their cars coming into the U.S. Build them here!
Based on the Tariffs and Trade Barriers long placed on the U.S. and it great companies and workers by the European Union, if these Tariffs and Barriers are not soon broken down and removed, we will be placing a 20% Tariff on all of their cars coming into the U.S. Build them here!
Jura The idiot
General
American efforts to stifle Chinese development and scientific advances are likely proven to be nothing more than small blips in the long term. Contrary to what many Americans may believe or made to believe, the US has been placing restrictions on Chinese technology development since before China had any sizeable modern industry. Most of the restrictions were long in place, but they didn't stop China from becoming a nuclear power, they didn't stop China from developing ICBMs, or putting man into space, building a Space Station which is likely to become the only one in orbit some years later. It didn't stop China from developing the J20 or the 055, or the railgun.
Heck, it didn't even stop NK from developing nuclear weapons.
Many weaknesses of Chinese manufacturing are actually in areas where technology is most readily available for purchase. Say the auto industry, many of the so-called joint ventures which are so heavily criticised by the US for forced technology transfers and industrial espionage, are now actually simply local manufacturing factories for overseas partners such as Ford or VW. Those auto brands that are much more "Chinese" and independent are now quickly becoming the most popular car brands in China within that budget region, and many are producing car models that much better suit Chinese consumers' preferences and demands.
Problems for China's economy lies within, and arguably the same can be said for the US economy. But China knows this and tries to focus on its structural problems (e.g. high level of debt, housing affordability, low birth rates and population growth, the need for consumption to grow, heavy reliance on state-led investment, pollution, etc etc) while the US is simply blaming its problem on everybody else.
Heck, it didn't even stop NK from developing nuclear weapons.
Many weaknesses of Chinese manufacturing are actually in areas where technology is most readily available for purchase. Say the auto industry, many of the so-called joint ventures which are so heavily criticised by the US for forced technology transfers and industrial espionage, are now actually simply local manufacturing factories for overseas partners such as Ford or VW. Those auto brands that are much more "Chinese" and independent are now quickly becoming the most popular car brands in China within that budget region, and many are producing car models that much better suit Chinese consumers' preferences and demands.
Problems for China's economy lies within, and arguably the same can be said for the US economy. But China knows this and tries to focus on its structural problems (e.g. high level of debt, housing affordability, low birth rates and population growth, the need for consumption to grow, heavy reliance on state-led investment, pollution, etc etc) while the US is simply blaming its problem on everybody else.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Exactly what make China such a formidable foe is their entrepreneurship spirit. It was submerged under Mao but only beneath the surface. As soon as the restriction was lifted the old instinct revive again with vengeance. Here is the story of one enterprising young man Multiply that by hundred of million and you get a juggernaut
Profile: Growing prosperity in fields of honest toil -- an overseas graduate goes home
Source: Xinhua| 2018-06-23 12:53:37|Editor: ZD
ZHENGZHOU, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Despite growing up in the countryside, Shi Pengfei's life was envied by many.
His father began as a poor farmer in Weishi County, Henan Province, who worked hard and was soon able to open a drug store, providing the family with a much better lifestyle than most of their fellow villagers.
Shi was lucky enough to attend XJTLU, a cooperation project between Xi'an Jiaotong University and the University of Liverpool. The final two years of his bachelor's degree were spent studying in Liverpool in the UK.
So it came as quite a shock when he returned home after graduation in 2014 and found himself widely derided as a "loser" by the selfsame villagers who had given him such a rousing sendoff two years before.
Villagers had expected him to find a good job in a big city, if not abroad, and were shocked and dismayed when he returned to his rural home expecting to make a living there. His choice of farming as a career made no sense to people who spent much of their lives trying to escape from endless toil in muddy fields.
Now, at 26, Shi is boss of a cooperative with more than 100 hectares of contracted farmland devoted to high-end produce including Australian red-clawed crayfish, loach and mushrooms.
PIGS, PEPPERS, PENURY
Weishi County is a base for traditional crops like wheat, corn and beans that provide little more than subsistence for individual farmers tilling their own plots.
During his time in Liverpool, he had the chance to observe intensive farming in action, and saw an opportunity to return to his agricultural roots.
"I saw huge potential in farming back home," he told Xinhua.
His parents were devastated, believing the money spent on his tuition had been wasted. They had sent their son to market with the family's metaphorical cow and he had returned with little more than a handful of "magic beans."
"My mom wailed and sobbed all night long. She wanted me to become a civil servant," he recalled. Undaunted by these maternal histrionics, Shi contracted seven hectares of farmland, acquired some black pigs, planted green peppers, and completely failed to make any money.
Black pigs are expensive. Their lean meat has an excellent reputation in the Chinese market. With no idea how to care for them, Shi's pigs grew so fat that meat packers refused to buy them. The peppers rotted in the fields as Shi found few buyers and no refrigeration for storage.
The next year his carp, a hard-to-raise fish with low-quality flesh that sells cheaply, died in the pond.
Shi may not have known much about farming, but he knew how to learn a lesson. He decided to hire "professionals," including graduates in animal epidemiology and aquiculture, and offered them a share of his company.
HARMONY IN THE FIELDS
A business administration degree did not help Shi much as he sweated over managing the cooperative, quite the opposite.
His employees were made to clock in and clock out. Shi made deductions from their wages if they made mistakes. His "modern methods" achieved nothing. Indeed, they did more harm than good, as his rigid system did little but rile his staff and breed tension.
Moreover, as his farm laborers were paid by the day, they became exceptionally prone to loafing on the job. One day, Shi inspected a field that had already been "weeded" and found roots everywhere, concealed beneath a thin layer of topsoil.
"Unlike obedient company employees, these laborers, many of whom were my relatives, would not listen to me at all," Shi recalled.
Frustrated by his own managerial inadequacies, he decided to hire respected villagers to manage his laborforce and began to pay his workers according to their productivity: The more you work, the more you earn.
"Personal relations are important in management, something which can't be learned from textbooks," he said. Shi decided to work in the fields alongside his laborers, not just to learn more about farming, but to establish better relationships with his employees. He now has 60 full-time workers and up to 200 casual laborers in peak season.
Villagers take home not only the wages they get from Shi but also rent for their farmland from the cooperative.
With the help of his professional advisors, Shi's ponds now swarm with crayfish and loaches. His polytunnels are fat with fungi. Tourists come for sightseeing and stay to pick grapes and cherries.
He finally made profit -- 2 million yuan (300,000 U.S. dollars) -- in 2017.
Professional farmers, those who are skilled in agriculture, technology and management, number over 14 million in China today with the number expected to exceed 20 million by 2020.
"We can't secure our profits unless we target the high-end of the market with high value-added products. Those products only exist as a result of the harmony between technical expertise and the sweat of our workers' brows," Shi said.
KEY WORDS:
Profile: Growing prosperity in fields of honest toil -- an overseas graduate goes home
Source: Xinhua| 2018-06-23 12:53:37|Editor: ZD
ZHENGZHOU, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Despite growing up in the countryside, Shi Pengfei's life was envied by many.
His father began as a poor farmer in Weishi County, Henan Province, who worked hard and was soon able to open a drug store, providing the family with a much better lifestyle than most of their fellow villagers.
Shi was lucky enough to attend XJTLU, a cooperation project between Xi'an Jiaotong University and the University of Liverpool. The final two years of his bachelor's degree were spent studying in Liverpool in the UK.
So it came as quite a shock when he returned home after graduation in 2014 and found himself widely derided as a "loser" by the selfsame villagers who had given him such a rousing sendoff two years before.
Villagers had expected him to find a good job in a big city, if not abroad, and were shocked and dismayed when he returned to his rural home expecting to make a living there. His choice of farming as a career made no sense to people who spent much of their lives trying to escape from endless toil in muddy fields.
Now, at 26, Shi is boss of a cooperative with more than 100 hectares of contracted farmland devoted to high-end produce including Australian red-clawed crayfish, loach and mushrooms.
PIGS, PEPPERS, PENURY
Weishi County is a base for traditional crops like wheat, corn and beans that provide little more than subsistence for individual farmers tilling their own plots.
During his time in Liverpool, he had the chance to observe intensive farming in action, and saw an opportunity to return to his agricultural roots.
"I saw huge potential in farming back home," he told Xinhua.
His parents were devastated, believing the money spent on his tuition had been wasted. They had sent their son to market with the family's metaphorical cow and he had returned with little more than a handful of "magic beans."
"My mom wailed and sobbed all night long. She wanted me to become a civil servant," he recalled. Undaunted by these maternal histrionics, Shi contracted seven hectares of farmland, acquired some black pigs, planted green peppers, and completely failed to make any money.
Black pigs are expensive. Their lean meat has an excellent reputation in the Chinese market. With no idea how to care for them, Shi's pigs grew so fat that meat packers refused to buy them. The peppers rotted in the fields as Shi found few buyers and no refrigeration for storage.
The next year his carp, a hard-to-raise fish with low-quality flesh that sells cheaply, died in the pond.
Shi may not have known much about farming, but he knew how to learn a lesson. He decided to hire "professionals," including graduates in animal epidemiology and aquiculture, and offered them a share of his company.
HARMONY IN THE FIELDS
A business administration degree did not help Shi much as he sweated over managing the cooperative, quite the opposite.
His employees were made to clock in and clock out. Shi made deductions from their wages if they made mistakes. His "modern methods" achieved nothing. Indeed, they did more harm than good, as his rigid system did little but rile his staff and breed tension.
Moreover, as his farm laborers were paid by the day, they became exceptionally prone to loafing on the job. One day, Shi inspected a field that had already been "weeded" and found roots everywhere, concealed beneath a thin layer of topsoil.
"Unlike obedient company employees, these laborers, many of whom were my relatives, would not listen to me at all," Shi recalled.
Frustrated by his own managerial inadequacies, he decided to hire respected villagers to manage his laborforce and began to pay his workers according to their productivity: The more you work, the more you earn.
"Personal relations are important in management, something which can't be learned from textbooks," he said. Shi decided to work in the fields alongside his laborers, not just to learn more about farming, but to establish better relationships with his employees. He now has 60 full-time workers and up to 200 casual laborers in peak season.
Villagers take home not only the wages they get from Shi but also rent for their farmland from the cooperative.
With the help of his professional advisors, Shi's ponds now swarm with crayfish and loaches. His polytunnels are fat with fungi. Tourists come for sightseeing and stay to pick grapes and cherries.
He finally made profit -- 2 million yuan (300,000 U.S. dollars) -- in 2017.
Professional farmers, those who are skilled in agriculture, technology and management, number over 14 million in China today with the number expected to exceed 20 million by 2020.
"We can't secure our profits unless we target the high-end of the market with high value-added products. Those products only exist as a result of the harmony between technical expertise and the sweat of our workers' brows," Shi said.
KEY WORDS:
In many ways the Chinese share lots of similarities with the traditional American values. Entrepreneurial, down-to-earth, believing in self-made success, values family and community.
Americans are far more individualistic - or, shall I say, sociopathic. You are correct in that they are both distinctly entrepreneurial, though.
(This is not to imply that most Americans have sociopathic tendencies; indeed, the level of social trust is much higher in American society. But sociopaths are quite overrepresented among American elites, indicating a certain cultural disposition that appears to reward sociopathy in business and politics.)
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