When will I have a long tassel?

"What's going on? Heimsat still won't let go? Have you told each other that the price can still be negotiated. The key is that they must supply us as soon as possible."

In the office of the president of Ningxiang Xinwei Wind Power Equipment Company, President Chu Zhanlong was furious with his subordinates.

Xinwei Wind Power Equipment Company is one of the top large-scale wind power equipment manufacturing companies in China, and its growth history is legendary.

Just ten years ago, Xinwei Company was just an ordinary machinery company in Weixi City, with less than a hundred employees and an annual output value of less than 10 million. By chance, Chu Zhanlong came into contact with the wind power equipment industry. Under the guidance of several industry seniors, Chu Zhanlong spent all his money to import equipment from abroad, focusing on the production of certain accessories for wind turbines to provide supporting equipment for large wind power equipment companies.

The past ten years have witnessed the rapid development of wind power in China. In the words of Tang Zifeng, in such a wind, a pig can dance in the wind. Chu Zhanlong started by making wind power accessories and gradually penetrated into wind power mainframes. The scale of the company also expanded rapidly like blowing air. Last year, Xinwei Company's annual output value exceeded 7 billion yuan, becoming a well-known star enterprise in Weixi City.

Chu Zhanlong summed up an experience from the history of his fortune, which is to identify a rapidly developing industry, make products with a high starting point, and become a high-end player in the industry.

Chu Zhanlong realized that China has gone through the era of capital shortage, especially for emerging industries such as wind power. The owners are not very sensitive to the price of the product, and pay more attention to the technical content of the product. To improve the technical content of products, a very important condition is to use first-class equipment.

So, what is the best equipment?

The answer given by Chu Zhanlong is very simple, that is, imported equipment, Germany's first, Japan's second, if it doesn't work, the United States, Britain, France and Italy can also do it. As for domestic equipment, Chu Zhanlong was completely dismissive.

"How can the Chinese make good machine tools?" Chu Zhanlong often commented with disdain while drinking and chatting with his friends, "The Germans pay attention to the spirit of craftsmanship. German workers have been working for generations. Can we Chinese only make one part? If we don’t talk about anything else, just for the workers in our factory. Counting two generations up, every one of them was born carrying a hoe. We are not good at competing with others in industry. ah."

"But Mr. Chu, when you were interviewed by a reporter from Ningxiang Daily last time, didn't you say that your Xinwei company's fans are of better quality than those of your European counterparts?" It was inevitable that some of the drinking friends would choke. Of course, this only applies when everyone is a little drunk. When they are sober, who cares what Chu Zhanlong is bragging about.

"Our fans... that's because we use machine tools from Germany." Chu Zhanlong reluctantly found an excuse for himself, and there was a murmur in his heart:

Yes, the fans we build are no worse than those of Europeans, so why must our machine tools be worse than those of Europeans?

Of course, such thoughts only flashed through Chu Zhanlong's mind. Whenever the company needed to purchase new equipment, he still told the purchasing manager that the main equipment could only be imported, and some insignificant auxiliary equipment should be used. It doesn't matter if it's made in China. After all, domestic equipment is cheap and solid, and the service is good, and there doesn't seem to be any flaws.

This time, Xinwei Company received an equipment order for a new wind farm in the northwest, with a contract value of more than 3 billion. To complete this order, the company needs to add a large number of new machine tools, including more than a dozen high-precision gantry boring machines, which are still purchased from the German Heimsat Company. But at this moment, something unexpected happened.

The purchase order sent to Heimsat was returned by the other party. The other party claimed that the high-precision gantry boring machines needed by Xinwei Company have been included in the list of equipment temporarily prohibited from being provided to China by the European Union, and therefore cannot be traded. As for when the EU policy will be lifted, Heimsat cannot predict.

When he first received this reply, Chu Zhanlong was a little confused. In the past, he had heard people talk about the West restricting the export of certain technologies to China, but those were all technologies related to military industry and high technology. Wind turbines could also be considered high-tech at one time, but it is said that since the Chinese mastered the design and manufacturing technology of wind turbines, this product has been removed from the high-tech list and has been included in the ranks of "cabbage".

How could such a dumb product trigger the European Union to impose a technology embargo?

"Could this be Heimsat's excuse to raise prices?" Chu Zhanlong guessed.

"We tried the other party's tone, but the other party didn't seem to have this intention." Purchasing manager Xu Jinyun reported.

"Don't just try to talk. You can tell them clearly that we can accept a 10% price increase. If it exceeds this limit,...then we need to talk again." Chu Zhanlong made an authorization.

The purchasing department conveyed this idea to Heimsaat's sales department, but the other party's reply was cold: Sorry, this is not a price issue, but involves EU policies, and there is nothing we can do about it.

"What on earth do they want to do!" Chu Zhanlong was annoyed, "There's no reason not to do business! There are more than a dozen gantry boring machines and tens of millions of euros in sales. Why don't they do it?"

"Mr. Chu, maybe you really don't blame Heimsat for this matter." Some of his subordinates began to analyze it for Chu Zhanlong.

Chu Zhanlong himself did not read much, but after he became rich, he still recruited several doctors from famous universities to serve as his think tanks and help him interpret national policies and the international trade environment. The speaker's name is Lu Yujie. He graduated from Peking University and studied under a well-known economist. His knowledge and eloquence are quite impressive.

"If we want to blame, we still have to blame ourselves. In the past few years, our country has been too high-profile in its propaganda. It always talks about how well our economy is developing and how high our technological level is. We brag too much, how can foreigners do it? Aren't you disgusted? Isn't it normal for people to punish us when they are disgusted with us? "

Lu Yujie explained this.

"Are you saying that the EU banned Heimsaert from exporting gantry boring machines to us because our country is too high-profile in its propaganda?" Chu Zhanlong couldn't believe it.

Chu Zhanlong doesn't know whether China is too high-profile in its propaganda, but based on his experience, he feels that international affairs should not be such a joke, right? Just because the Chinese media boasted a little bit, the EU mobilized all its forces to impose technical sanctions on China. This sounds like the plot of a low-quality TV series.

"Of course, in addition to being too high-profile in publicity, another reason is that we have taken away other people's markets."

After all, Lu Yujie is also a person with some intelligence. He can also think of things that Chu Zhanlong can think of. It does seem unreasonable to explain the trade war and the recent joint actions of the West as a moment of anger, so he has to find some new reasons.

"Our market is not open enough. We only sell takeaways and don't buy other people's goods. As a result, we have a large trade surplus with Western countries. This is one of the reasons why others want to sanction us. If we can control ourselves a little, Don’t try to steal other people’s markets, and our relations with Western countries will be much more relaxed,” Lu Yujie said.

"However, it's not that we deliberately want to seize their market, but that their products are not as competitive as ours and other customers prefer our products. What can we do?" Chu Zhanlong retorted subconsciously.

The latter reason mentioned by Lu Yujie violated Chu Zhanlong's taboo. Xinwei Company has developed rapidly in overseas markets in recent years and has captured the share of many European wind power equipment companies. If according to Lu Yujie, this is the reason why the EU wants to restrict the export of Heimsat machine tools, then it is a deadlock.

It is impossible for Chu Zhanlong to give up overseas markets just to obtain Heimsat's machine tools. The purpose of buying machine tools is to expand production, and expanding production means occupying a larger market. If he can't go overseas to develop, what's the point of buying machine tools?

"Everyone should compete fairly. We all make wind turbines. We can compare technology, cost, and service. If we can't make wind turbines, then our machine tools will get stuck. Isn't this too unruly?" Chu Zhanlong muttered.

"People's understanding of rules may be different from ours. We can't understand the things of Westerners..." Lu Yujie faltered, not knowing how to justify himself.

When he was studying for a doctorate, he learned a lot of Western theories and was able to give a reasonable and satisfactory explanation for everything Western countries did. In these interpretations, Western countries undoubtedly represent nobility, wisdom, tolerance, and justice, while China, in contrast, is a model of cunning, ignorance, narrow-mindedness, and ugliness.

After arriving at Xinwei Company, he gradually discovered that there was a big gap between his knowledge and reality. Although people like Chu Zhanlong have not studied any classical theories, they are well versed in the market and have rich experience in dealing with Western companies.

The West described by Lu Yujie and the West that Chu Zhanlong and the others had actually come into contact with were two completely different concepts. This led to many of the ideas Lu Yujie mentioned being ridiculed by senior executives at company management meetings.

"I think these foreign devils simply can't afford to lose. They are playing tricks on us and talking about irregularities." Xu Jinyun said disdainfully, "I have been doing procurement for so many years and have dealt with these foreign devils a lot. These people also We are the same, having two nostrils and one mouth is nothing special. Those tricksters in business are more sneaky than us, and if you are not careful, you will be tricked by them. All rules and so on are all lies. "

"But now they are messing with us, what should we do?"

Chu Zhanlong said angrily, feeling depressed.