Cao Dewang, known as the "King of Glass", is the founder and chairman of Fuyao Glass Group.
Beginning in 2014, Fuyao Group began to invest and build factories in the United States. After 6 years of development, it now has its own factories in five states in the United States.
Cao Dewang's experience in setting up factories in the United States was made into the documentary "American Factory" by an American director. This documentary won the 92nd Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature Film.
Recently, "Face to Face" interviewed Cao Dewang.
If you want to be the world's boss
The factory must be opened to the U.S.
As a representative of Fujian merchants, Cao Dewang relied on the aggressiveness of “dare to be the first in the world, love to fight to win” and started from scratch, completely ending the history of China's auto glass market that is 100% dependent on imports.
The Fuyao Group he founded has also grown to become China's No. 1 and the world's largest supplier of auto glass, which has changed the pattern of the world's auto glass industry.
As early as 2010, Fuyao Group signed a strategic cooperation agreement with General Motors of the United States. Cao Dewang promised to build a factory in the United States within six years to ensure supply in the United States.
Cao Dewang:
In 2011, I was invited by Russia to build a factory in Russia. The information of the Americans was very smooth. When the ribbon was cut, the investment manager of Ohio came to congratulate me on my opening, and said when will the United States start?
Reporter: Do
they want you to go or anyone can go, as long as the capital goes?
Cao Dewang:
No one can go, they want us to go, because we are manufacturing.
Reporter:
Do you want to go to the United States by yourself?
Cao Dewang:
If there is no "GM" contract, I would not go to the United States at that time, because I can't speak English, it is very hard to go.
But for Fuyao, going to the United States is a must. We do auto glass. The United States is the world's largest automobile manufacturing base. If you want to become the world's leader, you must come over.
Pro-
choice, a bargain
The speed of China makes Americans "dumbfounded"
Dayton, Ohio, was once a major industrial town in the United States. During its glorious period, several large American automobile manufacturers gathered.
However, as the local manufacturing industry began to decline in the 1980s, local auto factories have closed down one after another.
In December 2008, General Motors closed its last factory in Dayton. Thousands of people were unemployed. The city fell into depression and turned into a "rust zone."
In 2014, after visiting several cities in the United States, Cao Dewang took a fancy to the old General Motors factory in the Morien District of Dayton.
Cao Dewang:
Excluding vacant land, "GM" used to produce pickup trucks with a total area of approximately 400,000 square meters, and the roof can also drive cars.
Such a good factory was parked in that place, and no one bought it for five or six years. At that time, the property rights were in the hands of the Jews, so I went to negotiate with the Jews.
In the end, Cao Dewang bought a factory building covering an area of 180,000 square meters for 15 million US dollars-equivalent to nearly 100 million yuan.
He plans to transform this abandoned factory for many years into Fuyao Glass's first factory in the United States.
In October 2016, Fuyao Glass's US plant was officially completed and put into production, becoming the world's largest automotive glass monomer plant.
Cao Dewang said that the speed of Chinese construction and installation has made Americans "stunned."
Contact
by filming a documentary
"I'm not stupid Chinese entrepreneurs are open and upright"
Fuyao was not only the largest investment project in Morien District, but also one of the largest investment projects that the United States received during that period. It was welcomed by the local government, and the city government even named a road next to the factory Fuyao Avenue.
The once-abandoned factory turned into a world-class factory. This transformation process was recorded by local directors Steven Bognard and Julia Reichert with a video camera.
Cao Dewang:
I believe that the documentary is unprecedented. No boss dares to let him make it like that.
Because he originally filmed the documentary about the bankruptcy of this factory, called "The Last Truck", when the car was off the assembly line, the workers were full of mourning. When he filmed with me, he remembered the name "The First Piece of Glass", and I said yes.
When the director came to my office to talk to me about the contract, he was very happy when he saw my promise. He thought this Chinese was very stupid and the Americans would not dare to let you shoot. What should I do after the filming is done because of random shooting?
Reporter:
What is random mining and broadcasting?
Cao Dewang:
He hacked you, took out the bad shots, and deleted all the good ones.
Reporter:
Are you afraid?
Cao Dewang:
I'm from China, and I am an entrepreneur who is upright and honest. You can shoot whatever I see, and you can use it to broadcast.
I not only let you take pictures of my work in the United States, if you need to take pictures of my Fuyao Group's factories in China and Russia, I also let you take pictures.
This documentary was finally named "American Factory" and won the 92nd Oscar Award for Best Documentary Feature Film, letting the world know Cao Dewang from China and his American factory.
The American way
Win the union battle
Cao Dewang said that to set up factories in the United States, it is necessary to "match wits and courage" with various forces, and the most fierce disagreement arises in the establishment of trade unions.
Some workers who have been accustomed to the high welfare and high degree of freedom in the GM factory in the past cannot accept the Chinese-style management model and factory culture, and began to plan to form a trade union.
Beginning in the second half of 2016, a team of dozens of people often appeared inside and outside the factory, lobbying other workers to agree to the establishment of a union at the Fuyao factory.
Cao Dewang:
He said that there is room for discussion on the establishment of a trade union?
I said no.
When it comes in, I will go out, and I will turn it off immediately.
To do a good job in the factory, it needs to be managed, but the labor union is anarchist and there is no management. The reason for the bankruptcy of GM in the past is due to the union. I will not let history repeat itself.
UAW—Auto Industry Workers’ Federation, is the rival of Fuyao Group. In the past, GM’s factory caused nearly twice the labor cost of Toyota due to the intervention of this union, and finally declared bankruptcy.
In order to win this battle, Cao Dewang specially spent US$1 million to invite the Labor Relations Committee, an anti-union organization in the United States, to conduct counter-propaganda against workers.
"Since ancient times, we know that soldiers are not belligerent"
To make the U.S. change its view of China and the Chinese people
Fuyao Group has been operating in the U.S. factory for 5 years. It has experienced trade union conflicts, employee efficiency and other unacceptable conditions, trade tensions, global economic slowdown and other major environmental recurrences. Today, it still sits firmly on the top spot in the automotive glass industry. It accounts for about 25% of the global market.
Cao Dewang:
We are all Chinese, and the motherland is our mother. This is eternal.
Today the Chinese come here to set up businesses. The first thing that matters to us is not the question of how much money we make. It is for the Americans to change their views on Chinese people and their views on China.
As early as 1995, Cao Dewang tried to go abroad and invest overseas.
In the eyes of some observers, after decades of introducing foreign factories in China, entrepreneurs represented by Cao Dewang went abroad and established factories all over the world, opening a new history.
Reporter: Is
your factory irreplaceable?
Cao Dewang: It
is irreplaceable.
I came to the United States to invest, all of which came with my own registered proprietary technology. The equipment I am making now is more effective than the equipment made in the United States and Europe. I can now proudly say that we have solved about 30% of the supply in the United States. the amount.
Reporter:
Experts and scholars in any field are predicting the future of Sino-US relations?
Cao Dewang: It
is impossible for Sino-US relations to be calm. First of all, we must manage differences. If you look forward to the future, you will be locked in the country and not going out, and it will not develop.
If you want to go out, you must learn to trust others and slowly achieve mutual trust.
In addition, there must be sufficient ability.
"Since ancient times knowing that soldiers are not militants", I am not a militant, but I must know the soldiers so that when I want to fight, I won't die in the hands of strong men.
Reporter丨Dong Qian