China News Agency, Beijing, June 11th: Wen Tiejun: What is the practical significance of "Zhang Jian's spirit"?
China News Agency reporter Chen Su
Zhang Jian is a modern Chinese industrialist, statesman and educator. He advocates "industry to save the country". He founded more than 30 enterprises and hundreds of schools in his life. Liguan is the representative and model of Chinese national entrepreneurs.
What is the "Zhang Jian spirit", and what are the similarities and differences with the modern Western business spirit?
In today's society, what is the practical significance of "Zhang Jian spirit"?
China News Agency "East and West Questions" recently interviewed Wen Tiejun, a professor at Renmin University of China.
The interview transcript is as follows:
China News Service reporter: How did the "Zhang Jian spirit" come into being? What is the historical background?
Wen Tiejun
: Zhang Jian was both the first "social entrepreneur" in the modern industrial history of China and the last champion in the late Qing Dynasty. The two complement each other and make him a "Confucian businessman" -- he has a profound foundation in Chinese studies and traditional culture. Behavior is bound up with his knowledge and thought.
Before the Renwu Incident in North Korea in 1882, Zhang Jian went with the Beiyang Navy to aid and protect him under the principle of "Lihua before the enemy's military". He was 29 years old that year.
Therefore, Zhang Jian has a deeper understanding of the conditions of the semi-colonies formed by imperialist aggression and partitioning than the average person.
In 1894, the defeat of the Sino-Japanese War, this national humiliation had a huge impact on Zhang Jian. After that, Zhang Jian resigned in anger and returned to his hometown to set up a factory.
After returning to his hometown, Zhang Jian established Dasheng Group with the aim of developing social undertakings rather than pursuing personal interests with capital, realizing the comprehensive development of Nantong's "county economy" at that time.
Statue of Zhang Jian in the Central Park of Nantong, Jiangsu Province (photographed in 2012).
Photo by Song Chenglin issued by China News Agency
China News Agency reporter: What are the similarities and differences between the "Zhang Jian spirit" and the modern Western business spirit?
Wen Tiejun
: Since the Westernization Movement, local Chinese authorities began to set up enterprises with the motive of enriching the country and strengthening the army. With the failure of the Sino-Japanese War, they began to be jointly run by government and businessmen. Zhang Jian is a representative of this group of entrepreneurs.
The joint venture between the government and the businessman determined that these entrepreneurs could not be pure private entrepreneurs from the perspective of property relations. The machinery and equipment that Zhang Jian founded the enterprise were left over from the Westernization Movement and became the official stock of Dasheng Group.
Therefore, Dasheng Group is a typical example of government-business cooperation, and if the later concept is used, it is a typical example of "public-private partnership".
Visitors view the Henry looms used by Nantong Dasheng Spinning Factory at the Chinese Communist Party History Exhibition Hall in Beijing.
Photo by Chen Xiaogen issued by China News Agency
Modern entrepreneurs belonged to the nascent bourgeoisie, a revolutionary class at that time, with the political character of class revolution.
Therefore, from the background of the birth of modern Chinese enterprises, it is impossible for China's private economy or private enterprises to be rooted in the "entrepreneur is a group that pursues the maximization of private interests" as mentioned in Western textbooks. Entrepreneurs are also different from the behavior of private entrepreneurs as defined by general textbooks.
Some self-talking Western scholars may not know that China has such a group of entrepreneurs like Zhang Jian. These entrepreneurs have not pursued the maximization of personal interests since the beginning of China's modern industry. Strong ideological, but also has the political character of class revolution.
China News Service reporter: What are the spiritual cores of "Zhang Jian Spirit", and what can today's entrepreneurs learn from Zhang Jian?
Wen Tiejun
: A very important thought of Zhang Jian is to emphasize "villageism" and advocate local autonomy.
He uses all the corporate profits for the construction of "localized" social undertakings.
The local construction guided by Zhang Jian's "villageism" ideology has achieved remarkable results. Nantong has become a model county of local autonomy in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. , sports, parks, museums, libraries, theaters and other social and cultural undertakings have been advanced.
Jiangsu Nantong Museum was founded by Zhang Jian in 1905. It is the first public museum in China.
Photo by Song Chenglin issued by China News Agency
In order to improve the organization of farmers and agriculture, Zhang Jian did not go to the countryside to directly occupy farmers' resources and exclude farmers like some enterprises today. The pastoral company interacts, and on the other hand, it engages in "company + farmer" to organically integrate industry and farmers' home handicraft through "factory yarn and household weaving". combined with the traditional structure.
This kind of interaction between workers and farmers, and the practice of subsidizing farmers with workers also has practical significance for today's "industrial prosperity".
In September 2021, Nantong City, Jiangsu Province, the production scene in the original drama "The Legend of Zhang Jian".
Photo by Xu Peiqin issued by China News Agency
Zhang Jian's institutional innovation reflects 2,500 years ago in Confucius's book "The Great Harmony of Rites and Fortunes" that "the journey of the great road is also the world for the public." All those with disabilities have something to support.” In Nantong at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, Zhang Jian basically realized the ideal of Confucius and the contemporary “Three Communities (symbiosis, sharing and co-governance)”, and the common prosperity, urban-rural integration, and tolerance pursued by today’s China Sexual development, etc., were all reflected in Nantong during the Zhang Jian period.
In May 2021, visitors from Nantong City, Jiangsu Province visited the special exhibition "The Model of Patriotic Entrepreneurs, the Model of National Entrepreneurs, and the Sage of Private Entrepreneurs - Zhang Jian".
Photo by Xu Peiqin issued by China News Agency
Zhang Jian's most valuable spiritual heritage is "selflessness". From the establishment of Dasheng Group in 1895 to his death in 1926, after more than 30 years, Zhang Jian not only did not pursue private capital gains, but also contributed to the development of local social and cultural education and other public utilities. owed a lot of debt.
Therefore, we call Zhang Jian "a capitalist without a penny of private capital gains".
Today's entrepreneurs should learn from Zhang Jian and strive to be a social entrepreneur.
China News Service reporter: What is the significance of the era of "Zhang Jian spirit"? What is the significance of the "localization" principle of Zhang Jian's business establishment in the context of creating a new pattern of "dual circulation"?
Wen Tiejun
: Zhang Jian's experience in the "localization" of the industry and the integration and development of multiple business formats is of great significance for reference in the current new stage.
The "Digital Spinning Workshop" of Jiangsu Dasheng Group, taken in October 2020.
Jiangsu Dasheng Group Co., Ltd., formerly known as Dasheng Spinning Factory, was founded in 1895 by Mr. Zhang Jian, the champion of the late Qing Dynasty and a modern Chinese industrialist.
The group now has 12 wholly-owned, holding and joint-stock companies with a total of about 5,000 employees.
Photo by Xu Congjun issued by China News Agency
Zhang Jian established a multi-business integration, comprehensive and systematic development model, and proposed that "where a factory is set up, it must be produced by raw goods from all sides of the factory".
From his experience, the local sales of local products is the construction mechanism of the internal circulation of "localization", which not only establishes the processing industry, but also develops the production of raw materials, and builds the logistics industry of dock warehouses; more importantly, with the The formation of the industrial chain has also promoted the construction of the financial and insurance industries.
This kind of comprehensive industrial group can promote the cost control of social enterprises and form a comparative advantage, which is not inferior to today's people.
At present, China is building a new development pattern with internal circulation as the main body. To implement the "industry staying in the county" advocated by the central government, it is necessary to learn Zhang Jian's "localization" development concept and improve the resilience of the county industrial chain.
At the same time, under the trend of today's financial industry and insurance industry becoming increasingly alienated from entities, entrepreneurs should also learn from Zhang Jian's useful experience in promoting the comprehensive development of county-level industries.
In addition, Zhang Jian's experience also reminds the importance of developing social undertakings such as culture and education. The quality of labor of Dasheng Group is higher than that of other places and industries, and even disabled laborers are educated. Comprehensive social development and comprehensive industrial development constitute At the same time, the comprehensive development of society has also brought stability and unity to one side.
(Finish)
Interviewee Profile:
Wen Tiejun, born in Beijing in 1951, was the first dean of the School of Agriculture and Rural Development of Renmin University of China, the Institute for Advanced Study of Sustainable Development, and the Institute of Rural Economy and Finance. He is currently the chief researcher of the Rural Revitalization Institute of Jinan University. He is also a distinguished professor of several universities and honorary dean of several local Rural Revitalization Research Institutes.
His research fields include comparative studies of developing countries, national conditions and growth, institutional changes, rural governance and rural construction, and rural fiscal, taxation and financial reforms.