Rong Yiren, a representative of the industrial and commercial sector, speaks at the Third Session of the First National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference on October 31, 1951.
When it comes to the Rong’s enterprises in the Republic of China, it was a famous one. Back then, Rong Zongjing and Rong Desheng, two brothers, started from nothing and founded more than twenty private enterprises in Wuxi and Shanghai, and were known as the “Flour King” and “Cotton King” for decades, which had a profound impact on China’s national economy. The son of Rong Desheng is Rong Yiren, who was called the “Red Capitalist” by the Chinese Communist Party.
Choosing to stay on the mainland
Born in May 1916, Rong Yiren graduated from St. John’s University in Shanghai with a degree in history and then joined the Family business, serving as assistant manager of Wuxi Maoxin Flour Company in 1937, director of Shanghai Hefeng Enterprise Company in 1939, director and manager of Shanghai Sanxin Bank in 1943, and manager of Wuxi Maoxin Flour Company in 1945.
During the late Communist civil war, the monetary and price restriction policies implemented by the Kuomintang triggered serious Inflation and a major shakeup in the Rong family. Shanghai industrialists moved their capital overseas to find a new way out, and the Rong family was no exception. Rong Zongjing’s eldest son Rong Hongyuan, Rong HonSan, Rong Honqing and Rong DeSheng’s sons Rong Erren and Rong Yanren left Shanghai one after another, while Rong DeSheng and Rong Yiren decided to stay on the mainland after repeated deliberations.
It is said that before Rong Erren went to Hong Kong, he agreed with Rong Yiren that “one would stay in the country and the other would go abroad, and if there was no problem, he could come back.” After the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party, Rong’erren returned to China briefly, but applied to leave the country again in 1951 and went to the United States. This move saved him from future bad luck.
Public-Private Partnership Rong’s family assets were plundered by the Communist Party
Rong Desheng and Rong Yiren, who remained in China, received support from the Chinese Communist Party at the beginning, such as providing raw materials, purchasing products for processing, etc. Moreover, since Rong Yiren had many relatives overseas, the Chinese Communist Party adopted the strategy of “promoting” Rong Yiren in order to confuse the outside world. He first became vice mayor of Shanghai in 1957, and then vice minister of the Ministry of Textile Industry. However, the Rong family’s assets were completely plundered during the Communist Party’s industrial and commercial reform campaign, which was aimed at consolidating power under the banner of “implementing public-private partnership in private industry and commerce” but in fact forcibly looting private enterprises.
The Provisional Regulations on Private Enterprises, promulgated shortly after the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949, stipulated that in addition to taxes and the withdrawal of 10% of the provident fund, the profit of a private company should not be less than 60% of the balance of the remuneration of the private shareholders. However, in 1953, it was also stipulated that only 25% of the dividends received by private shareholders could be paid.
In January 1952, the Chinese Communist Party proposed the “Five Anti-Communist Campaigns” against entrepreneurs. If industrialists and businessmen handed over their assets and expressed their support for the Communist Party, they were classified as internal conflicts of the people; if they had antipathy and grievances, they were classified as “counter-revolutionaries” and became the subject of state dictatorship. The principle is that those who go along with it will prosper, while those who go against it will be classified as “counter-revolutionary” and become the target of state dictatorship. The principle is that those who go along will prosper and those who go against will die. In this process, entrepreneurs were called to “explain their problems” day and night, or were taken to private public halls for interrogation and forced to “explain their crimes”. In the midst of the bloodshed, entrepreneurs, small business owners and traders were forced to hand over their assets, and many of them were so humiliated that they took their own lives, swallowed poison and committed suicide, or jumped off buildings.
For the CCP, these were just the beginning, and in 1954, the Provisional Regulations on Public-Private Industrial Enterprises openly stated that “joint ventures are under the leadership of the public side”. In 1955, the Communist Party proposed to buy out the capitalists. The so-called “buyout” did not mean that the state would take another sum of money to buy the capitalists’ enterprises, but that a small amount of the annual profits from the production would be given to the original private owners, which was called “fixed interest”, paying a fixed amount of interest according to the value of the fixed assets.
According to “Breakthrough – A Record of Private Economy in New China” written by Ma Licheng, the fixed interest rate, which ranged from 1% to 6% in February 1956, was set at 5% per annum in July 1956. The fixed interest rate was originally set for seven years, ending in 1962, and later changed to 1965, i.e., a total of ten years. In other words, after the Chinese Communist Party took away the private enterprise owners’ properties, it only gave a limited interest for 10 years, and the private enterprise became owned by the Chinese Communist Party. The CCP’s shamelessness is evident.
In Shanghai, for example, the private shares in its public-private joint ventures amounted to 112,202,000 yuan, accounting for almost half of the private shares in public-private joint ventures in the country. Among the five large households with private shares of over 5 million yuan, four belong to the Rong family, the first one being Rong Yiren’s cousin Rong Hongsan, who accounted for 9,750,100 yuan and received a fixed interest of 487,914 yuan per year, or 40,000 yuan per month; and Rong Yiren accounted for The third place.
The CCP’s move naturally aroused the discontent of many entrepreneurs. In response, the CCP resorted to threats, criticism and struggle to force them into line.
In January 1956, after Mao personally visited Rong Yiren’s Shenxin Nine Factory, Rong Yiren handed over all 56 textile and flour enterprises, which were the assets of his ancestors’ hard work. Chen Yi, then mayor of Shanghai, took him as a role model at a general meeting and declared that “Rong Yiren is a red capitalist”. However, Rong Yiren’s inner pain was not known to outsiders. At that Time, someone wrote the article “Sacrifice to the Factory”, in which the words “years of hard work, once wasted; a few gongs and drums, breaking off ten thousand dollars of family wealth” were hidden behind the resentment against the Chinese Communist Party’s looting practices.
Rong Yiren’s index finger was broken and his left eye was blinded
At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, Rong Yiren’s family was also affected. Rong Yiren’s right index finger was broken by an iron pillar, his wife Yang Jianqing was beaten to death and bedridden, and even their fourth daughter Zhiyuan, who was mentally challenged by cerebritis, was not spared. Later, Mr. and Mrs. Rong Yiren finally saved their lives, but Rong Yiren was sent to the boiler room to transport coal and fell ill with back pain, while his fundus hemorrhage was not treated in time, which also led to Blindness of his left eye. After losing the sight in his left eye, he was sent to scrub toilets.
According to the article “The Last Nobleman” in Zhang Yihe’s “The Past is Not as Smoky”, in August 1966, Zhang Bojun and Zhang Naiqi met at Kang Tongbi’s Home. Zhang Bojun asked Zhang Naiji about the current situation of the DAB and the Federation of Industry and Commerce, and Zhang Naiji said that all the entrepreneurs, except Rong Yiren, had been hit. But Luo Yifeng, who was on the sidelines, corrected: “Rong Yiren actually did not escape either. His public house in Shanghai is famous and extremely beautiful. The Red Guards, who came from high cadres in Beijing, said the whole building belonged to the Four Olds, so they set fire to it and the flames ran from the first floor to the top. They dragged Mrs. Rong from the top floor to the first floor backwards with a belt around her neck, and the after-effects of her concussion were not healed for a long time.”
After the Cultural Revolution, Rong Yiren was used again
After the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese Communist Party, eager to develop the economy, once again thought of the Rong family’s overseas connections, and Rong Yiren was once again promoted by the Chinese Communist Party. 1978, Rong became vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and in 1979, he became president of the China International Trust and Investment Corporation, which was directly under the State Council. With his business strategies and overseas connections, Rong Yiren made a great contribution to the economic development of the CCP.
He applied for membership four times and then asked to leave the Party three times
According to Hong Kong’s Trend magazine, in June 1951, when Rong Yiren was 35 years old and a member of the Finance Committee of the East China Military Commission, he applied for the first time to join the Party. Chen Yi advised him in a very revealing way: “It’s more convenient for you to stay outside the Party, you can do more, and in another 10 years, when you have your 45th birthday, I will be your introducer to the Party.”
In December 1957, Rong Yiren, who had experienced the “anti-rightist” struggle and was the vice mayor of Shanghai, felt the urgency of joining the CPC, and applied for membership for the second time. But Ke Qingshi, then secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Committee, said: “You should stay in the democratic parties and the industrial and commercial circles. If you join the Party, all the capitalists, big and small, will join the Party, and it will be difficult for me to sit in the position of secretary of the municipal party committee.
In October 1962, when Rong Yiren was Vice Minister of Textile Industry, he once again mentioned to Zhou Enlai that Chen Yi had introduced him to the Party. Zhou Enlai’s reply was: “Chen is not going back on his word. My opinion, you are still free outside the Party, if you enter the Party, too much political activity will bury your expertise, which is a pity.”
I don’t know what kind of psychology, after the end of the Cultural Revolution in April 1985, 69-year-old Rong Yiren again applied to join the party, and finally got what he wanted, the introduction to the party was then Vice Premier of the State Council Wan Li, Vice Chairman of the National People’s Congress Peng Chong. 1986 February, Rong Yiren added as a member of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress party group, division of labor responsible for economic and democratic party work.
But what people did not expect was that Rong Yiren, who had easily joined the party, applied for resignation from the party three times. The first time he asked to resign from the party was related to the June 4 Incident; the second time he asked to resign from the party because he had a disagreement with Jiang Zemin; the third time he asked to resign from the party was in June 2000, when Rong Yiren had already retired and came forward on behalf of the major vase parties to ask the Central Political Bureau to open up the democratic parties to participate in politics, and Jiang Zemin told him to cool off. In a fit of rage, Rong Yiren stopped participating in the party’s activities until Jiang stepped down in December 2002.
Conclusion
In October 2005, Rong Yiren died in Beijing. He left behind a last message entitled “I want to say a few words to the Party”, which reads in general: a party that has lost its conviction, a party that is not bound by the law, a party that is detached from the people at large, a party that chases after monetary interests, is hopeless and betrays the People’s Republic. Obviously, it shows that he has regretted not leaving the mainland like his other relatives did, and regretted following the Chinese Communist Party, a treacherous party.
Recent Comments