"Dad, why are you back?"
The Yan family home.
After Yan Yan heard the knock at the door, she opened it and saw her father, Yan Liming, standing there.
At this moment, Yan Liming looked travel-worn.
Li Yuhua from the inner room also heard the commotion, came out, and curiously asked,
"Why are you suddenly back without even a heads-up?"
The tired-looking Yan Liming hastily changed into slippers, casually tossed his briefcase onto the sofa, and let out a comfortable groan as soon as he sat down:
"Don't even get me started. I was still on an inspection tour in a lower county when people from Dongjiang found me and dragged me off for a long talk. After the talk, I don't know what connections they used, but they directly got our secretary to come and talk to me, and forcibly put me on leave."
Li Yuhua, who was applying a face mask, was stunned upon hearing this, while Yan Yan next to her pursed her lips and smiled.
"Ah, you were also forced to take leave? Me too."
Yan Liming was speechless.
"You too, because of Chen Pingjiang's wafer factory matter?"
Li Yuhua nodded:
"Yes, this morning, a deputy minister from the Municipal Party Committee's Publicity Department came to talk to me personally."
"Well, they really went all out and spared no effort."
Li Yuhua sighed, thinking that having such a capable future son-in-law wasn't always a good thing.
"I called Chen Pingjiang this afternoon, and he won't be back until the day after tomorrow. And how are we supposed to even bring this up? Will Chen Pingjiang think we're being too nosy?"
"Don't just think so, it's a certainty. Dongjiang's approach will ultimately make things very awkward."
Yan Liming was now convinced.
Who is Chen Pingjiang?
Nominally his son-in-law, but in reality, he still had to act according to his son-in-law's mood.
It was this good son-in-law who single-handedly helped him rise.
Without Chen Pingjiang, he might still be a mere discipline inspection official in Wujiang District.
Yan Liming felt that Chen Pingjiang had already invested many projects in Wujiang District and Dongjiang City.
Moreover, every project was extremely successful, not only boosting Wujiang District but also driving the entire Dongjiang City's tax revenue, economic development, and talent aggregation.
Many supporting upstream and downstream companies also rushed in.
In just a few years, the Renren.com area, which was once barren land, is now dotted with high-rise buildings, complete with supporting facilities, and even housing prices have soared.
Renren.com alone pays over a billion in taxes annually.
And this figure is constantly growing with Renren.com's rapid development.
In this regard, they have done their utmost.
Dongjiang truly has no reason to keep others from investing and setting up factories here.
Corporate site selection inherently involves considering multiple factors.
Dongjiang's various resources are decent, but to be honest, they are still a bit inferior to Shanghai.
At the very least, it's not close to a port.
In Yan Liming's view, Chen Pingjiang must have his reasons for choosing to set up a factory in Shanghai, and he truly couldn't bring himself to try and persuade Chen Pingjiang.
Of course, Yan Liming, being in this line of work, understood the value and prospects contained within this project.
Frankly, if he weren't Chen Pingjiang's future father-in-law, he would definitely go all out to keep Huaxin.
Hearing her husband complain, Li Yuhua's expression also didn't look too good.
"What's the point of saying all this? The higher-ups have put pressure on us; how can we not comply? After all, we're civil servants."
Both of them found it difficult to speak.
After a moment of thought, they both involuntarily turned their gaze towards their daughter, Yan Yan.
Yan Yan, instantly understanding what they meant, waved her hands frantically and said,
"I can't do it, I can't do it. I can't bring myself to talk about something like this."
Yan Yan clearly distinguished work matters and would never overstep with Chen Pingjiang.
Yan Liming spread his hands, well, everyone found it hard to speak.
The key was that even if they did speak up, Chen Pingjiang might not agree, and in the end, the organization would think they were ineffective.
This was the most headache-inducing part.
Thinking of the unsolvable outcome, Yan Liming could only wave his hand:
"Is there any leftover food at home? Get me a little; I rushed back in a hurry and didn't even stop at a service area along the way."
......
It was two days later when Chen Pingjiang returned to Dongjiang from Shanghai.
These two days of various negotiations were indeed a bit of a headache.
However, matters of principle could not be easily agreed upon.
Even without all the efforts from Shanghai, Chen Pingjiang truly didn't want to keep Huaxing in Dongjiang.
Even mice know not to keep all their grain in one hole.
When Chen Pingjiang arrived home, Yan Liming, Li Yuhua, and Yan Yan were already waiting at Zhongshan Villa.
Upon seeing Chen Pingjiang, Yan Yan first showed delight, then walked up with a smile and took Chen Pingjiang's luggage.
In recent months, Chen Pingjiang had been constantly traveling, and Yan Yan felt she hadn't spent much quality time with him.
"Pingjiang, you're back? You must be exhausted,"
Li Yuhua greeted him.
Chen Pingjiang nodded,
"Uncle Yan, Aunt Li, why are you here? Are you not working today, Thursday?"
Yan Liming and Li Yuhua exchanged a slightly awkward glance, unsure how to explain themselves at that moment.
Finally, Yan Yan chuckled lightly:
"They were sent back by their workplaces because of your wafer factory's site selection."
Chen Pingjiang immediately understood what was going on and smiled helplessly.
Dongjiang truly spared no effort.
After thinking for a moment, Chen Pingjiang still said,
"Since Uncle Yan is here, I can't make things difficult for you. Just tell the person in charge of this matter in Dongjiang that although Huaxin won't consider setting up a factory in Dongjiang, in a few years, Dongjiang will still have another world-class company."
Yan Liming was somewhat tempted:
"Are you working on another project?"
"It was last year. I brought back a drone manufacturing company from Shenzhen. It's estimated that this year, we'll mass-produce the world's first integrated drone, and in just a few years, the whole world will know it."
Seeing Chen Pingjiang speak with such confidence, Yan Liming's hanging heart finally settled.
This is good too; what is lost in the east is gained in the west.
At least he'll have something to report when he goes back.
At this moment, Empress Dowager Xu spoke up:
"Since you're back, stop talking about work. Everyone is here today, so let's choose a date for the engagement and then inform both families' relatives and elders."
Hearing this, Yan Yan instinctively blushed and found an excuse to walk away.
Her father, Yan Liming, watched with a knowing smile.
"You all discuss the date. I need to catch up on some sleep; I didn't sleep well last night."
Chen Pingjiang yawned and excused himself to go upstairs.
For engagements, someone will handle everything anyway; he just needs to show up on the day.
After Chen Pingjiang fell asleep, Yan Yan quietly, at some unknown point, climbed onto his bed and just stared at him blankly, a smile playing on her lips.
She couldn't imagine they had been together for so long.
She still remembered their first meeting, their Ferris wheel ride together, and even more, their first night spent together in the same room...
Gradually, she became lost in her thoughts.
......
Clearly, Yan Liming had delivered the message effectively.
The next day, as expected, no one from Dongjiang came to bother him again, and he immediately felt much more relaxed.
He spent the entire day at Renren.com and Orange Tech, listening to progress reports on various tasks.
After entering 2011, with the booming development of the smartphone market and Tencent's Wechat transformation, WeChat proudly became an indispensable communication software.
However, there were also problems.
The most obvious was the increasingly fierce conflict between WeChat and the three major telecom operators.
Chen Pingjiang had already discussed this matter with representatives of the three major operators in July last year, but no consensus was reached.
Subsequently, Chen Pingjiang didn't pay much heed and forcibly launched WeChat version 3.0.
As expected, more and more people used WeChat to replace SMS and voice calls, and the performance of the three major operators was indeed significantly impacted.
This impact will gradually become more severe as the number of smartphone users increases.
Similarly, the issue of signaling channel occupation has never been resolved, just lingering on.
Recently, strange rumors started circulating.
First, a leader from a certain department stated at the second "Lingnan Forum" that WeChat might charge fees, but not significant ones.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology was coordinating the matter of WeChat charging fees with operators, and they would consider the operators' reasonable requests.
Next, some media learned from informed sources close to the MIIT's decision-making level that "WeChat charging fees is definite, but the specific method of charging is still under consideration and research."
However, immediately after, WeChat's official Weibo account posted a debunking message, denying various circulating rumors about fees and stating that WeChat's basic services would remain free.
Li Xi also stated publicly that "the WeChat team has launched a 2.5G network optimization plan and is jointly discussing signaling solutions with the operators' operations and maintenance departments, believing that a solution will be found through joint efforts."
Following this, a tender-related announcement from Beijing Ultrapower revealed the roadmap for Fetion in the coming year.
China Mobile planned to add features like video calling to the mobile version of Fetion, and also aimed to increase user stickiness on mobile desktops, ROMs, and other aspects.
Analysts said that such a layout for Fetion might be intended to target WeChat.
China Unicom also wasn't idle, similarly referencing China Mobile, it launched a software called WoYou.
A chat application that can be used on mobile phones or computers, supporting voice intercommunication, as well as sending text, emojis, pictures, videos, etc.
Was Chen Pingjiang nervous about this?
Not at all!
Tencent had already retreated; these two, even combined, wouldn't be enough to take on WeChat.
The emergence of official accounts and service accounts had long made WeChat's ecosystem complete and invincible.
By this summer, once they get the financial license and WeChat Pay goes online, won't it just be a rampage?
Instant messaging software primarily focused on strong social relationships inherently has frighteningly high migration costs.
Moreover, WeChat had already transcended the scope of instant messaging software and become a tool.
A tool that in the future can pay, shop, chat, video call, group buy, register at hospitals, order food, pay with credit cards, pay utility bills, and buy train tickets.
Chen Pingjiang just wanted to ask, how are you going to fight me?
Furthermore, in the face of these strange rumors, Renren.com wasn't doing nothing.
The most important move: differentiation.
The King Card, developed in cooperation with China Telecom, will be launched in another month.
This move is equivalent to digging up the roots of China Unicom and China Mobile.
Enough to keep China Unicom and China Mobile busy for a while, and prevent them from causing trouble.
Of course, despite the conflicts and quarrels with the three major operators, there's also plenty of cooperation.
Who told the Orange S2 to sell so well?
These two companies had to reluctantly seek cooperation, each requesting two million contract phones.
They still comforted themselves mentally, saying they weren't looking for Renren.com, but Orange Tech, and that Renren.com and Orange Tech were not the same company.
Even though both companies belonged to Chen Pingjiang, they were just different!
Upon arriving at the Qingshan Lake base, Chen Pingjiang turned his attention to the progress of LTE technology research and development.
"When can we catch up with Huawei's TD-LTE technology?"
Speaking of this, both Lin Bin and Zhou Guangping looked troubled.
"The gap is still very significant; we started too late. Huawei already conducted in-depth communication and verification work on TD-LTE with international organizations like NGMN/LSTI and operators like China Mobile in 2008. By 2010, they completed the first phase of MIIT field tests, and the test results fully met or exceeded the test specification indicators."
Chen Pingjiang nodded helplessly; objective factors indeed existed.
When others were working on LTE, Orange Mobile hadn't even been established yet.
Moreover, Huawei has been in the communications field for so many years and accumulated so much technology; that's no laughing matter.
"It seems that if our S3 wants to go overseas, we'll have to try other approaches."
Without patents, going overseas inevitably leads to lawsuits, or one can only honestly pay.
Xiaomi didn't go public overseas until 2014, with its first stop being the Indian market.
Globally, lawsuits are most prevalent in the mobile phone and communications industries.
Fighting until your scalp tingles.
Not to mention Qualcomm, Apple, and Samsung.
Later.
Nokia sued BBK, which owns VIVO/OPPO, forcing the latter to exit the German market.
Panasonic then sued Xiaomi and BBK in Germany, the UK, the EU, and China.
Anyway, those giants constantly fight over patents.
Did you think Nokia was dead?
In fact, they're doing perfectly fine, lying on a sea of patents, counting money.
With 20,000 patent families, Samsung also has to pay honestly, 3 Euros per device.
At this moment, Lin Bin smiled a bit awkwardly:
"Chairman Chen, there actually is a way."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
Chen Pingjiang was momentarily stunned.
Lin Bin said:
"When HTC hadn't yet entered the domestic market, where did all those HTC phones in China come from?"
At this point, Chen Pingjiang understood:
"Are you talking about grey market goods?"
What are grey market phones?
They are not trash phones; they are called grey market goods.
Grey market phones refer to phones manufactured and sold abroad, originally intended for sale in other countries and regions, but which have entered the domestic market through various irregular channels without paying the nationally stipulated taxes and fees.
In short, grey market phones are authentic phones that have not gone through normal customs declaration and tax payment channels; they are not counterfeits or knock-offs, but genuine products, just with different sales channels.
It should be noted that because grey market phones do not incur relevant taxes and fees, their prices are usually cheaper than phones from official channels, but they may not be eligible for warranty service in China.
See?
Besides not getting warranty service, there's no other difference.
This is also why so many people used HTC back then, and why American or Hong Kong version iPhones could be bought online.
Lin Bin nodded:
"The thing is, we clearly have ample production, but some users are still complaining they can't get one. Investigations have revealed that some agents and franchisees have had unusually high sales recently."
"So, they've all taken them overseas?"
"Yes, I've browsed some professional websites overseas; they're in Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, and even in the US and Europe."
Chen Pingjiang laughed:
"Indeed, as long as one's mindset doesn't slip, there are always more solutions than problems. For this kind of thing, just turn a blind eye; it's no loss to us. As long as they're not diverting goods domestically, let them do as they please. Once Orange Mobile is truly launched overseas later, then we'll deal with them all at once."
Orange Mobile hasn't been listed overseas, so these smuggled grey market goods going out increase sales.
However, once Orange Mobile is launched overseas, the foreign price will be much lower than the domestic price.
At that time, any further smuggled grey market goods would harm Orange Tech's interests.
Within Orange Tech, distributors are strictly prohibited from diverting goods; Maotai does this best.
Diversion of goods can lead to market disorder, price chaos, large price disparities, the mixing of counterfeit products, and significant losses for distributors in the target regions.
So managing goods diversion is necessary, but in this situation, it's not.
However, Chen Pingjiang still warned:
"This is actually like drinking poison to quench thirst; it's poison. Ultimately, we still need to do more internal R&D ourselves, so that we can take our patents and confront other manufacturers when the time comes."
Zhou Guangping said:
"Why don't we try talking to Huawei? We definitely have the capital to negotiate! Besides, when we have our own wafer factory, Huawei might even come to us for help."
Chen Pingjiang nodded:
"Indeed, we can talk. By ourselves, we might not catch up with 4G R&D, but perhaps 5G is possible."
Huawei, back in February 2010 at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, was already showcasing multi-party HD video interoperability services simultaneously based on FDD/TDD LTE wireless access, fully demonstrating the high-speed, real-time, and mobility key performance of LTE technology.
In other words, they've pretty much completed their R&D.
If Chen Pingjiang remembered correctly, regarding patent share in the 4G era:
Qualcomm was first, reaching 14%.
Another American company also ranked third.
Nokia and Samsung held roughly the same number of patents, 9%.
Huawei and Ericsson were tied, each accounting for 8%.
The remaining were ZTE at 7% and Panasonic at 3%.
Perhaps talking to Huawei or ZTE is an option; more friends mean more paths.
Chen Pingjiang consistently believed that domestic enterprises should stand united against external forces.
After all, Huawei doesn't have its own wafer factory, only HiSilicon, a chip design company.
Using SMIC for manufacturing also puts significant pressure on SMIC.
Perhaps in future advanced processes, the two companies can cooperate.
(End of Chapter)