Cheng Siwei, Vice-Chairman of the Standing Committee of the 9th and 10th National People’s Congress, Chairman of the 6th, 7th, and 8th Central Committee of China Democratic National Construction Association, Honorary President of China International Council for the Promotion of Multinational Corporations (CICPMC), Chairman of the World Economic Development Declaration Conference, co-Chairman of the Multinational Corporations Leaders Roundtable, passed away in the morning of July 12,2015 at the age of 80.
As a famous economist and financier in China, he was praised as “Father of the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM)”. He was devoted to exploring and explaining the characteristics and laws of the development of virtual economy and was the first to put forward the concept of “virtual economy”. He also actively studied and promoted the development of venture investment in China and did fundamental contributions to the emerging venture capital (VC) industry, thus winning the honor of “Father of China’s VC Industry”.
Broad-minded, wise, gentle and approachable, Vice-Chairman Cheng knew eight languages and could use them fluently. He was alwaystaking study as part of his lifeand wrote some books including A Study at China’s Economic Reform and Development, A Road to RMB Internationalization, On Financial Reform by Cheng Siwei, and An Analysis and Outlook on China’s Stock Market. In participating in the administration and discussion of state affairs, he led China Democratic National Construction Association to propose many valuable suggestions for the economic field, which helped a lot in promoting the development of democratic associations. He contributed all his life to the development of China’s economy.
Vice-Chairman Cheng has acted as Honorary President of CICPMC for 15 years since 2000. He spared no efforts to meet foreign guests and attend meetings organized by CICPMC, playing an important role in advancing the development of CICPMC. We hereby express ourgreat gratitudeto him for his kind care and support for us!
Despite their age difference, Mr. Zhang Xiaoyu, executive Vice-President of CICPMC, had a very good friendship with Vice-Chairman Cheng. After hearing this sad news, Mr. Zhang said:”He had a thorough knowledge of both the west and the east. He was a talented economist, social activist as well as my mentor for 20 years. He struggled with cancer for nearly 10 years with an iron will. His death broke our heart! We will remember him forever!”
This article summarizes part of the keynote speeches delivered by Vice-Chairman Cheng at different editions of the Multinational Corporations Leaders Roundtable as well as some photos to memorize him and keep in mind his rigorous, forward-looking, down-to-earth, and distinctive life attitudes. May he rest in peace!
[November 2007, China needs the world, and the world also needs China] Economic globalization is an irreversible trend. I had said, in the 21st century, economic globalization was based on knowledge, centered on finance, led by information technology and relied on multinational corporations. It was more and more evident that multinational corporations played a crucial role in economic globalization.
China needs the world, and the world also needs China. Therefore, strengthening international cooperation is our only choice; sustainable development is a common challenge for us, and multinational corporations should contribute more to promoting sustainable development; Reform and opening up is an unswerving policy of China. We must deepen reform and opening up. In terms of opening up, we shall both “bring in” and “go global”. We need to attract foreign investment and improve our investment environment. At the same time, we need to encourage Chinese companies to invest in foreign countries to achieve a win-win result.
[November 2010, New Century, New Decade] We will further expand the level of opening up. We look for a more balanced foreign trade instead of a large surplus. We do not expect a very high level of foreign reserves, because excessive foreign reserves will, at one hand, limit the flexibility of our monetary policy and, at the other hand, bear the risk of depreciation of US dollar. Looking forward to the next 10 years, China will highlight the following four aspects:
1. We will rely more on domestic consumption, so the purchasing power of Chinese people will be greatly increased. Compared with the past ten years, people’s income will increase faster in the following ten years. This needs institutional arrangements in the following three aspects: income increase keeping pace with economic growth; wages pegged to commodity prices; remuneration increasing with efficiency improvement.
2. We will develop green economy. That is to say, we need to pay more attention to environmental protection and global warming, in particularly, to the development of circular economy and conservation of the forest, ocean and wet land. We shall in no way leave the environmental problems to next generations, so we must vigorously develop green economy, including developing the green industry.
3. We will open wider to the outside world. We look for a more balanced foreign trade instead of a large surplus. We do not expect a very high level of foreign reserves, because excessive foreign reserves will, at one hand, limit the flexibility of our monetary policy and, at the other hand, bear the risk of depreciation of US dollar.
4. We will further develop education. China has a huge human resource pool. If the mental, moral, cultural and scientific levels of Chinese people are upgraded through education to parallel with those in America, Europe and Japan, I think China’s human resources will become incomparable since we has the largest number of population in the world. In developing education, we need to cultivate people’s innovation capability, for the core of economic strength competition among countries is the competition of their scientific and technological strength. However, the core of the competition of scientific and technological strength is the competition of talents, and the key in talent competition is the creativity of humans. Therefore, we must reform our exam-oriented education to foster more people with creativity.
[November 2013, A Brief Analysis of the Decision on Deepening Reform Comprehensively of the Third Plenary Session] “To make market be the decisive factor in resource allocation, we must follow the three basis market laws: the law of value, the law of supply and demand, and the law of competition,” said by Cheng Siwei. First, the price should be decided by the market instead of the government which only provides subsidies or limits prices when necessary. Second, the supply and demand in the market should be regulated through price signals instead of subjective speculations of government officials. Third, only by encouraging competition among enterprises can consumers gain benefit. Emerging enterprises can force existing ones to upgrade their technologies to reduce costs, or force those that are not able to upgrade technologies to be eliminated from the market.
To better play its role, the government shall focus on safeguarding people’s rights and interests, to improve people’s livelihood, to provide better public services and to protect legitimate rights of the disadvantaged group. Cheng Siwei said, the “visible hand” of the government and the “invisible hand” of the market shall cooperate with each other so as to achieve a result of “1+1>2”. If they fail to walk hand in hand, the market will lost efficiency and the government’s credibility will also be affected. Every society is a combination of command economy and market economy. The problem in the past is that the government made too much regulation and the market was at a relatively disadvantaged place. Now we must be determined to change the situation and let market be the decisive factor in resource allocation. That’s the logic of reform.
Mr. Cheng Siwei always remembered his father’s words – “striving to achieve continuous self-improvement”; he also inherited his father’s temperament as a newspaper man – being bold to tell the truth. At last, we use Mr. Cheng’s motto to end the article:”Although I may not satisfy all, I will still tell the truth with all my heart.”
