Wenzhou Journal; 3 Chinese Bankers Full of Nonrevolutionary Zeal
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In early 1976, when the campaign to ”beat back the deviationist wind from the right” was in full force, Yang Jiaxing figured it was a good time to go into private business. In early 1976, when the campaign to ”beat back the deviationist wind from the right” was in full force, Yang Jiaxing figured it was a good time to go into private business. ”I never took part in exchanging revolutionary experiences,” he said, a freight-train chuckle punctuating his words. ”Politics weren’t for me.” So while most of the rest of China was fretting over the insidious goblins of revisionism, capitalist roaders and running dogs of imperialism, Mr. Yang started an electric products factory in this isolated city on the East China Sea. Challenging the State Banks Today, he is the founder and chairman of China’s first privately owned bank since the Communists came to power in 1949, the Wenzhou-Lucheng City Credit Cooperative, and once again he is skating along the edges of the politically and legally permissible. ”The state banks wouldn’t give loans,” Mr. Yang said, ‘’so we opened our own bank. This has broken the monopoly of the state banks. They’re no longer alone under heaven.” Banking in China, as it has been in all Communist countries, is run by the state, an integral element in the broader balance sheet of overall economic planning. But in China, where the exclusivity of state-controlled enterprises in economic life is being steadily eroded - more so in the country’s south than north - the grip of state banks is for the first time being challenged. Wenzhou, a city of 540,000, with another six million people in surrounding rural areas and the neighboring town of Lucheng, has been relatively cut off from China’s ideological and economic arteries, an isolation due to the absence of rail and air links and to primitive roads. That independence, Mr. Yang said, helped nurture his bank, as well as 26 other private banks in the Wenzhou area. Indeed, the success of the Wenzhou banking experience has infected the rest of Zhejiang Province, which boasts 53 similar institutions. ”I’ve been running little factories on and off since 1967,” Mr. Yang said. ”In recent years, the state banks wouldn’t open accounts for private enterprises. So we decided there was a need for a bank to meet those needs.” Mr. Yang and two colleagues pooled their resources, borrowed some money and with a total of 318,000 yuan, about $86,000, started business on Nov. 1, 1986. Money and Service More : query.nytimes.com |