Xin Xin Mo Cun | Wang Wusi: Don’t let Lanzhou become a place people want to escape from

By Wang Wusi

From Lanzhou to Hangzhou, it’s nearly two thousand kilometers, over twenty hours by car, eleven hours by high-speed train, and three hours by plane. But a friend of mine from Lanzhou decided to move his company to Hangzhou after pondering for less than five minutes. This isn’t an exaggeration; perhaps the decision was already made, and those five minutes were just a farewell to Lanzhou. Lanzhou truly made him heartbroken, or rather, it was a torment.

My impression of Lanzhou before was just one thing: artistic. When I was young, I thought Lanzhou’s “Reader” was very artistic. Later, as I grew up, I gained a different understanding of art. Brother Kun from the Low Wormwood band is my good brother from Lanzhou. I often hear his song “Lanzhou Lanzhou” in Lanzhou beef noodle shops in Hangzhou: “Lanzhou~ always departs in the morning; Lanzhou~ drunk warmly at night; Lanzhou~ the endless Yellow River flows eastward; Lanzhou~ the end of the dream is the entrance to the sea.” There are also the two old brothers, Zhang Weiwei and Guo Long, who sang, “Two goats, climbing the mountain, a girl, she’s waving, I want to go over, but the dog is barking, I don’t go over, my heart itches.” Lanzhou natives Zhang Quan and Xiao Su founded the Wild Children band in Hangzhou and created “Yellow River Ballad” by the West Lake, “The Yellow River’s water flows on, flowing past home, flowing past Lanzhou.”

Since I got to know this friend who runs a business in Lanzhou, I have gained another layer of understanding of Lanzhou: lawless. Of course, this doesn’t refer to the people of Lanzhou, but rather to some relevant departments and personnel in Lanzhou. This can be said to be their old problem. The discipline inspection department has treated it many times, but it has relapsed many times, always in a state of repeated episodes. Since 2017, as many as 9 former municipal party secretaries in Gansu Province have been removed from their posts. On November 10, 2020, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate announced the news of 5 officials who had been removed from their posts, 4 of whom had held positions in Lanzhou before being removed, and all were deputy departmental-level officials. When my friend from Lanzhou told me how difficult it was for him to run a business, and how absurd the things he encountered were, I said that it was probably because too many officials in Lanzhou had been removed from their posts, and their remaining poison had not been cleared for so many years, and the people suffered greatly. This is the same as environmental protection. Once the ecology of a place is polluted, the source of pollution can be blocked, but subsequent governance is very difficult, and it is a long-term and arduous task.

The year before last, my friend encountered a very strange thing. His parents’ marriage had some problems. His father had an affair and had two illegitimate children. His mother decided to divorce, but because it involved property division, his father was unwilling to divorce and used various means, such as finding the underworld to threaten, sending text messages with insulting and intimidating language, using various false materials to transfer and embezzle company property, threatening with ten barrels of sulfuric acid, bribing certain officials in the Lanzhou court… As a result, in the face of all the facts, the Chengguan District Court of Lanzhou issued a judgment saying that the relationship had not yet broken down and divorce was not allowed… Even in this situation, it still belonged to “the relationship has not yet broken down.” The attitude of the Lanzhou court judges towards relationships is truly worthy of the people’s learning.

A few days ago, his company in Lanzhou encountered another strange thing. Someone, by stealing his company’s expired qualification information, actually managed to change the website ICP filing in Lanzhou Telecom. He reported this situation to the Lanzhou Telecom Branch of China Telecom. Lanzhou Telecom retrieved the filing information at the time and confirmed it was fake, but blatantly refused to modify or cancel the filing application. Later, after my friend investigated, he found out that it was a person named Gao Feng, who had no connection with his company, who, by forging his company’s business license and privately carving the company’s official seal, and with the cooperation of an employee named Wu Meixi in Lanzhou Telecom, used a large number of false materials to privately change his company’s registered filing information in Lanzhou Telecom and undertook a large number of businesses, collecting a large amount of illegal income. As a result, my friend’s company also suffered huge property losses. Later, he reported and complained to multiple departments in Lanzhou, but they were all kicked around like a ball.

To be honest, when he told me about this, I kept giving him ideas, whether it was calling the mayor’s hotline, or finding the superior department of Telecom, or going through legal channels… He said he had tried them all, and it didn’t work. Before, I wouldn’t have believed it, because it wasn’t a big deal, it wasn’t a difficult thing, the facts were clear, and the other party admitted to the forgery, but no one cared, no one took responsibility, and they didn’t even fear the legal consequences… Now I believe it, because his parents’ divorce case last year opened my eyes. Lanzhou does have such absurd officialdom phenomena, which seems to have become a prevailing trend.

Compared to Hangzhou, this is indeed quite puzzling. This puzzlement is not being an outsider; we are still familiar with China’s officialdom. It’s just that we feel that ordinary people, or private enterprises, are having a hard time even when they are trying to do something or make reasonable demands. The officialdom ecology of Lanzhou is truly beyond cure. After Hangzhou produced the Six Little Dragons, a private enterprise owner in my circle of friends wildly praised the investment environment of Hangzhou’s Yuhang District. I actually didn’t think much of it, but compared to the situation in Lanzhou, the gap immediately widened. The content of that circle of friends was as follows: “As one of the companies that attracted investment in Hangzhou’s Future Science and Technology City, I really feel that if Hangzhou doesn’t succeed, there’s no justice: 1. During the entire process of entering and applying for subsidies, I didn’t eat a meal, didn’t drink a drink, didn’t give a cigarette, transparent, efficient… 2. They help you find a house, and the rent is halved; the government subsidies promised to you are automatically paid on time, directly to your account, without you having to run around, ask again, urge again, or invite to dinner; 3. After the matter is done, the people from the government departments disappear… 4. Most importantly: Hangzhou prohibits deep-sea fishing. Any foreign government agency that comes to Hangzhou to handle a case must report it, and if the report is approved, a local deputy bureau-level official must accompany them to handle the case.” Hangzhou is indeed basically like this. Comparing it with Lanzhou again, moving the company from Lanzhou to Hangzhou is no problem.

A few days ago, a symposium on private enterprises was held in Beijing, emphasizing that the development prospects of the private economy are broad and promising, and that private enterprises and entrepreneurs are in the right place at the right time to show their talents. I don’t know what the private enterprises in Lanzhou think, I don’t know if they will think that their development prospects are promising, and I don’t know if they will find that their hands and feet are bound and unable to move when they want to show their talents. I remembered a sentence that Niu Wenwen said a few days ago, he said that it was not Hangzhou that supported deepseek, but that Hangzhou did not eliminate it. This sentence is particularly easy to understand in Lanzhou. Don’t expect you to give private enterprises any support, just don’t mess around and mess with the enterprises. Many media outlets are saying that this symposium on private entrepreneurs deeply reflects the care and importance for private enterprises and the private economy, and releases an important signal to promote the healthy and high-quality development of the private economy. I don’t know if this signal can be transmitted to Lanzhou, and I don’t know if this signal will still be effective when it reaches Lanzhou.

This year’s symposium on private entrepreneurs specifically emphasized, “It is the current work focus to earnestly implement the policy measures to promote the development of the private economy. Whatever the Central Committee has decided must be resolutely implemented and cannot be discounted.” Therefore, the actions of certain departments and certain officials in Lanzhou not only smear the policies and guidelines formulated by the Central Committee, but also dig at the cornerstones of socialism for their own selfish interests. They are both criminals in the legal sense and sinners in the historical sense.

In the Wild Children’s “Yellow River Ballad,” they sing, “Every time I wake up, I think of home, I think of Lanzhou, I think of the scent of locust flowers by the roadside, I think of my good girl, the Yellow River’s water flows on, flowing past home, flowing past Lanzhou.” Lanzhou is a beautiful place, a place that people miss. I hope that certain officials in Lanzhou will not let Lanzhou become a place that people want to escape. Lanzhou to Hangzhou is two thousand kilometers, and Lanzhou to Hangzhou is just an instant.