Gao Shangquan's chairman's speech at the CBT100 Forum

The China Business Top 100 Company Forum held a grand awards ceremony on Dec 7, to pay tribute to CBT100 companies and entrepreneurs who have made significant contributions to China's economic development.

Gao Shangquan, chairmen of the CBT100 Forum, delivered the chairman's speech at the ceremony. Below is the full text of Gao's speech.

Good evening, everyone!

The CBT100 Forum has been held for the 19th time. It is certainly delightful that more and more people have been participating in this forum, and it has gained increasing popularity over the years. Nowadays, everyone has been studying the spirit of the fourth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee of the CPC, and I have also been learning and thinking. Today, I would like to share some of my thoughts.

First, we must read the decisions of the central government, read them carefully, and truly understand these decisions. This is particularly the case for our CBT100 companies. I have personally read these decisions many times, but am yet to thoroughly understand all of them. It needs to be pointed out that it takes time to truly understand these decisions.

Second, we need to learn what a governance system is, and the State governance system must be understood first. I personally have five thoughts on the governance system. The first is State governance, the second is government governance, the third is social governance, the fourth is corporate and grassroots governance, and the fifth is household and individual governance. I believe that government governance is at the center of this governance system, in that we have to handle the relationship between the central and local governments properly. In addition, we must build a satisfactory government, which is also reliant on government governance. This is why I believe government governance is at the core.

Third, corporate governance and grass-roots governance are the foundation. In corporate governance, we have a good example - Huawei. We may wonder why the continuous suppression of the United States targeted at Huawei has failed to break Huawei down. In April this year, I went to the office of Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei, and had coffee with him. He showed me a picture which portrayed him sitting on a plane with holes everywhere, except for the engine and the fuel tank. He told me that as long as the engine was good and there was no problem with the fuel tank, destinations can still be reached despite other chaos. Why did he show me this picture? I reckon that he was expressing his confidence that the company was coping well with, and would survive, the suppression by the United States. Statistically, the total production of Huawei in the first quarter of 2019 was 607.8 billion yuan ($87.02 billion), which was an increase of 20.4 percent, compared with the same period of last year. In the meantime, the number of Huawei mobile phones produced also increased by 180 million. Therefore, in essence, Huawei did not die under the suppression of the United States thanks to its strong corporate governance capabilities.