Under the promotion of the 20 Secretariat, all machine tool companies are taking active action. They aim at those Korean-funded enterprises with the same product type as their own enterprises, some support small and medium-sized machine tool enterprises, and some simply register a new enterprise based on the labor service company of the factory to compete for the market with Korean-funded enterprises.

Of course, Korean-funded machine tool enterprises are not all low-end routes, and some of them produce machine tools of higher grade and belong to mid-range products. At this time, they are competing head-on with the state-owned factories. With the support of Canglong Research Institute, the member companies of Ji 20 have launched dozens of new CNC machine tools, and strive to improve product quality, reduce production costs, and start a price war and service war with Korean-funded enterprises.

Hundreds of Korean-funded machine tool companies that entered the Chinese market with the dream of gold rush were caught off guard and were caught in the melee. Almost overnight, a large number of domestic products similar to Korean machine tools appeared in the Chinese machine tool market, and its price is more than 30% lower than that of Korean machine tools, rapid delivery, and after-sales service commitments are more comprehensive and intimate than Korean machine tools.

To say that these domestic machine tools are similar to Korean machine tools is not to say that the former is an imitation of the latter. These domestic machine tools are only the same performance indicators as South Korean machine tools, in addition, it is a reference to the design of Korean machine tools, sweeping away the defects of the previous domestic machine tools that do not pay attention to the appearance, with a beautiful shell, fancy paint surface, people feel like "foreign goods" at a glance.

In this melee, the situation faced by Korean-funded enterprises can be described as mixed. The gratifying thing is that many customers still have superstitious psychology about Korean machine tools, and they are more willing to buy Korean machine tools under the same conditions; the worry is that due to the existence of domestic machine tools as a reference, the psychological expectations of customers for machine tool prices are generally low, and Korean machine tool enterprises do not significantly reduce prices, it is difficult to get customer acceptance.

In desperation, Korean-funded enterprises can only reduce prices. Originally, a machine tool could have 50% of the gross profit, but after the price reduction, it was good to be able to leave 20%. After deducting various marketing expenses and enterprise management costs, most Korean-funded enterprises have fallen into a situation of meager profits or even losses. In fact, even if it is a small profit, it is not cost-effective from the perspective of opportunity cost. Because the initial investment of the enterprise also needs to calculate the cost of capital, even if the money is stored in the bank, the interest obtained is more than that.

Some South Korean investors saw that the wind was not in the right direction, so they withdrew their funds in time to stop losses. But more investors, including Li Taiyu, feel that their company can be rescued again, maybe survive this period, slowly increase the market share, and the company will have a day to revive its glory.

At the same time, almost no one noticed that some of the negative propaganda about South Korea was quietly appearing in some media in China. These propaganda forms are diverse, some are social news, such as revealing that a certain actress in South Korea was brutally bullied by the chaebol; some are historical stories, introducing those things that have to be said between ancient China and the peninsula, of course, in these stories, the small regimes on the peninsula are obscene and ridiculous images; and some are purely jokes, making fun of various customs and habits of Koreans, and some can even be regarded as brainless, but they are absolutely in line with the evil aesthetic taste of the people who eat melons......

"You made all this up?"

In a small conference room in an ordinary small building on the edge of the third ring road in the north of Beijing, six or seven people sat around the conference table. A middle-aged man with an ordinary appearance smiled and asked a few people sitting across from him.

"This is all the credit of Xiao Li. ”

The one who answered was Tang Zifeng, deputy director of Linhe No. 1 Machine Tool Factory. The "Xiao Li" he said was sitting next to him, and it was Li Sha, a reporter from the Linyi Machine Factory newspaper. She now also has an identity, which is the deputy head of the publicity group of the 20 Secretariat. Half of the negative news about South Korea came from a propaganda team led by her.

"This matter was planned by Xiao Tang, and Xiao Li is the specific executor. I've seen their whole plan, and I basically agree with it. ”

It was Zhou Heng, director of Linyi Machinery Factory, who said this. He did not sit between Tang Zifeng and Li Sha, but sat on the other side of Tang Zifeng and gave up the middle position to Tang Zifeng. Today's meeting, although it was contacted by Zhou Heng, the protagonists of the two sides were Tang Zifeng and the middle-aged man opposite.

The middle-aged man's name is Cao Bingnian, and the title on his business card is the marketing manager of Huili Technology Trading Company, but his real identity is a director of a mysterious department. When he first met Cao Bingnian, Tang Zifeng always felt that he was like an uncle next door, the kind of greasy man who likes to squat on the road after dinner to watch people play chess.

However, now that he knows his identity, Tang Zifeng does not dare to judge people by their appearance. He knows a truth, the more harmless people seem to be humans, the more unfathomable they are. If he doesn't have the identity of a traverser as a background, just relying on the social experience of just graduating from college for a few years, when he meets someone like Cao Bingnian, I am afraid that he will be sold and will have to help count the money.

"You can do it. Cao Bingnian said to Tang Zifeng, "God didn't know it, you guys made such a big propaganda offensive. If Director Zhou hadn't told me, I really wouldn't have seen that all this propaganda came from one of your units. These articles have no similarity with each other at all, and the media they publish are also fragmentary, and there is no pattern to be found. Director Tang, if you don't come to our system, it's really a condescension. ”

At the end of the sentence, he grinned, as if he was proud of his humor. The Director Zhou he mentioned earlier was referring to Zhou Heng. In fact, Zhou Heng left the mechanical and electrical department more than two years ago and went to Linyi Machine as the factory director, Cao Bingnian called Zhou Heng with his past position, perhaps because of habit, or perhaps to show that he had a friendship with Zhou Heng for many years.

Tang Zifeng also replied with a smile: "When we do propaganda, we also take into account that people can't detect that it is an organized act, and if it causes a diplomatic dispute because of this, we can't afford to be guilty." So, we devised some tricks that didn't really work. ”

There is also a bit of boasting in his words. The drafts in the media have different styles, one reason is that Tang Zifeng deliberately did it, and another reason is that some manuscripts are not made by Tang Zifeng at all, but some writers follow the trend. The mid-90s was an era of vigorous development of paper media, and it also gave birth to a group of self-proclaimed "freelance writers", whose biggest characteristic is to keep up with the trend, what kind of content is eye-catching, they make up what kind of jokes, and their discipline is worse than Tang Zifeng.

A few years later, the Internet began to spread and these people moved to the web, and that's for later.

"Are you still afraid of diplomatic disputes?" Cao Bingnian said in a somewhat mocking tone, "as far as these drafts you have organized have seriously affected the friendship between China and South Korea." The ROK embassy has made representations to the relevant departments on several occasions, saying that some remarks related to South Korea in the Chinese media are untrue and asking for clarification. That is, they haven't found out that you deliberately arranged this matter, otherwise the relevant departments would have asked you for tea a long time ago. ”

"No, we took the initiative to come to Manager Cao's place for tea. Tang Zifeng said lightly.

Cao Bingnian put away his ridiculous look and said seriously: "This matter has been reported to us by the Ministry of Machinery, and it is said that it is also your opinion. There are also some reflections from other sources, and the general opinion is that the propaganda of the South Korean government and some non-governmental cultural institutions in China has gone too far, and that the penetration of Korean culture into Chinese society is too deep, which may bring about some ideological, cultural, and economic adverse effects. In this regard, our department has also considered taking some actions, but I can't imagine that you will take the lead. ”

Tang Zifeng also said solemnly: "Yes, Manager Cao, we also have to do it as a last resort." At present, there are nearly 400 Korean-funded machine tool companies that have entered the Chinese market, and they are unscrupulous in order to compete with us for the domestic market. The business personnel of many Korean-funded enterprises overboast about South Korea's technological strength and belittle China's technological achievements, so as to achieve the purpose of making customers favor Korean machine tools. I suspect this situation also exists in other industrial fields. ”

"Indeed, there are similar situations in the fields of home appliances, clothing, and daily chemicals. However, domestic enterprises in these fields lack your sensitivity and have not thought of carrying out-for-tat struggles. Cao Bingnian said.

"No wonder. Tang Zifeng sneered and said, "Maybe their leaders themselves are also Kazakh and Han clans, not to mention-for-tat struggles, even if they are allowed to carry out normal competition with Korean-funded enterprises, they may not have the courage." ”

"So, why do you have the courage?" Cao Bingnian asked with a smile.

Tang Zifeng said: "Because we have no way out." We are engaged in machine tools, earlier, high-end machine tools were basically monopolized by Western countries, the competition in the mid-end market is also very fierce, only the low-end market belongs to us. But as soon as Korean-funded companies came in, they intensified the competition in the mid-end market, not to mention, and snatched a lot of low-end markets from us, how can we bear it?"

Zhou Heng interjected on the side: "The central leading comrades said that the machine tool is the mother of industry, we want to modernize, and the machine tool industry must be in our own hands." The impact of Korean-funded machine tool enterprises on China's machine tool industry is far more serious than the impact of Western developed countries on us, because their technology and we are on the same level, and the momentum is fierce, and there is a tendency to completely annex China's machine tool market, which makes us not vigilant. ”

"That's right. Cao Bingnian nodded, "The central leading comrades have also given important instructions on the work of our department, reminding us to pay attention not only to the political and military threats posed to us by foreign forces, but also to the economic and technological threats. On this point, our position is completely in line with yours. ”