The work of persuading Du Minghua and Che Yueying is extremely arduous. Although Du Xiaoyuan is already in his early 30s, he has never left Tongyuan since he was a child, and has always lived under the nose of the old couple.

Du Xiaodi did a month's ideological work for his parents, Feng Xiaochen also patted his chest and said that the speaker of Avalé's pimple was his buddy, and the director of the Sino-Arab Industrial Park was his subordinate, Du Xiaoyuan went there safer than in a safe, eating and drinking spicy food every day, and local girls took care of his daily life, which was definitely a happy life like a stupid son of a landlord's family. Du Xiaoyi and Huang Changfeng also helped on the side, saying that they would also go to Africa, and they could take care of each other with Du Xiaoyuan in the future, and there would be absolutely no problems.

As for Du Xiaoyuan himself, he gave his parents a choice question: either let him go to Africa, or he will be a gentleman like in the past, bullying men and women all day long, and making the old couple faceless in Tongyuan.

Du Xiaoyuan's threat finally played a role, after all, Du Minghua and his family were both workers, and they had some simple worldview, and they were quite contemptuous of the gentlemen. Seeing that his son was really likely to embarrass himself if he continued to mix like this, the two of them gritted their hearts and promised to let Du Xiaoyuan go to Africa to have a look first, if the environment over there is okay, then work for a few years, save some qualifications and come back to find a good unit, if the environment is not good, then forget it, anyway, the family can support him.

In addition, the old couple also put forward two conditions for Du Xiaoyuan: first, he must find a target within three years, if he can give birth to children, it is naturally the best; second, this object must be Chinese, don't bring a black girl back, the old two are old and can't stand this stimulation.

Du Xiaoyuan agreed to his parents' request, and then happily stepped on a plane to Africa with Wang Ruidong. Wang Ruidong was just impulsive, saying that he wanted to partner with Du Xiaoyuan to do business, during this time the two brothers-in-law were messing together, and they both found that they had some feelings of mutual affection with each other, so they joked and really jointly funded the establishment of a company, and named the two Far East Machinery Company.

Du Minghua and his wife have received a lot of dividends in the Tongyuan branch of Spring Restaurant over the years, and they all planned to use it for their son's marriage, and now they are just taking it out for him as entrepreneurial capital. Seeing that their son was full of energy, as if he had changed as a person, the old couple also felt quite relieved, and hid their worries and reluctance deeply.

As soon as Du Xiaoyi left, Du Minghua and his family had no children around them, and they became a pair of empty nesters. Feng Xiaochen proposed to them and suggested that they move to the capital to live, so that he and Du Xiaodi could take care of them nearby. However, the old couple of the Du family said that they were used to living in Tongyuan, and there were many old colleagues and neighbors around, but they were not used to going to the capital. Feng Xiaochen persuaded him a few times, but when he saw that the other party was resolute, he didn't say anything anymore. This old couple is actually not too old, and their health is not bad, so it is no problem to live in Tongyuan. If they really let them come to the capital, the people around them are not familiar with the place, but it is indeed uncomfortable.

For Feng Xiaochen, these household chores are just thinking about them in his spare time, and he is now getting busier and busier, and there are more and more clues about work. After several years of adjustment, China's economy has come out of the trough of the mid-90s and has begun to enter the fast lane. All walks of life have put forward high requirements for the equipment manufacturing industry, and as the general manager of the equipment industry company, he really has a feeling of great pressure.

"Why do you want to ask for my opinion?"

In a conference room of the State Development Planning Commission, Feng Xiaochen complained innocently to Wang Zhenbin, the director of a certain department. Wang Zhenbin was Feng Xiaochen's classmate when he was a graduate student at the Academy of Social Sciences, and he had worked hard for the State Development Planning Commission over the years to improve his qualifications, and now he has become the head of the department.

"Didn't you know that China's commitment clause on the equipment manufacturing industry in the TO negotiations was drafted by your equipment industry company? In order to strive for the best conditions for your equipment manufacturing sector, the state has made great concessions in terms of export quotas for agricultural products and rare earths, and you don't know about this?" Wang Zhenbin asked rhetorically.

Feng Xiaochen said: "Of course I know. Thanks to the country's support for us, we will also strive to improve the technical level, and will definitely not disappoint the favorable conditions created by the country. ”

TO, or World Trade Organization, is not as lofty as some people think, it is just an international version of the wet market that we usually see. The WTO is a place where countries bargain on trade issues, and every country joins the WTO in order to maximize its benefits; if a country claims that the purpose of joining the WTO is for the lofty ideal of free trade, either he himself is a fool or he treats other countries as fools.

Since the mid-80s, China has been applying for the restoration of its status as a signatory to the GATT, and the negotiations have lasted for more than a decade before the GATT ended without a hitch. The GATT was changed to the WTO, and China's GATT resumption talks were turned into WTO accession talks, and these talks took several years.

The difficulty of the WTO accession negotiations lies in the fact that each side of the negotiations has its own demands, and each side hopes to get the greatest benefit from the other side while minimizing its own losses. As far as China is concerned, the biggest demand for China's accession to the WTO is to be able to make its own cheap consumer goods enter the markets of developed countries without any obstacles, while for the developed countries, they hope that China will open up its markets for automobiles, industrial equipment, finance, and cultural products, so that they can use their technological superiority to grab excess profits from China.

It is obviously impossible to reap the benefits of negotiations without paying a price. China has many important areas that need to be protected, and if China insists on not opening up to foreign countries in each of these fields, then foreign countries will naturally not open their markets to China, and there will be no need for China to hold WTO accession talks. It is common sense at the bare minimum in negotiations that some areas must be protected at the expense of others.

China's equipment manufacturing industry is still technologically backward compared to Western countries, and if the world is fully opened, Western industrial equipment will flock in, crushing China's hard-working equipment manufacturing industry. In order to protect the equipment manufacturing industry, the state has given up a lot of rights and interests, including opening up a part of the agricultural product market and promising to export rare earth and other resources to the international market.

Of course, Feng Xiaochen is very aware of these situations. In fact, the list of areas of equipment that need to be protected was provided by the Equipment Industry Corporation to the TO negotiating group. Some equipment China's manufacturing technology is already on par with Western countries, so there is no need to include it in the scope of protection, and the fewer items that need to be protected, the smaller the price the country will pay.

It is precisely for this reason that when Wang Zhenbin said that the TO negotiators wanted to discuss some issues with Feng Xiaochen, Feng Xiaochen obediently rushed to the Development and Planning Commission, saying that the TO negotiations had nothing to do with him, and it was just casual talk, in fact, he also knew that the relationship between TO and the equipment industry was too close.

As he spoke, the door to the conference room was pushed open, and a staff member walked in with several officials. When the leader saw Feng Xiaochen, he hurriedly stepped forward to shake hands with him, and said politely: "Mr. Feng, I'm sorry, I invited you here." ”

Feng Xiaochen looked fixedly, and it turned out that the other party was Xu Zhenbo, the director of the Ministry of Foreign Trade, and Feng Xiaochen was also an old friend. Feng Xiaochen shook hands with the other party and responded with a smile: "It turned out to be Director Xu, fortunately, fortunately." ”

"Originally, I was supposed to go to the equipment company to visit Mr. Feng, but because this matter also has something to do with the Development and Planning Commission, and I still need to invite Director Wang to participate in the talks, I had to take the liberty of asking Director Wang to provide a venue and invite Mr. Feng over. Xu Zhenbo explained.

Feng Xiaochen said: "Look at what Director Xu said, Director Wang is my big brother, isn't it normal to come to him to talk about things? Even if Director Xu is not summoned, I will often come to report to Director Wang." ”

"Boss, your mouth is much sharper than before, and I don't know how to answer it in two sentences. Wang Zhenbin pointed at Feng Xiaochen and said helplessly.

These people are all division-level cadres, Feng Xiaochen is a cadre in the enterprise, and it stands to reason that his status is lower, but Wang Zhenbin and Xu Zhenbo both know that he is deeply appreciated by the superior leaders, and he has a lot of connections in the field of equipment manufacturing, and he is a young talent that should not be underestimated. In addition, Feng Xiaochen has just been absorbed into the party group of the Economic and Trade Commission, which is one step away from the deputy ministerial level, and Wang Zhenbin and Xu Zhenbo are both older, and it is estimated that their careers will end here. Combined with these circumstances, the two of them naturally have more respect for Feng Xiaochen, which can be regarded as "don't bully the poor youth".

After the greetings, the guests and hosts sat down separately and began to talk. Wang Zhenbin, as the host, first delivered a brief welcome speech, and then Xu Zhenbo spoke:

"Director Wang, Mr. Feng, I am bothering you two today, there is a very important issue, and the minister asked me to listen to your opinions. We are currently negotiating with the United States on joining the TO, and the United States has expressed the hope that we will significantly reduce import tariffs on refined oil products so that American-produced refined oil products can enter the Chinese market more. Prior to this, the Development and Planning Commission had proposed to maintain the protection of refined oil products to prevent China's energy supply from being manipulated by foreign forces. I'd like to ask both of you if you have any further considerations on this matter. ”