ABSTRACT
Heilongjiang is China’s northernmost province. Bordering Russia’s Siberia, it is known for its harsh winters and abundant natural resources. Gu Wei grew up in its capital city, Harbin. He was the son of a government cadre. In 1966, when he was ten years old, the Cultural Revolution shut down his school and he joined his classmates to “make revolution.” However, he explained, as soon as formal education became available again, he “grasped the opportunity” and earned a teaching degree. Like Chapter 4’s Xu Yongguang, the founder of Project Hope, this bright and politically enthusiastic young man caught the eye of the Communist Youth League. Gu Wei became a Youth League cadre at his school, then was promoted to the provincial level offices of the Heilongjiang Provincial Youth League to work in the Department of Propaganda. He was 24 years old, and his career prospects looked bright. What Gu Wei could not anticipate was that at the very moment his political career was taking off in Heilongjiang, in Beijing Deng Xiaoping was launching a series of market socialist reforms that would complicate his future. The purpose of the Youth League’s Department of Propaganda was to inspire political zeal, but Deng’s regime denigrated this type of ideological enthusiasm and argued that it was far less valuable than the educational credentials and technical skills that were the characteristics of suzhi. By the mid-1980s, the Department of Propaganda seemed completely out of touch with the rest of Chinese society, and young people were losing interest in the Youth League. Gu Wei felt that the work he was doing was no longer useful. “It didn’t solve practical problems,” he complained. To make things worse, the Ministry of Finance also appeared to believe that the Communist Youth League might be obsolete, since it froze the organization’s funding. In 1988, the leaders of the Heilongjiang Youth League decided to take serious action. They would start a market venture, an affiliated, for-profit business firm that would earn enough money for the parent organization so that the Heilongjiang Youth League could launch new, interesting projects.1 Gu Wei volunteered to take charge of the new firm, even though this meant losing his
government salary. He would become an entrepreneur. The Provincial Party Committee provided a start-up loan of ¥10,000 (about US$1600). For four years, Gu Wei ran the market venture with partial success. He was able to make enough money to keep the firm afloat, pay a dozen employees, and contribute ¥10,000 to the Heilongjiang Youth League annually. However, his company was never able to establish a long-term business strategy. Instead, it made money in fits and starts when opportunities arose, usually through personal connections (guanxi). At one point, it published a set of pamphlets on traffic safety. Later, it translated some Russian books into Chinese and sold them. It arranged study tours for aspiring entrepreneurs interested in doing business in Russia. Gu Wei admitted that he felt out of his depth: “I found running a business full of hardship. If you’re not careful, you lose money. We are not businessmen.” After four years, the market venture had not made much progress in solving the Heilongjiang Youth League’s central identity crisis. Gu Wei’s firm did not make enough profit to solve its financial difficulties. Even worse, no one came up with any good ideas for innovative or interesting projects. Gu Wei had confirmed the research findings of organizational sociologists: startups are hard and have a very high rate of failure, especially if they are attempting to do something new and innovative.2 In 1992, Gu Wei concluded that the best way to solve the organization’s difficulties would be to franchise a branch of Project Hope from the China Youth Development Foundation (CYDF ). As described in the previous chapter, CYDF was China’s most successful charity due to its Project Hope campaign for rural education – the one that featured black-and-white photos of poor peasant children. CYDF needed staff and offices at the local level to collect donations, identify needy students and schools, and to channel Project Hope donations to the correct recipients. If the Heilongjiang Communist Youth League provided the offices and staff, it would have plenty of work to do. More importantly, Project Hope would help the Youth League solve its identity problem. It would still be carrying out its traditional mission of serving the youth, but in a way that fit the suzhi-based worldview of a new China. Unfortunately, there was a reason why CYDF had not yet established a Project Hope campaign in Heilongjiang Province. Its policy was to set up Project Hope sponsorship programs only in government-designated povertystricken counties. Although Heilongjiang had poverty-stricken areas, no county in the province was quite poor enough to qualify for the designation. In 1992, CYDF changed its policy: provinces such as Heilongjiang could run Project Hope campaigns if they agreed to hand over 10 percent of all donated funds every year to CYDF for use in more impoverished areas. Gu Wei traveled to Beijing to meet with Xu Yongguang and sign a contract. The Heilongjiang Communist Youth League would run the Heilongjiang Youth Development Foundation (HYDF ), which was permitted to franchise Project Hope for a fee as long as it followed the central organization’s protocols.3 By 2008, HYDF Project Hope had a dedicated staff of 12 and supported 150,000 students in the province.
