The rise of a great power: starting with military industry

Chapter 970 The beginning of chaos
Liu Tao looked at the intelligence.

International hot money was unwilling to leave Hong Kong and headed north to Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea.

South Korea was relatively weak and soon could not hold on. In mid-November, the won gave up its fixed exchange rate against the dollar, and then it plummeted wildly, depreciating by half in a week. This was equivalent to cutting half of the "cake" that Koreans had made in recent decades. The problem of capital difficulties for Korean companies became more and more prominent. Chaebols such as Haitian, Sammi, and Jinro went bankrupt one after another. Six of the top 11 chaebols have already collapsed. People even began to doubt whether Samsung, Hyundai, Daewoo, and LG could still hold on.

By December, South Korea could no longer hold on and had to turn to the IMF for help, completely opening up its financial sector.

This caused great harm to Japan, which had a large number of industries in South Korea, and banks went bankrupt one after another.

After all, Japan has not had an easy time since the Plaza Accord. After the bubble burst, Japan's economy has been even worse, and now it has suffered such a heavy blow again.

At this point, it can no longer be called the Southeast Asian financial crisis, but should be called the Asian financial crisis!

Looking back at 1997, the impact of the Asian financial crisis is undoubtedly huge. It is obvious that this year will write a grand chapter in history.

Looking ahead to 1998, the Asian financial crisis is still continuing and international hot money has not given up its eyes on Hong Kong.

In the eyes of international hot money, Hong Kong, as an international financial center, is a big piece of fat meat. It would be really unwilling not to take a bite of it.

Putting down the intelligence in hand, I watched the news on Hong Kong TV again. Just like the newspaper reports, they were almost all the same "tragic news", such as a certain company going bankrupt, a certain employee jumping off a building, or a certain country's currency depreciating wildly. Similar news has never stopped in the past few months.

At this time, Hong Kong's real estate had fallen by 1996%, and most of it had returned to the level of early 1994, which was equivalent to the peak in the first quarter of . The important thing is that there was not much transaction volume, which means that everyone knew that real estate might fall further.

What’s worse is that in this environment, many people will lose their jobs, and losing their jobs means losing their last hope. Many people have mortgages and car loans, and if they can’t pay, the bank will come and confiscate them, and they will be left with nothing.

Many companies are trembling at this moment and may go bankrupt at any time.

Liu Tao arranged his work and he had to leave Hong Kong.

Long before New Year's Day, the documents regarding the convening of Panshan Group's year-end meeting had been distributed.

This year's Spring Festival comes earlier than in previous years. It is on January 1th, and most employees of Panshan Group will have spring holiday on January 28th. At that time, except for some companies and departments, most employees will have holiday.

For example, various gas stations of China Petroleum Group, Panshan Hospital, China Auto 4S stores, etc. will definitely not have holidays because the Spring Festival is a busy period.

Of course, in banks like Hong Kong Bank and Standard Chartered Bank, a large number of employees will be on holiday, but some employees will remain on duty to perform tasks including ATM maintenance, cash escort, and emergency handling.

After arranging everything, Liu Tao went directly to the rooftop, where a "Ray Sculpture" helicopter was already parked. The pilot saluted Liu Tao, and then after Liu Tao sat down, the helicopter started up and quickly flew away from the Hong Kong Bank Building.

Sitting in a helicopter, the view is very broad.

There are tall buildings and busy traffic below.

Within the field of vision, there are the Bank of China Tower and the HSBC Headquarters Building, as well as many other buildings. Each building may be the headquarters of a bank or a large group.

Across Victoria Harbour, the Kai Tak land reclamation project is still ongoing.

Ships of earth and rocks were brought here one after another for filling.

These earth-moving ships either come from the Mekong River or the Kra Canal.

With the help of the financial crisis, Panshan Group's stake in the Kra Canal has risen to 75%.

The situation in Thailand is in chaos, with various forces blaming each other.

Some blame the current leadership for being close to Europe, America and Japan, which led to the intrusion of wolves and caused huge losses to Thailand. Some blame Chinese businessmen, believing that they have too much wealth and are not conducive to Thailand's economic development.
At this time, some forces have already directed their spearheads towards Chinese and overseas Chinese.

The same situation occurred in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Everything was going on just as Liu Tao had expected. At this moment, the place was like a powder keg that could explode at any time.

The helicopter flew north and arrived at the Yangcheng Shipyard.

Although he spent most of his time in Hong Kong, Liu Tao would come to the Yangcheng Shipyard for one day every three days to solve problems encountered during the construction of the aircraft carrier.

At the same time, he also participated in the construction and secretly repaired some defects.

The Type 094 strategic nuclear submarine has also been officially launched.

However, just like the Type 093 attack nuclear submarine, the Type 094 strategic nuclear submarine is kept highly confidential. Even though it has been launched for some time, there is still no report and the outside world knows nothing about it.

Both docks continue to build Type 093 attack nuclear submarines and Type 094 strategic nuclear submarines.

One third of the original workers and technicians were transferred to the Beibu Gulf Shipyard, and one third to the Bohai Shipyard.

Bohai Shipyard, located in Longgang District, Huludao City, Liaoning Province, is one of the largest shipyards in China. It has always been mainly engaged in the production of submarines. Bohai Shipyard is also the birthplace of China’s first nuclear submarine, where China’s nuclear submarine assembly plant is located.

This is what China is like, never putting all its eggs in one basket.

It is necessary to ensure that when the Yangcheng Shipyard is destroyed, other shipyards can also build the same warships.

Bohai Shipyard not only builds Type 039 conventional submarines, but now plans to build Type 093 attack nuclear submarines and Type 094 strategic nuclear submarines. It will also begin to build civilian ships, such as large oil tankers, container ships, and so on.

At present, the division of labor among several major shipyards in China is relatively clear. Yangcheng Shipyard builds large warships and large civilian ships, while Beibu Gulf Shipyard and Mawei Shipyard share the capacity transfer of Yangcheng Shipyard. Other large shipyards build some ships and warships, and warships are mainly ordered by Yangcheng Shipyard.

Originally, most of the warships built by Yangcheng Shipyard, Beibu Gulf Shipyard and Mawei Shipyard were exported, while the warships built by other domestic shipyards were for their own use. As a result, the navy rejected them as soon as they tried them. Now it has become that the warships built by other domestic shipyards are exported, while Yangcheng Shipyard, Beibu Gulf Shipyard and Mawei Shipyard, in addition to meeting the navy's own warships, also build warships for export.

This means that other domestic shipyards are, to a large extent, working as OEMs for the Yangcheng Shipyard and earning some hard-earned money.

After all, these technologies belong to Panshan Group, not these shipyards, and the orders also belong to Panshan Group. These shipyards cannot export.

Panshan Group did this to restrict these shipyards from frantically building ships at rock-bottom prices in order to take orders and earn foreign exchange.

China's shipbuilding industry has a high cost-performance ratio. The price can be low, but not too much lower. It just needs to be slightly lower than that of Japan and South Korea's shipbuilding industries, maintaining strong competitiveness, rather than being significantly lower than that of Japan and South Korea's shipbuilding industries.

The shipbuilding industries of Japan and South Korea have been crushed, and as a result, our own shipbuilding industry is not profitable either, which means that foreign companies are getting a free advantage.

What Panshan Group wants to do is to crush the shipbuilding industries of Japan and South Korea, and also make a lot of money from its own shipbuilding industry.

Only by making money can the shipyard expand, replace equipment and instruments, recruit workers for research and development, and increase workers' wages and welfare benefits.

If there is no profit, then the employees will suffer as well, and that is not the original intention of development.

Many factories in China have made the industry very cheap, which in fact is a free benefit to Europe and the United States, but makes life difficult for their own employees.

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　　"China Entertainment Starts Struggle in 1997"

(End of this chapter)