By Ye Jingyu(葉靜宇)
Issue 612, Mar 25, 2013
Nation, page 10
Translated by Chi Yi
Original article: [Chinese]

Early on the morning of Mar 22, thousands of people lined the main street of Huaxi Village (華西村) to farewell Wu Renbao (吳仁寶), the former party head of the village.

Located in East China's Jiangsu province, Huaxi claims to be the richest village in China and many locals believe that Wu Renbao was responsible for transforming the once poverty-stricken rural outpost.

Wu Renbao died of lung cancer on March 18, he was 85 years-old. Wu began his 50 year tenure as the party chief of the village when it was first established in 1961.

At that time, Huaxi had a population of only 667, assets of 25,000 yuan, and debts of 15,000 yuan. Last year Huaxi had a population of 35,000 and the the village made more than 52 billion yuan in profits.

Wu Renbao stuck to a strict routine. Reports say that the retired party chief woke at three or four each morning and watched the morning news on Phoenix TV. Wu normally gave a public speech every day at around 10am after checking the group's financial work.

The "Old Secretary's Speech" became an event not to be missed by tourists visiting the so-called model socialist village.

The speeches would often include remarks on current affairs and were often received with loud applause.
 
Wu is said to have loved studying political and policy guidance from the central government and Wu's political sensitivity reportedly saved Huaxi from many crises over the past 50 years.

One local official described Wu's strategy as " ... the ability to not stray too far from the central government policies while at the same time finding a way to satisfy the ordinary people below you ... "

However, doubts still linger about the nature of Huaxi Village. Is it a family business or a collectively-owned enterprise?

In 2004 Zhou Yi (周怡), a professor of sociology at Fudan University, began researching the economic model of the village.

The results of his research were included in his book Huaxi Village: Post-Collectivism in a Transitional Economy (中國第一村——華西村轉(zhuǎn)型經(jīng)濟中的后集體主義) that was published by Oxford Univesity Press in 2006.

Professor Zhou discovered that Wu's four sons had control of 90.7 percent of the total funds of the village. Though they didn't actually own all the wealth, all of them held high positions in the village's party committee and council and were considered members of an elite group.

The Xinhua News Agency reported on Mar 18 that Wu Renbao had appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 2005; however, it turned out that the story was inaccurate and the picture used by Xinhua had been photoshopped.  

Wu Xie'en (吳協(xié)恩), Wu Renbao's youngest son, assumed the post of party chief of the village in 2003. Wu Xie'en's low profile and composure are in stark contrast to Old Wu's love of the limelight and his father continued to play the role of Huaxi's "brand ambassador."

Yang Yongchang (楊永昌), deputy secretary of Huaxi party committee, told the EO that as Wu Xie'en used to be in the military he always took everything into consideration. Mr. Yang also said that it was the "new party chief" who came up with the idea to market the Huaxi Village brand through developing their own cigarette and baijiu (a kind of alcohol made from sorghum).

"His idea at the time was to develop the "Huaxi Village" brand in order to build a base on which to develop the service industry."

Wu Xie'en himself has said that "Unlike my father, I'm not really interested in investing in factories ...  I'm more interested in the capital markets and intellectual work."

According to statistics, about half of the profits Huaxi made in the year 2012 came from the service industry.

Links and Sources
Asia Pacific News:
CRI: Funeral Held for Famous Chinese Village Chief
China Daily: 吳仁寶曾登《時代周刊》封面報道被證實為“烏龍”