Business License of Australia Company in China Revoked; Three Chinese Employee Arrested; Company Founders Issued Urgent Open Letter to the Chinese President

China Aid Association
Photo: Rev. Daniel and Mrs. Eliza Ng
Business License of Australia Company in China Revoked; Three Chinese Employee
Arrested; Company Founders Issued Urgent Open Letter to the Chinese President
(Midland, Texas — Nov 21, 2007) CAA learned that the business license of the Australia company Enoch Group in China was
revoked for its alleged “illegal religious activities” and heavy fine was
imposed. Three company employees were arrested. Two senior managers Ms. Lin
Chunmei(factory director) and Ms. Chen Guichan???(former CFO) had been under criminal detention???? since October 29. Another one Ms. Zhang Qiao?? was arrested on November 7. They were accused of illegal
business management and have been held at Detention Center of Shawan Jidi,
Panyu District Public Security Bureau, Guangzhou
city(+86-20-84738131  +86-13928885010).
The contact phone numbers to the detention center
are Mr. PSB Wei at +86-13928885010 and +86-20-84738131 .
Meanwhile, the company founders Mr. and Mrs.
Daniel and Eliza Ng issued an open letter to the Chinese President Hu Jintao
urging him to intervene for this case.
On November 12, 2007, Guangzhou Municipal
Administration Bureau for Industry and Commerce issued a “Notification of
Hearing” to the company and announced that the business license of Guangzhou
Enoch Biological Science and Technology Co., Ltd. is now revoked.
This “Notification of Hearing”
issued by the Fanyu Branch of Guangzhou Municipal Administration Bureau for
Industry and Commerce has determined that, without reviews or registration from
relevant agencies for administration in industry and commerce, Guangzhou Enoch
privately set up a site of business at 8, Dongsi Street, Yujing Garden, Luofu
Street in Fanyu District, which can be legally defined as a conduct of
operating a business without license.  Without
approvals from agencies in charge of food and drug supervision, Guangzhou Enoch
went beyond the scope of business approved by agencies in charge of administration
of industry and commerce affairs and engaged production and business operations
of the products that fail to meet “Hygiene Standards for Lactic Acid Bacteria Beverages” and they fall into the category of fake and shoddy products; Guangzhou Enoch also distributed “How to Be Guided by the
Bible,” “Three-fold Missions of the Gospel” and other books on the Bible,
including audio/video products and other illegal publications that preach
Christianity and that do not have an approval code from the State. The company
makes misleading, false and illegal claims on their product packaging and
instruction manuals.
Due to the above confirmations,
Fanyu Branch of Guangzhou Municipal Administration Bureau for Industry and
Commerce has rendered the following penalties on Guangzhou Enoch:
1.  Ordered Guangzhou
Enoch to terminate its business operation at 8, Dongsi Street, Yujing Garden,
Luofu Street
in Fanyu District.
2.   Revoked the
business license of the legal representative of Guangzhou Enoch Biological
Science and Technology Co., Ltd.
3.   Ordered the
company to stop selling its fake and shoddy products.
4.   Confiscated a total of 1,049 bottles of products detained from
Enoch.
5.   Imposed a fine of 200,000 yuan.
6.  Confiscated
674 books, one box of propaganda materials (Grand Banquet) and 4,427 optical
discs.
7.   Ordered the company to stop the misleading, false and illegal claims
in its promotion materials, product packaging and instruction manuals.
As for the above penalties dealt
by Fanyu Branch of Guangzhou Municipal Administration Bureau for Industry and
Commerce, Guangzhou Enoch submitted a report requesting a hearing at Fanyu
Branch of Guangzhou Municipal Administration Bureau for Industry and Commerce.   In the report requesting the report,
Guangzhou Enoch says that 8, Dongsi
Street, Yujing
Garden, Luofu Street in
Fanyu District of Guangzhou Municipality is the liaison center of the company
and it is not a branch where products are directly sold.  Enoch has neither gone beyond the approved
scope of business nor changed its registration; it is inappropriate to test
Enoch’s products by “Hygiene Standards for Lactic Acid Bacteria Beverages” when
the products currently manufactured by Enoch are fermented fruit and vegetable
juices; “Three-fold Missions of the Gospel” and “Love at Your Side” are part of
the enterprise culture of the company and are used to promote the image of the
company.  They were not sold and
therefore it is impossible to produce illegal profits; “Grand Banquet,” “How to
Be Guided by the Bible” and other materials were found in the company’s
warehouse because some Christian employees of the company and some of our
clients stored these materials and objects in the company’s warehouses for
miscellaneous goods.
The investigation and penalties by the Guangzhou
authorities began on August 21, 2007 when Guangzhou Enoch was searched, its
belongings confiscated and all the company’s accounts were frozen and
sealed.  In mid-October, Pastor Daniel
Ng, president of Enoch and his wife were placed under house arrest at home and
were not allowed to leave the country.
It is widely believed by the public that the investigation and penalties
suffered by Enoch are not a result of the company’s business operation itself but
because of the enterprise culture derived from the Christian belief that Enoch
holds.  It is a typical demonstration of
the authorities that insist on suppressing religious freedom.  Given the current development of the incident
when the business license of Guangzhou Enoch is revoked along with other heavy
penalties it has suffered, we cannot but say the incident is escalating and
worsening.  The efforts of suppression by
the authorities on Guangzhou Enoch are becoming more and more obvious.
Pastor Daniel Ng of Enoch said many employees of the company have been arrested
in this incident and everybody is scared.
Now, the company is on the brink of bankruptcy and tens of millions worth
of investments are going down the drain.
Daniel Ng said that he has invested in the mainland China for over ten years in the past and has
made his contributions to the economic development of China and that
he never anticipated that he would end up in this situation.  He appeals to people of all circles in
society to show concern to the precarious situation he and his company are in.
It is learned that Enoch Group International Co., Ltd. is a large
multi-national company that engages in international trade and industrial
investment.  Over 100 high-quality,
highly effective ecological products in seven series manufactured by Guangzhou
Enoch Biological Science and Technology Co., Ltd., a subdivision of Enoch
Group, sell very well all over the world and the company enjoys a very high
reputation in the industry.
An Open Letter to General Secretary Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao from
Christian Entrepreneur Daniel Ng
November 15, 2007
Dear respectable General Secretary Hu Jintao and Premier
Wen Jiabao,
My
name is Daniel Ng and I am an ethnic Chinese with Australian citizenship. My
ancestral home is in Jieyang,
Guangdong Province. Both my wife
Elisa Ng and I were born in Hong Kong in
1958.  We were naturalized as Australians
in 1996. In 1978, as China
was just opening up and conducting reforms, my wife and I crossed Xiangjiang River
and stepped on that vast expanse of mainland China for the first time. Shocked
by the poverty we saw there, we made up our mind to help the compatriots in our
motherland. In 1983, we founded Hong Kong Tenglong International Co., Ltd. and
attended the China Import and Export Fair twice a year. In the meantime, we
brought in a large number of international businessmen and a large amount of foreign
currency in US dollars to China.
For this, we were rated as “a giant foreign currency achiever” and “Enterprise in Good Faith”
in the national foreign trade system. All the products we exported were from
the side occupations of many peasants in China.
In 1999, we introduced biological technology and in response of the country’s call
to “promote agriculture through science and technology,” we came out with the
enterprise concept of “protecting the nature and bring a good life to the
people” and invested three million yuan a year to be used in the countryside. In
this way, we participated in the sustainable development of the countryside. Though
we went through sufferings and hardship and our enterprise was once taken away
from us, we persisted in our ideas and founded Enoch Biological Science and
Technology Co., Ltd. in Guangzhou.
For this, People’s Daily, Quality Supervision Newspaper of China, China Economy,
Guangdong Television, Guangzhou TV and other media agencies have reported our
achievements.
As my wife and I grew up
overseas and are devout Christians, we have received a Western-style education
from childhood on; we did not know much about the differences between the
Western culture and the Chinese culture. We knew even less how to decorate our
strong Christian business culture such as the themes in “Love at Your Side,”
and “Giving is More a Blessing than Receiving,” etc. Our expression of this
culture was too direct and too high-profile. As we did not know how to make our
business culture more Chinese, we have caused some misunderstanding in our
compatriots in China
and relevant agencies. For this, we really should do some self-examination and self-introspection
on our words and deeds, but we would also like General Secretary Hu and Premier
Wen to get to know the truth on this incident and give Christian entrepreneurs
a relaxed business environment.
As entrepreneurs, our purpose is operating a business and promoting the
economic development of our motherland and to help the peasants and
disadvantaged groups get out of poverty and become rich. Our purpose in China
is absolutely not preaching Christianity. Christianity is only our business
culture and religious life.
At this time, the Chinese government also advocates that businesses should not
operate purely for money and that they should have sense of responsibility for
the society. Therefore, I responded to the call of the government and actively
helped the peasants and funded the college educations of students from economically
strapped families. At a time when the business operation was losing money in
the company, we still gave, for free, a large amount of probiotic bacteria
beverages to sick and poor peasants and disadvantaged social groups. As a
result of our efforts, tens of thousands of poor peasants have recovered from
poor health. This is purely a self-less donation from the bottom of our hearts.
As our appreciation, we invested 30 million yuan that we earned from trading
with China and we even sold
our real estate properties in Australia
and Hong Kong.
With this, we fully committed ourselves in solving the three problems in
China’s
rural areas: agricultural production, rural development and assistance to
farmers. We have held over 20 Christian-style events of seeking investment and
gatherings attended by Christians specializing in the fields of industry and
commerce. These are all natural displays of my religious life and we never had
a penny of financial support from overseas. As we overstated our Christian
business culture in our efforts to seek investment, employees from the
Administration Bureau of Industry and Commerce and the local police station
once came to visit us, but no relevant agencies have ever said anything against
us. Yet, we have attracted a lot of attention from the central government on
our company’s conduct.
After
August 21 of this year, investigators from many government agencies have come
to our factories on a continuous basis and repeatedly asked the technicians of
the factory about the relevant recipes, technological processes in
manufacturing, control points and other trade secrets.  What is more serious is that they used the
media and concocted false news in an attempt to damage the reputation of the
company. Many government entities came to us on various grounds and conducted
investigations for over two months. They detained the key members of our
company and do not allow us to leave the country. Even now, they still have not
given us a unified, reasonable and just explanation for their actions.
We therefore appeal for your help:
1.   We
hope the government can understand the strong patriotism of overseas Christian
entrepreneurs. The business culture expressed by an overseas patriotic
businessman is purely to teach our compatriots to be good people before they
perform good deeds. However, our way of presenting this culture may not be very
accurate as it was done in high profile. The discs we burned and our print materials
were all given away in public to our distributors. This shows we are frank,
straightforward and do everything in the open. By the principle of our faith,
we support the Chinese government, follow the policies of the State and respect
the laws of the State. We have never committed any vicious provocations. Our
ultimate goal is that we can have an opportunity to make our contributions to
the economic development of our motherland and give our care to the society. We
hope the government leaders can understand this and give us support.
2.   Please
complete your investigation as soon as possible so that we can resume our
production:
It has been over two months since August 21. Some of the
employees of our company have one by one quit their jobs as they could no
longer endure the stress. As our assets are frozen, the factories cannot
operate normally and our business is on the verge of bankruptcy. We believe
that after almost three months of investigation the government agencies should
have a good understanding of our company. We also hope this investigation can
promote our exchange of ideas and understanding between us. It is also our hope
that the government perform their moral obligations on the couple who have been
serving the countryside of China
with love for the past 20 years and help us resume our normal production.
3.   As an
old Chinese saying goes, “harmony is at the top of all achievements,” different
cultures are here for people to share with each other, not to harm each other. We
believe all the bad things will turn into good things: 1) all the work units
involved in this incident are helping us conduct reforms; 2) all the government
leaders involved in this incident will become our friends; 3) all the law
enforcement officers who are monitoring and investigating us will be our
protectors.
If the relevant authorities decide to abolish our
company, it will be a relief to us as well as a loss.  However, the harm it would do to China
would be in multiple aspects and in multiple levels. (We are trying to prevent
that)
1.   Economically, the
destruction of a sunrise enterprise with five sets of biological technologies
would be a heavy blow to the construction of a new socialist countryside.
2.   Personnel-wise,
a team that has made its contribution to the protection of water, soil and environment,
pest control, food safety in agricultural products, human health and other
areas would disappear.
3. Environmentally,
it was we who led the agricultural production to ecological balance. We have
become a bellwether in the industry and have attracted attention from our
peers.
4.   In the countryside, the two major indexes for
the sustainable development of the rural economy—enhancement of quality of
agricultural products and the natural recovery of the rural resources and
environment can both find solutions through our biological technology.
5.   Culturally, “Love
at Your Side” —the sense of mission for businesses we advocate and man’s sense
of responsibility for the society would become just an echo in history.
After
this incident, we will make more efforts in studying the laws and policies of
the State and strictly distinguish religious activities from business
activities so that we will not cause any more misunderstanding from the law
enforcement agencies. It is already 30 years since we first came to China and we have grown together with Guangzhou. We hope we will
not leave behind any regrets and sadness in our motherland. Instead, we will
continue to serve the Chinese countryside and its peasants.
Yours,
Salute!!
Humbly presented to you from:
Daniel Ng and Eliza Ng
Media interview with Rev. Ng, please contact:
Tel: +86-15302260242 or +86-13265947777
Email: [email protected]