An Open Letter to General Secretary Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao from Christian Entrepreneur Daniel Ng

China Aid Association
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