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sundawu1
"If one does not undertake the responsibility to the family then how can one undertake social responsibility?" Sun Dawu
Dawu Farming and Husbandry Group
http://www.dawu.com.cn
China Property Law Moves Closer CNN.Com December 29, 2003
BEIJING (AP) -- China's plan to constitutionally guarantee the right to hold private property for the first time since the 1949 communist revolution is a step closer to taking effect after parliamentary leaders approved the measure, state media reports Monday.
The amendment is expected to lead to legal changes improving the country's legal framework for trading real estate, stocks and bonds and other property.
It also could help entrepreneurs get access to financing by giving them legal status that could encourage state banks, which lend mostly to government companies, to do more business with them.
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/BUSINESS/12/29/china.property.ap
Charismatic rural Chinese tycoon arrested for financial crimes
Agence France-Presse (via Clari-Net) July 11, 2003
The charismatic Sun has also been a vocal champion of badly needed reforms in China's impoverished rural sector and demanded greater freedom for farmers to speak out and organize in an effort to protect and develop their economic interests.
http://quickstart.clari.net/qs_se/webnews/wed/cc/Qchina-banks-rural.RSY1_DIB.html
Robin Hood in Trouble with Beijing
Taipei Times, New York Times Service, Beijing August 25, 2003
The arrest of a rural businessman who antagonized government officials but earned a loyal following among peasants has created a sensation in Beijing where influential academics say he showed how to improve life in the vast, backward Chinese countryside.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2003/08/25/2003065163
Tycoons at Risk in China's Murky Business World
Financial Times (London) Mure Dickie July 17, 2003
Sun Dawu, an outspoken agricultural entrepreneur in China, was arrested for creating a de facto savings bank for employees and local residents after speaking out against the possible pooling of funds to rich cities by the government. Many believe that his business was singled out and found to be illegal because of his political outspokeness.
http://www.celcee.edu/abstracts/c20032313.html
Strange Happenings in China Today
China Clipper August 28, 2003
He refused to pay bribes, said one depositor. For a long time, officials tried to get money from him, but he refused.
http://www.bollback.com/MegaSite/story-august-28.htm
Rural Chinese tycoon under investigation, website shut down
Agence France-Presse (Via ClariNet) June 04, 2003
The company was also fined 15,000 yuan and forced to shut down its www.dawu.com.cn website for six months because of the anti-government content on the site, she said.
http://biomedlib.dartmouth.edu/webnews/wed/cw/Qchina-banks-internet.Rke_Du4.html
Detoured on his Road to Democracy
Newsday.com Edward A. Gargan August 10, 2003
He also began declaring --loudly enough to be heard nationally--
that democracy is the only way to solve the problems of rural China....
Sun's road to Langwuzhuang helped local farmers move their produce more cheaply to markets. He built a high school with several buildings that was the area's biggest, serving as many as 2,500 students.
As his business expanded, so did Sun's opinions about the problems of the countryside and the political changes needed to address them. He began speaking, notably at Beijing's prestigious Peking and Tsinghua universities. And his company's Web site began posting his views.
"Farmers should stand out and speak for themselves," he declared. "They should have their own organizations and have their own demands."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/969432/posts
A Little Too Successful?
Beijing Portal July 29, 2003 Editor: Cilla
The Dawu Group has used the loans to create both material and spiritual wealth for the local community, rather than disrupt the financial order.
http://english.21dnn.com/7778/2003-7-29/208@974909.htm
Entrepreneur to face illegal finance charges
China Study Group July 03, 2003 Verna Yu
He also published an essay to commemorate the recent death of Li Shenzhi (an icon of liberal mainland intellectualism)
http://www.chinastudygroup.org/newsarchive.php?id=1594
A Chinese Robin Hood Runs Afoul of Beijing
The New York Times, Joseph Kahn, August 24,2003
BEIJING, Aug. 23 - The arrest of a rural businessman who antagonized government officials but earned a loyal following among peasants has created a sensation in Beijing, where influential scholars say he showed how to improve life in the vast, backward Chinese countryside. The businessman, a bold and politically artless onetime farmer named Sun Dawu, is in jail awaiting trial in Hebei Province in northeastern China on charges that he ran an illegal credit cooperative and lured millions of dollars in deposits away from state banks.
In opinion columns and popular Web sites, though, liberal-leaning intellectuals have portrayed Mr. Sun as a modern Robin Hood. They say he battled state finance and trade cartels that they view as draining the savings of China's 800 million peasants to support urban development.
Lawyers for Mr. Sun and supporters in Beijing's academic circles are pressing the government to scrap or define more clearly the scope of the law Mr. Sun is accused of breaking. The loosely worded article gives the authorities broad discretion to charge businessmen who fall out of favor with a catch-all crime called illegal fund-raising....
The support for Mr. Sun is part of a broader effort to bring about gradual political change by pressing top leaders to apply their sometimes high-profile promises to real situations. Even the state-controlled press increasingly highlights individual examples of abuse by local governments in the provinces, prodding the authorities to make good on pledges to respect the rule of law.
http://www.econ.iastate.edu/classes/econ353/kilkenny/ARTICLES%5CA%20Chinese%20Robin%20Hood%20Runs%20Afoul%20of%20Beijing.htm
"Chinese Authorities Arrest Tycoon Sun"
Latelinenews.com July 16, 2003
In opinion columns and popular Web sites, though, liberal-leaning intellectuals have portrayed Mr. Sun as a modern Robin Hood. They say he battled state finance and trade cartels that they view as draining the savings of China's 800 million peasants to support urban development.
The vice-president and general manager of Sun Dawu Farming and Animal Husbandry Group Co. also were arrested, Xinhua said.
http://latelinenews.com/11/english/1270715.shtml
Chinese businessman gets suspended sentence
International Herald Tribune October 31, 2003
Acquittals are rare in China and Sun was content with not having to serve more time, he said "The verdict is acceptable, but we will continue to ask for a legal interpretation of illegally taking deposits. Xu Zhiyong said.
http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=115875
The Economic Observer on Dawu Sun
Danwei, Media and Advertising in the PRC, November 6, 2003
The judgement which has aroused great attention was made on Thursday by the People' Court of Xushui County in Hebei. Picture included.
http://www.danwei.org/2003/11/the_economic_ob.html
China Confronts Problems of Growth
Times Online September 30, 2003 Rosemary Righter
To quote Sun again, Once you pay the right amount to the right person you can erect buildings anywhere except Tiananmens Square, but credit is denied to entrepreneurs who cannot pay the 10 to 15 per cent kickback on a loan. In the countryside, he asserts, banks and credit co-operatives are embodiments of total financial oppression.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,630-835727,00.html
China Encourages Mass Urban Migration
People's Daily Online
In a speech earlier this year, outspoken rural entrepreneur SUN Dawu dismissed government efforts to shift farmers into newly built cities and warned that only a small proportion would be able to find jobs in urban areas.
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200311/28/print20031128_129252.html
Chinese Businessman Gets Suspended Sentence
The International Herald Tribune
October 31, 2003
BEIJING A Chinese court has spared one of the country's most prominent rural businessmen from jail for illegally "taking deposits," a case that highlights the plight of private entrepreneurs trying to borrow from state banks.
The Xushui County court in the northern province of Hebei sentenced Sun Dawu, 49, chairman of Dawu Farming and Husbandry Group, to three years in prison on Thursday but suspended the sentence for four years, his lawyer, Xu Zhiyong, said on Friday.
Sun's relations with the local government soured after he criticized its agricultural policies and the heavy tax burden on farmers and rural enterprises.
http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=115875
JBHolston.com Dissidence, Rule of Law in China January 5, 2004
Mr Sun complained that the system forced many private businesses to take either what he called the red road (red denoting the mandarinate since the time of the Qing dynasty) of bribing officials for loans and other benefits, or the illicit black road of producing fake or shoddy goods. At Peking University in March, Mr Sun boldly accused rural state-owned banks and credit co-operatives of financial oppression, with lenders demanding kickbacks worth 10% to 15% of loans
http://www.jbholston.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi
Changes in Chinese Farm Policy
Stratfor January 08, 2004
The move is Beijing's latest bid to improve the Chinese peasantry's lot in life. Rural incomes remain flat, and farmers face stagnant prices, competition from agricultural imports and the caprices of corrupt local leaders. New President Hu Jintao's administration has been responsive in meeting some of the needs of China's rural residents in recent months, including considering some radical changes and consenting to direct political challenge...
The second, and even more surprising, event is the rehabilitation of Chinese tycoon and self-appointed champion of the peasant, Sun Dawu. Sun was arrested after publishing essays critical of government policies and state-controlled banks and for establishing an unauthorized independent credit cooperative for farmers. The outspoken businessman committed two venal sins in China: First, he openly criticized the government, and by extension the Party; and, second, he encouraged Chinese farmers to withdraw their money from state-controlled banks if they did not like the way the government loaned money -- an idea that strikes a chord with the farmers who seethe at the thought that the vast majority of the loans from China's Big Four commercial banks go to unproductive state-owned enterprises, while they find it difficult borrow anything.
Not long ago, Sun would have received a one-way ticket to a re-education camp in a barren part of China, but he got off with little more than a sharp slap on the wrist, heavy fines and a three-year suspended sentence for "causing disorder in the local financial sector." Sun's favorable treatment indicates a couple of things: First, he is well-connected, and that is what likely saved his skin. But more importantly, his commuted sentence reveals that -- in the eyes of Beijing -- the entrepreneur's charges against the state were correct.
http://www.ocnus.net/artman/publish/printer_9585.shtml
http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2004-01/08/content_296850.htm
CHINESE LANGUAGE ADDRESS
1. Chinese site
http://www.yepa.net/sundawu
Links verified December 15, 2005
sundawu2
SUN Dawu: Philosopher (2)
SUN Dawu: Philosopher (3)
Sun Dawu: Philosopher (homepage)
On Interpreting the Three Agricultures
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