Not surprisingly, Raymond Johnston found Simon's plans for a high-profile visit to China ill-conceived.
In fact, many people around Simon think so.
The reasons are too complicated.
If you want to discuss this topic, tens of thousands of words may not be enough to clarify it.
From Raymond Johnston's perspective, it is impossible not to see China's rapid development in recent years. However, the old man who has always been very focused on Asian business should also understand the strong uncertainty that China's economy has shown since its opening up in 1978.
This is actually the biggest concern of Western capital.
In fact, this kind of thing has happened many times in the past few decades. With the changes in the political situation, many countries in Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia and even Africa have opened up and turned against each other. Then, no matter how much you invest, it will be confiscated directly. , all debts and loans were lost, and investors suffered heavy losses.
This is the most important point.
In addition, there is also the political and cultural aspect.
In the final analysis, Eastern and Western societies, no matter how friendly they appear to be, are not of the same origin.
Non-my family, its heart must be different.
This is not only a wise saying left by our ancestors on the other side of the ocean, but it is actually even more deeply ingrained in the minds of Westerners. It is almost the instinct of all Western elites to suppress the rise of alien races. Therefore, Simon's approach to getting closer to China will inevitably arouse the disgust of many Western nationalists.
What's more, even though it has been so many years since the establishment of diplomatic relations, the potential confrontation between China and the United States has never really been eliminated.
It is impossible for Americans to forget the two consecutive failed attempts in Asia in the 1950s and 1970s.
Coupled with the drastic changes in the international situation after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, there was no need to win over China to contain the Soviet Union. The United States almost completely changed its attitude towards China. In the original time and space, throughout the 1990s, even though it was relatively harmonious on the surface, the United States never stopped making various small moves against China.
After all, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, China became too conspicuous.
In front of the glass curtain of the Shell Villa, Simon heard what Anthony told the old man and said seriously: "The next few decades will definitely be an era of globalization. Economically, if China, which has been developing rapidly, closes down again, we may lose a lot. But it is they who are really hurting the fundamentals. So I am not worried about this. In my opinion, the deeper China is introduced into the global economic system, the less likely it is that certain variables will occur. As for the political level, Tony, what we need to consider now is not the 'politics' of the United States or Australia, but the 'politics' of the Westeros system. I think many of you have not gotten rid of this thinking inertia."
Anthony Johnston was slightly startled when he heard this, but nodded slightly after a moment.
I couldn't help but feel the same emotions as the old man in my heart. It would be great if it was the 'politics' of the Johnston family. If there hadn't been Westeros at all then... it would have been Simon Johnston now.
Alas, what a pity.
In fact, after Simon's identity was confirmed a few years ago, the old man once wanted to make this relationship public, even on a small scale. However, he just took Simon's thoughts into consideration, so he did not do so and planned to let nature take its course.
Now that Simon had made up his mind, Anthony didn't try to persuade him much and started chatting about several projects that Simon was preparing recently until Janet came over again and reminded them that lunch was ready.
The main reason Anthony Johnston came to North America this time was to personally deliver the box of technical information of immeasurable value.
The Westeros system spent more than 6 million US dollars on the more than 2,000 pieces of information in the box, not counting the subsequent immigration costs of secretly accepting some cutting-edge technical talents.
However, this actually still takes an unknown amount of advantage.
Because the contents in the box can be said to be the research and development achievements of the former Soviet Union, their value is simply inestimable.
After completing this matter, Anthony did not stay long. After lunch, he set off again to fly to Latin America. Johnston Holdings, which has also continued to expand in recent years, is currently discussing some cooperation with Brazil, mainly intending to invest in Brazil's largest state-owned iron mine. and played a role in the privatization plan of the stone company Vale.
Simon spent the afternoon and evening personally classifying the large amount of information sent by Anthony, confirming which information should be given to which teams, or whether it was appropriate to take it out now.
Whether it is SpaceX, SolarCity or FusionTimes, Simon has no intention of starting from scratch.
It would be foolish not to utilize as much as possible the technologies developed by our predecessors who have invested so much resources. That’s why this time the Westeros system directly poached Ukraine’s most important Southern Design Bureau. Not only that, Simon will also strive to obtain technology accumulation from NASA and other aspects through various methods.
These are treasures.
Simon has no moral concerns about this. On the contrary, he believes that countries around the world are doing their own thing with the same technology, unable to communicate with each other, and even discarding many technologies in the end. This is the greatest waste of human resources. .
The planet we live on is really far less wealthy than people think.
I don’t know how long she had been busy, but Janet appeared in the studio on the basement floor of Shell Villa. She first stood behind Simon and looked at the monitor on the desk for a moment. When the man came back to his senses, he walked around the leather chair and sat directly on Simon. In his arms, feeling the arm that naturally hugged him, he leaned back and asked, "How much have you tidied up?"
Simon rested his chin on Janet's shoulder, smelled the delicious feminine fragrance, and operated the mouse with one hand, saying: "I only read more than two hundred copies, and there are many more, and I can't understand most of them, they are just classified."
These materials are basically in Russian. Simon's Russian is pretty good, but it involves professional knowledge, and because Russian is also a pinyin text, it is not a hieroglyphic text like Chinese where you can guess some meaning based on the glyphs. If you want to It will be very difficult to understand clearly. Unfortunately, it was impossible to leave this matter to others. After all, it was too sensitive. Even the two Jenny or Girl A didn’t call for help. It wasn’t because they didn’t trust her, but because they happened to not understand Russian.
Janet leaned in Simon's arms and watched for a while. After Simon typed some notes on a document to classify, she said, "It's already past seven o'clock in the evening. How about having dinner first?"
Simon nodded, opened another electronic document and said, "Wait a moment, these are the last two files on this CD."
Janet agreed, continued to accompany her, and said, "Is there really no problem if we get these documents?"
Even with Janet's lawless temper, she actually knew that getting this whole box of information from Ukraine was even more serious than stealing one or two nuclear bombs.
Simon shook his head and said: "If it were Russia, I would definitely not do this. It doesn't matter to Ukraine. After voluntarily giving up nuclear weapons, this country has been completely destroyed. In fact, many people are doing this now. Look at these, they are all electronic files. The actual original manuscript may have been taken by someone else."
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Ukraine chose to go alone and voluntarily gave up its nuclear weapons. Its economy was in a mess again. Now this country is regarded by many people as a fat sheep, and everyone can carve up as much as they can.
Speaking of which, Simon also felt sorry for the other side of the ocean.
China has obviously failed to catch up with the feast of carving up Ukraine in recent years, and can only harvest some leftovers decades later, while Europe, the United States, and Russia have basically gotten everything they should get.
Unfortunately, all parties have not really taken advantage of these technologies.
The fundamental reason is still profit.
Or, to be precise, unprofitable.
Just like the aerospace field.
The most praised RD-180 rocket engine in the next twenty years. Why does the United States keep buying it from Russia? In fact, it is not that the United States cannot make it. The United States has quite complete technical reserves in this regard. It has already fully understood the RD-180 and is even receiving it. Russian engines will be used on their own rockets after certain improvements.
Some people wonder, since we have the technology, why not make it ourselves
Because it costs money.
Manufacturing rocket engines is not something that a group of people can do in a studio with tools. The more cutting-edge it is, the more it requires a full set of talents and production systems. These all cost money, and the United States is accustomed to being extravagant. In any case, it is impossible for the aerospace system to keep costs lower than those of Russia.
As for the conflict between Russia and the United States later, the United States clamored to replace Russia's RD-180, but it also found that even if it had the technology, it would still be difficult to produce in a short period of time. It could only support SpaceX, mainly because all related industrial chains have been abolished. , if you want to pick it up again, you still have to burn a lot of money.
In comparison, SpaceX has established its own complete aerospace industry chain through more than ten years of accumulation.
This is like a mask during the epidemic. This is simpler, right? Why Europe and the United States can still only rely on China? It is also because the industrial chain has been abolished and cannot be restored in a short time. In a capital society like the West, capitalists do not If you are too willing to recover, if you invest a large amount of money, but the epidemic passes and the masks are useless again, wouldn't you lose a lot of money
Therefore, even if the epidemic passes, the hollowing out of Western industries will be difficult to improve.
Because you will lose money.
Except, of course, during times of war.
This is not a simple interest. Mandatory wartime laws will allow Western countries to restart their industrial systems in a short period of time.
Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II was only half of what it did.
If we go one step further and attack the United States directly, the Americans will not be able to mobilize all the people to the extent that producing aircraft carriers and ships is like making dumplings, and the outcome will be uncertain. However, the fundamental limitation of Japan's national strength at that time was probably that it had no choice but to attack Pearl Harbor to temporarily disable the U.S. Pacific Fleet to buy time.
Thinking about more than twenty years later in the original time and space, the hollowing out of American industry has intensified and it is no longer the industrial powerhouse it was at the beginning of the twentieth century. If something happens again, even if there is a mandatory war decree, the industrial system is unlikely to be able to survive in the short term. Recover within 10 seconds, without considering the use of nuclear weapons to kill them all. If someone dares to seize this fatal gap and strike first, tsk tsk.
After continuing to process some documents, Simon and Janet left the studio on the basement floor of Shell Villa together.
After dinner, Simon did not go to the basement to be busy anymore.
In the afternoon, Chen Qing sent someone to deliver the results of another round of selection for the Guofeng Art Troupe. From the last 1,000 people, there were less than 300 people left after this round of screening. The final quota of 100 people had to be decided by Simon himself.
Janet also knew about it and joined in with equal interest.
However, Simon did not arrange any more interviews. Instead, he used a very simple and crude method to finalize the final candidates from the last list.
According to height.
The recruitment criteria initially published in the newspaper were 168CM-172CM, which is actually quite close.
Simon got the last list, and that night while watching TV with the two Jennys, he directly selected 100 girls according to the standard closest to 170cm.
In fact, this matter can be left to Chen Qing.
Simon didn't do this, mainly because he knew a certain girl's temperament, and it was hard to say whether she would cause some trouble.
After being around for so long, Simon also discovered that Chen Qing is the kind of person who is a little like him and a little like Janet. She is very capable and seems to be very obedient. However, the rebelliousness in the girl's heart will not be suppressed if she does not try her best. , maybe one day there will be a big fuss in heaven.
Amidst all the busyness, the time has entered mid-March.
The biggest news during this period is that General Electric's merger with Time Warner finally passed the review of the US authorities.
More than four months have passed since General Electric reached an agreement with Time Warner at the end of October last year, and on March 15, when the merger officially passed the review of the Ministry of Justice, FCC and other departments, which can be described as a bumpy time.
It is mainly the strength of General Electric and the fields that Time Warner is involved in that have aroused the fear of competitors from all sides.
Daenerys actually encountered this problem when she acquired Metropolis ABC. However, through the successful mediation between Simon and all parties, it was basically solved properly, so the time to pass the review was shorter.
The GE-Time Warner merger didn't have such good luck.
Whether it is General Electric's competitor Westinghouse Electric or Time Warner's peers in entertainment, telecommunications and other fields, they all jumped out to raise various objections during the federal review process of this transaction.
Then there are all kinds of wrangling to disrupt the deal as much as possible.
For example, Comcast, which has begun to take shape at this stage but is not yet at the top in terms of strength, has raised questions about the possibility that the new company will launch unfair competition against peer companies after the merger is completed. Because once the two companies merge, GE will not only own a large number of other cable TV assets such as NBC Television Network and HBO, but also own cable TV operators similar to Comcast such as Warner Communications.
In this case, there is undoubtedly the possibility that GE will refuse to provide television broadcasts to competitors such as Comcast in the future. Even if GE does not do this openly, if it privately adopts differentiated pricing for operator sharing, it will still cause serious unfair competition.
GE must solve this problem if it wants to pass merger review.
How to deal with it
The best way is of course not to merge.
In fact, even without this merger, Time Warner Group, which owns the popular HBO and cable TV operator Warner Communications, would still have the possibility to do this. However, Time Warner has been doing these two businesses for many years, and they were basically considered separate businesses before. Party’s default industry structure.
However, once GE swallowed Time Warner, things were certainly different.
Given the current turbulence of the new technology wave, coupled with the latest federal telecommunications bill that has significantly deregulated the telecommunications industry and begun to encourage the integration of three networks, General Electric will definitely increase its investment in Warner Communications in the future as long as it is not stupid. Further develop into a comprehensive telecommunications operator.
This poses a threat to companies such as Comcast.
Therefore, even if GE has made various compromises in the past few months, it is still being ripped off by competitors. GE will neither give up on this acquisition easily, nor will it settle for the next best thing and give up its planned bets. The business of Warner Communications can only be done by you and me.
This continued for more than four months, but in the end, I still managed to get one step ahead and successfully passed the review.
Of course, a lot of conditions have been paid.
For example, in the carrier business, General Electric has made a series of public written commitments to ensure that no unfair competition will occur. As for whether this promise will be strictly implemented in the future, it is uncertain. Everyone knows it well, and it is nothing more than you and me.