一个亿万富翁之家的成长之路.docVIP

一个亿万富翁之家的成长之路In the 1950s, the Liu family of southwest China’s Sichuan Province was so short of food, they sent one of their youngest sons to be raised by another family. Today, however, they are one of China’s richest families. Rising from public scorn during the Cultural Revolution, the four Liu brothers managed to turn a small quail-breeding farm into China’s largest private company, later splitting it into four. “The difficulties we went through in the early years made us strong,” says 60-year-old Liu Yongxing, a former factory worker who Forbes lists as the wealthiest person in China, with a fortune estimated at $3 billion. The Lius are China’s first-generation billionaires, born into a world of Mao suits, food rations, price controls and Communist slogans. And the story of how they made their fortune is considered one of the guiding myths of China’s Communist party, a symbol of this country’s transformation over the last 30 years, since its unlikely embrace of capitalism. But their story also betrays the contradictions of modern China — a country where the average factory worker makes less than $50 a week. “The puzzle is not why the Liu brothers succeeded, but why there are not more like them in China,” says Huang Yasheng, who teaches at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is an expert on Chinese entrepreneurs. “Rural China represents a vast pool of entrepreneurial capabilities and substantial business opportunities.” As the global economy enters its first drastic downturn since China opened to the world, analysts say this country is searching for a more sustainable path to growth. Waning foreign demand threatens to stall its economic miracle and Beijing’s leaders are trying to cope with the undersides of growth, like rising inequality and environmental degradation. “The old game has started collapsing,” says Xu Xiaonian, a professor of economics at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai, referrin