The mention of one of China's aircraft carriers always brings to mind the name "Xu Zengping," a patriotic businessman who brought in a Chinese aircraft carrier from Ukraine with a keen eye at the beginning of this century, making China the last country to have an aircraft carrier in the Five Permanent Standing of the United Nations.
More than 20 years have passed since this incident, so is Xu Zengping okay now?
Xu Zengping, a native of Yantai, Shandong, was born in the early 1950s and officially joined the PLA Air Force in his youth, and after 12 years of military service, Xu Zengping retired from the Guangzhou Military Region in the 1980s.
After retiring from the army, Xu Zengping began to do business. In just 5 years, Xu Zengping's value has exceeded 10 million yuan, in 1988 he entered Hong Kong to work hard and established the Chuang law Group, after which the group's performance flourished, Xu Zengping created a new business kingdom. This year, the second ship of the Soviet Red Navy's "Kuznetsov" class aircraft carrier "Varyag" was being built at the Nikolayev Shipyard. He probably didn't expect that ten years later he would be intimately intertwined with the fate of the aircraft carrier.
In 1997, the international situation underwent earth-shaking changes, the Collapse of the Soviet Union 6 years ago, the Cold War pattern ceased to exist, and the United States became a world superpower. The Soviet Union was divided into 15 countries, of which the country that built the Varyag aircraft carrier changed from the Soviet Union to Ukraine. However, because these republics of the Soviet Union blindly copied the economic systems of Western countries in the 1990s, the economy declined and the state finances could not make ends meet. Therefore, the Varyag, which reached 60% of the construction completion in Ukraine, could not continue to be built because of financial problems, and Ukraine had no choice but to sell it painfully.
Xu Zengping could not help but be excited to know this news, he was born in the People's Liberation Army, had a deep sense of home and country, always wanted to do something meaningful for the country, saw Ukraine decided to sell aircraft carriers, he understood that the opportunity came.
The Ukrainian government has put forward very strict conditions for the sale of aircraft carriers, because aircraft carriers are not to say that 20 years ago, even now, they are the "national weight" of a country. As a result, countries that can have aircraft carriers can dramatically change the geopolitical landscape of the region.
You should know that the Chinese Navy in the late 90s, not to mention the aircraft carrier, did not even have a few decent destroyers of the first class, let alone any aircraft carriers, the strength of the Navy is not as good as the Taiwan Navy on the other side, if you can get an aircraft carrier, the combat effectiveness of the Chinese Navy is undoubtedly a leap-like improvement.
Therefore, in order not to cause trouble, Ukrainian officials announced that this aircraft carrier prohibits any country from purchasing, and can only be purchased by individuals. Therefore, Xu Zengping quickly seized this opportunity, of course, the purchase of aircraft carriers is far from so simple, Xu Zengping first registered a new tourism company in his personal name, after all, to hide his eyes. He single-handedly approached the Ukrainian side and proposed that the aircraft carrier, which he had bought mainly for commercial use, was best suited to be converted into a casino at sea.
Xu Zengping knew that many Slavs were addicted to alcohol, so he specially drank Chinese liquor at the dinner table with the leaders of the Ukrainian shipyard, which significantly brought the relationship between the two sides closer and laid a good foundation for the next step of aircraft carrier negotiations.
In the end, Xu Zengping negotiated with the Ukrainian side, and the Ukrainian side proposed a price of 20 million US dollars, which was a huge amount of money, but Xu Zengping immediately agreed. Knowing that a Su-27 fighter jet was only more than $20 million at the time, you can imagine how cost-effective the business was.
But the CIA got the news and quickly put pressure on Ukraine through the U.S. government because the U.S. didn't want the Chinese Navy to have aircraft carriers, and according to their vision, the Chinese Navy should always be a yellow-water navy. Faced with heavy pressure, the helpless Ukrainian government could only reverse the agreement it had reached with Xu Zengping and announce a public auction of the Varyag.
But what the Americans did not expect was that the entire auction was Xu Zengping's highest bidder, so the aircraft carrier was lucky to return to the hands of Chinese. Xu Zengping was worried that the United States would make another intrigue in the future, so he planned to immediately bring the Varyag back to China. But when the aircraft carrier passed through Turkey's Bosphorus, Turkey was instructed by the United States to begin an unwarranted attack on the Varyag and demand that it never pass through the Bosphorus. After consultations with Chinese government personnel and payment of a deposit far exceeding the price of the aircraft carrier, Turkey allowed Varyag to enter the Mediterranean. At this time, it was already 2001, after a long voyage, Varyag finally arrived in Dalian, Liaoning Province, without any danger, Xu Zengping spent a lot of money to introduce aircraft carriers, and finally because the financial resources could not make ends meet, the registered tourism company went bankrupt. Xu Zengping then handed over the aircraft carrier to the Chinese military.
Later, everyone must know about the aircraft carrier, so what happened to Xu Zengping now?
He is now the chairman of the board of directors of Hong Kong Chuang law Holdings Co., Ltd., and continues to write a business legend, comrade Chi Haotian, a general of the People's Liberation Army and minister of national defense, personally inscribed for him: "Pure son's feelings repay the heart of the country, and the aircraft carrier town qiankun."