As a famous courtier in the late Qing Dynasty, Li Hongzhang was quite controversial in history, and many people believed that he was a "traitor to the country" and "an accomplice of Cixi". However, some people think that he is a rare and capable minister, but he was born in the wrong era and was regarded as a "scapegoat" who lost power and humiliated the country. In fact, the person who knows Li Hongzhang, he is a person with mixed merits, and it is impossible to evaluate a person as "one size fits all", let alone a figure like Li Hongzhang who lives in a complex era?
This year, we are not here to judge Li Hongzhang's faults, but to nag him about what he has done that will affect the present and future generations. In the last years of the Qing Dynasty, because of the opening of treaty ports, many merchants began to buy or lease foreign ships, and then sent their names to seek benefits in the name of foreign merchants. Out of the interests of the family and the country, this behavior was suppressed and prohibited by the Qing government, and the merchants had no choice but to propose that a new type of Chinese steamship enterprise should be established.
However, the Qing government was afraid that foreigners would take the opportunity to invest capital and control Chinese shipping, and it was always opposed. It was not until 1872 that Li Hongzhang thought of a way to help the rise and development of China's new steamship enterprises, a proposal approved by the Tongzhi Emperor.
The Steamship Merchants Bureau was established in this historical context, but later the government suppressed private capital, causing steamship companies to begin to decline after experiencing the peak. Until the founding of New China in 1949, the Steamship China Merchants Bureau was reorganized into the Chinese Steamship Corporation in 1951 and revitalized again, and officially became China Merchants Group Co., Ltd. in 1985, and later founded China Merchants Bank.
After decades of development, China Merchants Group Co., Ltd. has grown stronger and stronger, and in 2019, it even appeared in the United States "Fortune" magazine and became a fortune-500 company in the world.
In China, China Merchants Group Co., Ltd. is also the first enterprise in the net profit and total assets of central enterprises. While enjoying the glory, future generations should not forget that if there was no Li Hongzhang's pioneering deed of "official supervision and private administration", there might not have been a steamship China Merchants Bureau, nor would there be the current China Merchants Group Co., Ltd. What do you think about that?