The gong struck by the company when it was listed on the Boshang Exchange. Southern Weekly reporter Zhou Xiaoling/photo
On a sweltering morning in April 2024, more than 200 plastics traders in Dongguan participated in an industry exchange meeting in Zhangmutou Town, hosted by a bulk commodity spot trading platform called Hainan International Commodity Exchange Center (hereinafter referred to as Haiguoshang). Zhangmutou is an important plastic trade distribution center in China.
"(Hai Guoshang) also wants to make the ABS (resin) varieties that we put on ten years ago." Faced with the invitation to enter the new trading venue, Dang Yong couldn't help but persuade his peers to consider carefully. Today, the person in charge of Shanghai Guoshang is the former deputy general manager of Tianjin Bohai Commodity Exchange Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Bohai Commodity Exchange). Dang Yong's first contact with commodity spot trading was in Boshang.
Ten years ago, Dang Yong served as the chairman of the Dongguan Plastics Industry Development Promotion Association, and promoted a number of enterprises in East China and South China to go to the Boshang Exchange to be listed, and the listing service fee paid to the Boshang Exchange alone was as high as 8 million yuan.
However, less than two years after entering the market, Boshang was reorganized, the contract was forced to be suspended, and the listing service fee was lost, and Dang Yong and more than 200 listed companies also embarked on a years-long road of recovery.
Boshang was born in the period of savage growth of the commodity spot trading market. According to the statistics of the Commodity Trading Market Circulation Branch of the China Federation of Things, as of the end of 2015, a total of 1,021 such trading markets have been approved and established by local governments across the country.
After the frequent chaos of some platforms such as the running away of money, the supervision intervened strongly, and after many rounds of clean-up and rectification, the bulk commodity spot trading venues died down. It is not until recent years that the phrase "cultivating and developing the bulk commodity trading market" has reappeared in the government work reports of many places.
The threshold is lower than that of futures
At the industry exchange meeting, futures experts introduced that Haiguo Business can provide risk hedging channels for the majority of plastic practitioners and realize financial empowerment for the plastic industry. This is also the main reason for attracting Dang Yong to join Boshang in that year.
"We need to discover prices and grasp the pricing power of the industry." Dang Yong's plastics trading industry often faces price fluctuations, and plastic traders' earnings come from judging the future of the market.
PVC (polyvinyl chloride), PE (polyethylene) and PP (polypropylene) in plastics are all futures varieties listed on the Dalian Commodity Exchange, and the domestic market demand for each variety is about 40 million tons, "the trading volume is very large, affecting the spot market." The Dalian Commodity Exchange is one of the top five futures exchanges in China and is regulated by the China Securities Regulatory Commission.
The annual market trading volume of ABS (resin) is only 5 million tons, and it cannot become a futures product due to the small trading volume. The emergence of Boshang means that ABS can become a "quasi-futures" through the corresponding trading mechanism.
At first glance, the so-called spot trading rules implemented by the Boshang Exchange encourage same-day delivery, but due to the deferred delivery, investors are more inclined to choose the latter after comparing the cost of same-day delivery and the compensation fee for deferred delivery, and the spot transaction will eventually evolve into an indefinite medium and long-term transaction, coupled with the characteristics of 5 times leverage and two-way trading, the Boshang Exchange will further be colored by futures.
It is the member units of Boshang that connect Dangyong and Boshang. The member unit refers to the authorized service organization of the Boshang Exchange's external business, which can not only develop corporate traders (listed enterprises), but also expand natural person traders.
Many of the traders who entered the Boshang Exchange went for speculation.
Under the recommendation of a member unit in Huaihua, Hunan, Tang Baosheng, a native of Hunan, initially entered the Boshang Exchange as a natural person trader, and soon lost 60,000 or 70,000 yuan in principal.
Tang Baosheng began to study why he lost money, and the member unit revealed to him that there are three roles that can make money, namely the trading platform, the member unit and the listed company. The trading platform and the member unit will share the transaction fee and the listing service fee, and the listed company can become the person who "sits in the bank".
In the design of the Boshang Exchange, the listed enterprises must be the top three leading enterprises in the industry, and only one enterprise is allowed to be listed for each variety. But in fact, as long as you are willing to pay, you can become a listed company.
"I can only deliver the varieties I list, and others who want to sell goods can't enter my warehouse, and they can't form warehouse receipts." Tang Baosheng said that according to the requirements of Boshang, the listed company is responsible for preparing the delivery warehouse and is the natural seller (short party). If the buyer does not want to deliver on the same day, the listed company can also receive compensation for delayed delivery.
At the end of 2013, Tang Baosheng was sponsored by member units and paid 12 million listing service fees and became a listed company of Poria cocos. Thirty percent of the listing service fee is attributed to the member unit as a sponsor fee, and seventy percent is to Bo Commercial Exchange.
With more than 200 members scattered across the country, Boshang became the most influential commodity spot trading platform in China ten years ago.
In order to open up more markets, member units can also develop downline, that is, set up sales departments in various places. Tang Baosheng's hometown Huang Xing also had the idea of the sales department before becoming a listed company on the Boshang Exchange. The business department must pay a fee of 200,000 yuan to the member units, and also need to go to Tianjin to participate in special training and certification, "the course talks about the superiority of the transaction model and promotes the myth of wealth".
According to the rules of the Boshang Exchange, members are not allowed to participate in trading, use dealer information for profit, or engage in activities unrelated to market development and dealer work.
According to Dang Yong, in order to attract enterprises to be listed, some member units will choose to share commissions to listed companies.
In addition, many traders in the market have multiple identities, which are both member units, listed companies, and some are intermediate warehouse dealers that provide liquidity to the market.
Intermediate traders are also held by large or leading companies in the industry, effectively playing the role of market makers. Due to the continuous trading system implemented by Boshang, the intermediate warehouse is needed to solve the problem that the strength of the buyer and the seller cannot be effectively matched, and when either party puts forward the delivery demand, if no one in the market takes the order, the more orders will be eaten by the intermediate warehouse.
The border areas of Hunan, Guizhou and Chongqing are rich in manganese carbonate ore, also known as the "manganese triangle", and the output of electrolytic manganese accounts for 90% of the country. Because he knew the bosses of several private enterprises in Hunan electrolytic manganese, Huang Xing chose to become a listed company of electrolytic manganese, and also a middle warehouse trader.
Before electrolytic manganese was listed on the Boshang Exchange, no other manganese products had been listed on the futures exchange, and the qualification to become a market maker on the futures exchange was much higher than that of the Boshang Exchange.
Large taxpayers
Compared with the trading platform of the same period, Boshang came from a "prominent" background.
In 2009, Boshang was established with the approval of the Tianjin Municipal Government. During this period, taking advantage of the Binhai New Area as a national comprehensive reform pilot zone, Tianjin took the lead in financial reform and innovation.
Two years before the establishment of Boshang Exchange, Tianjin was looking for a new exchange plan in the country in preparation for the establishment of a bulk commodity trading platform.
This young man was Yan Dongsheng, the later chairman of Boshang. After receiving his Ph.D. from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, he was sent to Hong Kong to study investment banking at Merrill Lynch, and after returning to Shanghai, he participated in the establishment of the Shanghai Petroleum Exchange.
Yan Dongsheng designed a new type of trading market for Boshang Exchange, namely the BEST (Bohai Spot Trading) trading model, the biggest feature of which is the "continuous trading system" combining "continuous bidding" and "spot delivery", which is intuitively manifested as "T+0" trading. This highlight was imitated by exchanges across the country at that time.
After its establishment, the first trading varieties were crude oil and coke, and soon expanded to the fields of agriculture and forestry, chemicals, metals, animal husbandry and industrial products, becoming the largest comprehensive commodity trading market in China.
State-owned assets and local government endorsements have become the advantages of Boshang to attract all kinds of dealers.
According to the company's investigation, in the shareholder structure of Boshang, Nam Kwong (Shanghai) Investment Company, a subsidiary of the state-owned enterprise China Nam Kwong Group, holds 3.9% of the shares, and Tianjin Jinrong Investment Service Group Co., Ltd., a local state-owned enterprise, holds 3.84% of the shares.
At present, there are 14 shareholders and 6 natural person shareholders who account for the majority of the shares of Boshang, but it is impossible to see who they are.
Dang Yong still remembers that when he went to Tianjin to sign the agreement related to the listing of products, he was in a delicate old western-style house in the former Italian Concession of Tianjin, which was the former residence of Cao Kun, the last president of the Beiyang government. A long corridor into the building is covered with photos of government officials and Chinese and foreign dignitaries inspecting the exchange.
In addition to Boshang, Tianjin has established 11 commodity spot trading markets since 2009, gathering more than 1,200 financial institutions of various types. At the same time, Tianjin has also attracted foreign exchanges to settle down, such as the Shouguang fruit and vegetable plate that moved from Shouguang in Shandong to Binhai New Area.
The decentralized counter system of the Tianjin Precious Metals Exchange, the share-based trading model of the Tianjin Cultural Exchange, and the continuous trading system of the Boshang Exchange...... These trading models in Tianjin have become templates for replication in various places.
"Every once in a while, you can meet officials from other places who come to exchange and learn from experience, and a wave may poach a group of employees." In 2011, after graduating from university, Wang Qi joined the Boshang Institute as a school recruiter, and at that time, the Boshang Institute had about 30 employees, which was also a record year for the number of recruits.
In the first two years of joining Boshang, Wang Qi followed the company's leaders to meet with local leaders, "almost once a week". As long as an important enterprise signs a contract, Boshang will invite city leaders to ring the gong platform for the enterprise.
The importance of local governments is directly proportional to the value brought by Boshang. Yan Dongsheng told Southern Weekend that during its glory days, it was one of the top three major taxpayers in Hebei District.
He also revealed that he took a fancy to the heritage of the Hebei District Cultural Center at that time, and also found a feng shui gentleman to stand on the top floor of the Ocean Building and look down on the entire Italian style area, before finally choosing Cao Kun's former residence as the office location.
However, Sino-Ocean Building is now the new office of Boshang Firm. Southern Weekend reporters met Yan Dongsheng here, and he still appeared in the media camera, wearing a suit and leather shoes, and a pair of square-rimmed glasses.
The original office of Boshang was located in an exquisite old western-style house in the Italian Concession of Tianjin, which was once the former residence of Cao Kun, the last president of the Beiyang government. Southern Weekly reporter Zhou Xiaoling/photo
"What's the deal?"
After 2012, the State Council issued relevant regulatory policies for the trading market, and Tianjin rarely approved new trading venues, and some trading venues in Tianjin also began to suspend and rectify.
However, in the first round of cleaning and rectification of trading venues in the country, Tianjin is one of the few areas that has not completed the inspection and acceptance, and there is no so-called white list.
This also leaves room for the development of the firm, and almost all of the traders surveyed joined the firm after 2013.
Wang Qi confirmed to Southern Weekend that it was after 2013 that more companies came to Boshang to sign contracts, and at most the company received more than 10 companies a day. Prior to this, visitors were mainly from local governments.
With the increase in the number of listed companies, there are also more retail investors who come to trade.
"Individual investors are uncomfortable at both ends here." Liang Ming explained to the Southern Weekend reporter that industrial investors will promote spot delivery at the appropriate time, while individual investors have no goods on hand and no demand for goods, so there is no point in closing positions on the same day, so they will have to bear the double loss of delayed delivery compensation and price fluctuations.
Liang Ming also has multiple identities in Boshang. He was a member of the company in the early days of its establishment, and won the listing qualifications of two major industrial products, and participated in the design of the contract details of the two major industrial products. He once suggested that Yan Dongsheng raise the requirements for traders to enter the market, reduce the proportion of natural person dealers, and distinguish between the rate of return sharing of member unit development enterprises and individual traders, but this was not adopted.
Yan Dongsheng also said frankly that some varieties are indeed not suitable for excessive opening of natural person transactions, and the qualification review of traders was relatively loose in those years, and the qualification review of buyers and sellers was improved in the later stage, "which will immediately affect the market."
Liang Ming has the impression that the chaos of the Boshang Exchange began with the development of agricultural products, and the trading volume of many agricultural product markets is small, and some contracts are designed to be traded in a small one-handed manner, such as some even trade in grams, "a bunch of small retail investors come in, and the market speculation is too high."
This is also the reason why most agricultural products are blocked from futures exchanges.
At present, domestic futures exchanges have high requirements for natural person investors to enter the market. Taking the apple contract of the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange as an example, the minimum order is one lot, and one lot is 10 tons. In addition, the special varieties stipulate the threshold of account opening funds, which are divided into two levels: 100,000 yuan and 500,000 yuan.
Zhengshang is the exchange with the most listed agricultural products, but there are only 14 varieties. In 2017, apples were listed on the Zhengshang Exchange as the world's first fresh fruit futures variety.
According to Yicai, the first batch of mung bean futures listed on the Zhengshang Exchange accounted for more than half of the national futures trading volume from 1998 to 1999, but due to its small scale, it attracted an influx of capital from all walks of life, resulting in malicious forced positions. Ten years later, mung bean futures were allowed to be delisted.
There is no restriction on the development of futures commodities in the United States, and if it is found that the prospects of the varieties are not good after listing, the trading is disorderly or the trading volume is small, it can be delisted. However, the former chief CEO of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange once said that CME Group's main customers are institutional investors and do not trade directly with individual investors.
"For some small agricultural products, as long as there is enough financial strength, you can affect the price by yourself." Wang Qi explained that Boshang is also a headache for the amount of money that can be taken away, and the platform has to bear the criticism that the price of some products is out of the spot.
After the emergence of such problems, the risk control pressure of Boshang doubled, and "as soon as there is a rise and fall limit, the trading will be suspended, and users with large amounts of funds will be interviewed".
Li Xiudong has been complained by customers for multiple suspension of trading during the trading period. He is the head of the material sector subsidiary of a real estate company in Northeast China, with the idea of "selling goods" and "making the Northeast rice brand bigger", in 2014 it became a listed company on the Boshang Exchange, and the listed variety is Daohua fragrant japonica rice.
Originally, Li Xiudong thought that Boshang was equivalent to a national chain supermarket, and more than 200 member units could help sell goods. To this end, he recruited forty or fifty salesmen, won more than 500 square meters of office, and spent nearly 5 million yuan per year on manpower and space costs. He also needs to prepare the delivery warehouse according to the requirements of Boshang and place an order for the packaging of 900 tons of rice, waiting for it to be packed and shipped. "Actually, what's the deal?"
Wang Deyi, a lawyer at Beijing Xunzhen Law Firm, told Southern Weekend that many spot trading platforms have listing service fees, deferred delivery compensation fees, and some exchange membership seat transfer fees are very high. If you are engaged in physical transactions, it is understandable to charge relevant fees, which are equivalent to supermarket listing fees, but the problem is that physical delivery is almost non-existent, and the vast majority of people engage in transactions without physical contracts for the purpose of speculation or VAM.
Go to financial attributes
On the eve of the closure of the original model of the Boshang Exchange, Tianjin officialdom has experienced violent shocks for more than a year, and there are at least 35 cadres at the department and bureau level and above.
After 2016, a new leadership team of the municipal government was formed. Wang Qi recalled that after that, Tianjin began to follow the documents issued by the central government to require Boshang to rectify without discrimination.
The ripple effect of changes in the regulatory environment is that dealers across the country from all over the country have blown up the complaint calls of the Tianjin Financial Office, and eventually these calls are directly transferred to the Boshang Exchange. "We even set up a customer rights protection department internally to deal with customer complaints."
In order to better rectify, Boshang established a clean-up and rectification department, and the direction of rectification is to remove financial attributes.
Yan Dongsheng took the initiative to increase the margin mode from 20% to 50%, and even to 100% of the payment. However, a number of traders said that "the model of pure spot (Boshang) is completely meaningless".
In the end, Yan Dongsheng made a decision to make a pure e-commerce. Nowadays, when you open the official website of Boshang, you can only see the P2C industry e-commerce platform, and there are two transaction modes that can be realized, spot listing and spot bidding.
In Wang Qi's view, e-commerce and auction are both chicken ribs. In the market, Internet e-commerce platforms are mature, and many traders themselves are also engaged in e-commerce. The auction has higher requirements for the market appeal of the product, "the product is not in demand, and it cannot be auctioned at all".
Yan Dongsheng did not give up the possibility of model innovation. He has successively poached people from the expert group of the Tianjin Clean-up and Rectification Group and the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange with high salaries, hoping that they will design a better trading model that can not only be recognized by regulators, but also continue to innovate financially.
In August 2017, Wu Keli, vice president of Zheng Commercial Law Firm, joined Boshang with a team, and Yan Dongsheng gave up the position of general manager to Bo Commercial Exchange with his team, who had worked in the securities regulatory system for many years. "Everyone is looking forward to the arrival of Mr. Wu and believes that he can find a new direction." Wang Qi said.
After Wu Keli took office, he studied the models that could be done at home and abroad, and proposed a model for basis prices, but it was stopped by the regulator as soon as it was launched. After staying for less than 10 months, Wu Keli chose to leave.
During this period, Yan Dongsheng also tried many directions to "save commodities".
Wang Qi remembered that Yan Dongsheng had gone to Macau to look for a breakthrough, and the Monetary Authority of Macao said that it could not understand the spot trading model, but welcomed Boshang to open a bank in Macau.
At the end of 2017, Boshang completed the acquisition and capital increase of the Bank for Reconstruction and Development of Ukraine. In 2020, Boshang acquired a 49.9% stake in the First Stock Exchange of Ukraine and obtained various financial licenses.
Yan Dongsheng's business card is printed with two new positions: Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Bank for Reconstruction and Development of Ukraine and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the First Stock Exchange of Ukraine (PETS). He said that the goal is to reform the existing rules in China's capital market.
Wang Qi explained that Yan Dongsheng intends to go to Ukraine to copy the model of Boshang and let companies trade abroad. However, due to the restrictions of foreign exchange supervision, it is inconvenient to transfer funds, and the preparation of overseas trading platforms is slow. Since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, I have never heard news from the Ukrainian side again.
A number of traders said that Yan Dongsheng repeatedly used the reason that Boshang was preparing for overseas listing, and wanted them to convert the listing service fee into shares.
Sino-Ocean Building, located in Hedong District, is now the new office of Boshang Firm. Southern Weekly reporter Zhou Xiaoling/photo
Hard-to-win lawsuits
After the closure of the original model of the Boshang Exchange, many listed companies chose to appeal to recover the listing fees. Tang Baosheng's company is the only one that has won the lawsuit, and the other is Qingdao Rubber Valley Industrial Supply Chain Co., Ltd.
In 2014, Tang Baosheng's company was listed on the Boshang Exchange to trade Poria products, and the service contract was valid for 5 years, which could be extended after expiration, which was equivalent to an indefinite period. In fact, in less than five months after the normal operation of Poria Cocos's listed trading, it has repeatedly encountered changes to rules or restrictions on trading.
According to a reply letter provided by Tang Baosheng stamped with the special seal of the Tianjin Municipal Financial Work Bureau for open government information, as early as 2011, Boshang had been included in the clean-up and rectification list, and until September 18, 2016, when the original model was stopped, it had not passed the inspection and acceptance of the inter-ministerial joint meeting, that is, it was not included in the white list.
In 2019, the first contract between the two parties expired, and the situation has not improved; In 2020, Tang Baosheng sued Boshang in the Hecheng District People's Court of Huaihua City, Hunan Province and won the lawsuit; In 2022, the Intermediate People's Court of Huaihua City, Hunan Province upheld the first-instance judgment in the second instance, and Boshang was required to return the listing service fee paid by Tang Baosheng.
This was the closest Tang Baosheng came to victory, but 10 months later, Boshang sued Tang Baosheng in the Tianjin Hebei District People's Court on the same grounds.
"Any lawsuit that is transferred to Tianjin through a jurisdiction dispute, (the listed company) will either lose or choose to withdraw the lawsuit, which is expensive but has a slim chance of winning." Tang Baosheng couldn't help but feel a little worried.
According to the company's investigation, in recent years, the appellant was rejected by the local court in Tianjin or the appellant chose to withdraw the lawsuit in a number of sales contract disputes involving Boshang.
Despite the poor implementation, the news of Tang Baosheng's previous victory spread among the listed companies. In particular, the Huaihua Intermediate People's Court ruled that the contract between the two parties was invalid because the Boshang Exchange had concealed the circumstances of the liquidation and rectification and engaged in illegal futures trading, which meant that the listed enterprises that had passed the prosecution period had the opportunity to reclaim the listing service fees from the Boshang Exchange.
At the same time as the lawsuit was filed in Tianjin, Boshang also applied to the Hunan Provincial High Court for a retrial.
According to a transcript of the Hunan Provincial High Court's interrogation of the retrial applicant, Boshang, obtained by Southern Weekend, two representatives of Boshang highlighted that the subsequent impact of the determination of Boshang's invalid contract is that it will completely negate Boshang's business model, which will result in the legal consequences of all traders having to return to each other and restore the original state.
One of the delegates introduced the scale of the Boshang Exchange, which generated 20 million yuan in trading profits in the Tang Baosheng case alone, involving 14,400 natural persons and 33 enterprises. The number of natural person traders in Hunan has reached 30,000. Since its opening, the trading volume of the platform of Boshang has reached 9.5 trillion yuan, involving 800,000 natural persons and more than 200 listed companies.
In addition, as of September 6, 2022, there were 16 similar cases involving courts in Tianjin, Shandong and Jiangsu across the country, and only Hunan made invalid contract judgments.
On November 27, 2023, Tang Baosheng received a retrial judgment from the Intermediate People's Court of Huaihua City, Hunan Province, and the judgment result was changed from an "invalid contract" to a "valid contract". In addition, it was originally ordered that Boshang should return the service fee for the listing of Poria cocos products in half, and Tang Baosheng had to bear the case trial fee jointly with Boshang.
According to the judgment, "in the years-long government clean-up and rectification, the trading model (of Boshang) has not been recognized as futures trading or illegal trading by the administrative department or the business department, and the relevant department has only required rectification, and the Boshang Exchange has still legally existed."
"There are former colleagues in many places"
After losing business, Boshang repeatedly cut salaries and downsized. From 2017 to the end of 2019, the firm plummeted from more than 150 at its peak to more than 100, and when Wang Qi left the firm in 2020, there were only about 50 people left. "The staff of the customer rights protection department has been repeatedly reduced, and some complaints that are difficult to negotiate can only be recommended to go to judicial proceedings."
"There are a lot of places where we have former colleagues." Wang Qi said that places with more relaxed financial innovation policies absorb most of the former employees of Boshang Firm, especially Shandong and Hainan, "these two places can still do 'T+0', and other places must be 'T+5' with strict financial supervision."
When communicating with his former colleagues, in addition to the former deputy general manager of Boshang who worked for Hai Guoshang, Wang Qi learned that two deputy general managers of Boshang had gone to Bailian Commodities, a subsidiary of Shanghai Bailian Group, and one of the former heads of the settlement department is currently working at the Hainan International Energy Exchange Center (hereinafter referred to as Hai Guoneng).
Most of the investors in these newly established spot trading venues in recent years are state-owned enterprises or central enterprises. Up to now, there are more than 130 commodity trading markets that have been publicly approved and retained in the white list.
The Southern Weekend reporter consulted with the staff of Haiguo Commercial as a customer and learned that she is also a former employee of Boshang Exchange, and the existing business system and structure of the platform are basically the same as those of Boshang Exchange, and member institutions need to pay seat fees, which can be divided into 30% of the listing fee of listed companies.
The types of varieties allowed to be listed by Haiguo Merchants are also similar to those of Boshang, which are divided into agriculture and forestry, energy, chemicals, metals, etc., all of which are positioned as a comprehensive spot commodity trading platform. According to the above-mentioned staff of the maritime business, except for the agriculture and forestry sector, natural person traders are not allowed to enter the market for the time being.
"It's exactly the same as before." Dang Yong's plastics association has once again become a listed company in the sea, and can even get a lot of trading commissions from its members, "and the local government is also happy to see that someone can suck the funds over."
The above-mentioned staff member of the Shanghai State Business explained that in recent years, the local government has re-proposed the construction of trading venues, and Hainan has a higher degree of policy openness than other places, so the industry has been moved. In addition, many central and state-owned enterprises themselves are engaged in bulk commodity trade closely related to the national economy and people's livelihood, but due to the meager profits and small incremental space of bulk commodity trade, they turn to trade services.
Yan Dongsheng scoffed at the newly formed exchanges, calling them imitators.
When you open the official website of Haiguoshang, the first thing that catches your eye is a line of big words - building a world of free trade in bulk commodities. Ten years ago, Yan Dongsheng described to visiting reporters in a small and imposing western-style building in Tianjin that he dreamed of a "borderless online global free trade zone".
(At the request of the interviewee, Wang Qi and Liang Ming are pseudonyms)
Southern Weekly reporter Zhou Xiaoling
Editor-in-charge: Feng Ye