<h1 class="ql-align-center" > talked to Lei Yu about reform and opening up</h1>
When: The morning of October 28, 2018
Location: Yangshuo Mountainside Resort Hotel 7304 outside the balcony
The crystal clear water of the Yulong River flows slowly through the bamboo forest below, and the late autumn sun sprinkles on us through the lush leaves. I sat opposite Lei Yu, and on the coffee table in the middle was a cup of strong tea that his wife, Sister Han, had brewed for me, while Lei Yu still only drank boiled water. The Bureau of Veteran Cadres of the Autonomous Regional Party Committee organized provincial-level veteran cadres to live in Yangshuo, Guilin, for a few days, and we were able to chat freely for a morning.
Lei Yu is 84 years old this year, and his body is very tough. After more than 20 years of acquaintance with him, I found that he had hardly changed much, his eyes were still bright and full of wisdom, his face was still white and red, there was no old age spot, and he still spoke with a smile, talking eloquently, and meaningful.
Lei Yu, speaking of this name is always associated with the great cause of vigorous reform and opening up, and in this unprecedented and magnificent ensemble, he is undoubtedly one of the strong voices. But he often humbled himself that he was at best a paving stone for reform and opening up. This year marks the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening up, and our conversation naturally begins with reform and opening up. Lei Yu said: Reform and opening up is a great change that has profoundly affected China and even shocked the world, and I have the honor to become a soldier in the army of hundreds of millions of reform and opening up, and have been baptized and tempered in the years of burning passion. Every time I think of this, I am overwhelmed with excitement. He said that Ren Zhongyi was a proletarian revolutionary of the older generation, and on February 21, 1977, he followed Ren Zhongyi from Heilongjiang to Liaoning, and on November 8, 1980, he followed Li Zhongyi from Liaoning to Guangdong. During Ren Zhongyi's administration of Liaoning, he was the first to support the discussion of truth standards, rehabilitate Zhang Zhixin, propose and promote the reform of urban collective ownership, "loosen" the decentralization of state-owned enterprises, restore rural land retention, and open up market trade. In charge of Guangdong, he withstood tremendous pressure and broke through many difficulties, put forward that Guangdong's reform and opening up be unswerving, and unswerving in cracking down on economic crimes, stressing that it should be more invigorating at home, more decentralizing power to the outside world, being more open to the outside world, and not discharging pollutants, always firmly grasping the overall situation, and leading Guangdong's reform and opening up has always been at the forefront of the country. Lei Yu said: Ren Zhongyi's contribution to reform and opening up is far more than in Liaoning and Guangdong, and without Ren Zhongyi, China's reform and opening up may have taken many detours.
Speaking of this, Lei Yu owed his body and looked into the distance, as if recalling the days when he worked with Ren Zhongyi. I deeply feel that because of his long-term work with Ren Zhongyi, Lei Yu has great respect and admiration for Ren Zhongyi. Ren Zhongyi's loyalty to the party and the people, his thinking, character and style will definitely subtly affect Lei Yu. Lei Yu is politically firm, upright in style, sharp in thinking, has many ideas, and has a hard pen, and has never told the truth, or even spoken bluntly. The relationship between them is not only the relationship between leading and being led, but also the fusion of the hearts of the two philosophers, the docking of ideas and the collision of wisdom.
The first time I met Lei Yu was at the Cen Xi Conference in June 1992. In the spring of that year, the great man Deng Xiaoping inspected the south and delivered an important speech, opening up a new voyage of China's reform and opening up. The regional party committee judged the hour and sized up the situation and held a work conference on opening up the whole region to the outside world in Cengxi County. Cen Xi County was subordinate to the Wuzhou region at that time, and because it was adjacent to Guangdong, it was a step ahead of opening up to the outside world. I was then deputy secretary of the Wuzhou Prefectural Party Committee and attended the meeting. Just as the meeting was about to close, Secretary Zhao Fulin briefed the participants on Lei Yu, the new vice chairman of the autonomous regional government, and invited him to speak. Lei Yu's speech was not long, and he said that after performing his duties in Guangxi, he would conscientiously implement the spirit of Deng Xiaoping's speech on the southern tour with practical actions and together with the cadres and masses of all nationalities in the whole region, strive to do a good job, and live up to the high expectations of the central authorities and the expectations of the people of Zhuangxiang. As soon as the words fell out, all the participants gave a warm applause.
"The greater the authority, the more strictly managed it should be," I have heard him say many times. In April 1993, after I went to the Autonomous Region Party School as president, I hired Lei Yu as an honorary professor of the Party School, and invited him to the school many times to give a report, introducing to the trainees the situation of Guangxi's opening up to the outside world and the knowledge of foreign economic and foreign trade, as well as the skills of foreign negotiations. Even after he left his hometown and settled in Guangzhou, he was still invited to return to Guangxi many times to make a newspaper, and he opened his heart, showed his ugliness in public, and "as an old man who made mistakes" to warn everyone how to work and how to behave. His eighteen-character "proverb" on the need to "read more, think well, be pragmatic, attach importance to reality, stress methods, and be righteous in words and deeds" to do a good job, as well as the admonition that leading cadres must have a correct outlook on life, values, ambition, backbone, courage, and the "two musts" put forward by Chairman Mao. It was said to the young man and his own principle of life, which sounded particularly convincing at the time, left a deep impression on us, and is still remembered.
Lei Yu is a witness and witness to major events in reform and opening up, and when talking about the time, place and people of some major events in the past 40 years, he has spoken clearly and clearly. I can't help but think of the China Merchants Association held in Hong Kong in the Wuzhou area in early 1993, which attracted a large number of entrepreneurs from Hong Kong and Macao and even overseas due to Lei Yu's attendance. Lei Yu made a keynote speech at the meeting, and although it was only a little more than half a year before he went to guangxi to work at this time, he did not need to give a speech and introduced to the guests the basic situation, development advantages, and preferential policies for foreign investment to the guests, and he even knew the situation in Wuzhou very well. When it comes to many data on economic and social development, accurate to two decimal places, I am deeply impressed by his erudition, super memory and eloquence.
All along, Lei Yu said that he was in Guangdong and had his heart set on Guangxi. When he returned to Guangdong in 1996, he put forward a very specific and effective proposal to Xie Fei, secretary of the Guangdong Provincial CPC Committee, on the poverty alleviation work of "pairing up" between the two Guangdong provinces, which effectively promoted Guangdong's assistance to Guangxi. He served as the president of the Guangxi Chamber of Commerce of Guangdong Province, and introduced and introduced many entrepreneurs to invest in Guangxi. He also wrote a letter to the principal responsible comrades of the central authorities, expounding the reasons why Guangxi is most suitable for developing the coastal heavy chemical industry, especially the petrochemical industry, and imploring the central authorities to increase support for guangxi's major projects. Just as the conversation was about to end this morning, Lei Yu told me that he had recently seen on television that China's combustible ice test in the South China Sea had achieved a major breakthrough and created a series of world records, and he immediately thought of Guangxi. He believes that Guangxi has the unique advantage of being close to the South China Sea, although the large-scale exploitation of combustible ice still needs time, but sooner or later it will enter commercial development and utilization, Guangxi should plan as soon as possible, make preliminary preparations for the landing of combustible ice, and strive for the state to put this project that has a profound impact on the global energy production and consumption revolution into Guangxi.
After a morning of chatting, I said goodbye and strolled along the tree-lined path on the banks of the Yulong River. At this moment, a familiar song suddenly sounded in the ears"... Mountain songs are like the water of the Spring River, not afraid of the dangerous bends in the beach", it turned out that a group of drifters not far away were singing on a bamboo raft lined up. Watching young people enjoy the beautiful life brought about by reform and opening up, I am very emotional. 40 years of ups and downs, 40 years of hard exploration, it is really difficult to know! It is precisely because of the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee and communists like Lei Yu who, together with hundreds of millions of people, braved dangers and obstacles and overcame difficulties that the giant wheel of reform and opening up can ride the wind and waves and bravely forge ahead. (Source: Guangxi old cadre Author: Qiu Shiyuan)