The One Behind It All Chapter 133

We came to Moscow this time to participate in the 8th Moscow International Communications Exhibition. The huge lineup of more than 600 exhibitors from more than 30 countries all took a fancy to Russia's potentially huge market. Except for the small one in Geneva last year, this is the first time Huawei has participated in such an international competition on such a large scale, and tens of thousands of various materials have been prepared. The background of our participation in the exhibition is that Chinese vendors have created a mess in Russia, selling a large number of fake and inferior products, harming honest Russians, and even better stores, in order to flaunt their goodwill, put up notices everywhere saying "We do not have Chinese products". Plus we have a language barrier. Originally, not many were good at English, and even fewer were good at English and technical skills. Not many Russians were also good at English, which created communication barriers. I was really nervous before the exhibition. Many friendly people say that it is not easy to successfully participate in exhibitions in Russia. Russians are relatively arrogant and have a bad background of the wave of counterfeit and shoddy goods from China. After the exhibition team arrived, they immediately started intense preparation work. It was the first time for such a large-scale exhibition in an unfamiliar place, and everything had to be paid for with US dollars. It was really difficult for them.

During the busy preparation period of the working group, we took time to visit Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan and other countries. If Russia is a country of forests, Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, can be said to be a city of gardens. Azerbaijan is the oil base of the former Soviet Union, and its capital Baku is very famous. It has been mined continuously for nearly a hundred years. During World War II, Baku supplied 70% of the oil used by Soviet tanks and aircraft. After so much time and dedication, Baku was in a period of decline and it was very difficult due to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Especially their large and medium-sized enterprises. The difficulties are beyond our imagination. Since the delegation included experts from the China Petroleum Exploration Institute, Algeria warmly invited us to visit the offshore oil fields. my country's petroleum technology was mainly learned from the former Soviet Union and Romania. In the 1980s, my country developed rapidly and surpassed them in terms of modern scientific and technological means. China put forward suggestions and hoped to use Chinese technology to regenerate waste oil fields with low investment and rejuvenate old oil fields. We took the Mi-8 helicopter to the offshore platform. It was my first time to fly in a helicopter, and the captain was so hospitable that he let me sit in the cockpit and fly with them. There were many aircraft in the former Soviet Union, all of which were manufactured by themselves. When I traveled from Beijing to Moscow, I also took a Soviet Il-86. The aircraft looked very old and was incomparable with my country's civil aviation conditions. But our country is a modernization bought with money. It is a big country with a population of 1.2 billion. It does not have its own real airplanes or real cars. Fortunately, China's ships are developing well. But under such conditions, the Russians still provide relatively good service, and they are at a high level in driving, landing, etc. There are cars everywhere in Russia, but there are no bicycles. Every family has a car, which is made in China and is not of high quality. The living standards of our people are not high, and all the cars on our streets are high-end cars. How can we serve the people? Only when we arrived at the offshore oil fields did we realize what kind of steel power the former Soviet Union was. In the center of the Black Sea, there are steel oil production platforms, oil storage, and oil and gas separation processing everywhere. Since there was no technology to drill inclined wells or horizontal wells at that time, many oil production holes were distributed one or two kilometers apart. It was better to build roads to connect them using tankers. Therefore, steel pipes are used at sea to drive piles to the seabed, and steel beams are welded on top, and then cement and asphalt are paved to form a road, on which cars and cargo can be transported. The offshore steel road connecting these platforms is 460 kilometers long. Our plane landed in a living area set up on the sea, where workers live, rest and stay. Only then did I truly understand what a steel country is. Fortunately, China's oil extraction technology has advanced, otherwise where would we find so much steel.

Our country's economy and the Russian economy are highly complementary. We have formed a cross-century strategic partner. China's light industrial products and civil industrial products have a vast market. With this, we can introduce Russian heavy industrial products. We can also rent land in Russia, raise cattle, chickens, and grow vegetables...Improve Russia's supply and earn the steel, cement, and fertilizers we need...All honest Chinese people will make a difference. , profiteers should not go and ruin the image of our nation. Huawei will carry out economic cooperation in Russia and jointly develop and produce electronic information products. We can seriously absorb the achievements of its cutting-edge science and military science, use them for civilian purposes, and quickly improve our own level. We also introduced our 08 aircraft, which has reached the world's advanced level, into the Russian market, competing for this big country in the world and playing a heroic role. Eastern Europe and Russia are still undergoing economic reforms and their economies have begun to recover. We must observe the positive aspects and not always look at events in Eastern Europe from a negative perspective.

After visiting Bulgaria and Romania, we returned to Moscow the day before the exhibition. The booth has been set up, all work has been carried out, the national flags of various countries at the exhibition have been hung up, the five-star red flag is fluttering in the wind, 5,000 sets of information have been sorted and stacked neatly, and various gifts have been classified and put away. Everything is ready, all it takes is the opening. How many people will visit Huawei's exhibition after it opens? Will it be unattractive and some people still look down on China? We hired Russian water ballet dancers to serve as exhibition receptionists and Chinese students studying in Russia to serve as translators. They are all practicing and rehearsing, and they are practicing simulation training and language communication for receiving visitors very seriously. I don’t know if anyone will come tomorrow, or whether Chinese products will still be looked down upon.

Before the exhibition started, we and the embassy invited officials from the Communications Bureau of the Russian Science and Technology Commission and the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. They all joked: What high-tech does China have? Thanks to the embassy's intervention, they still visited politely. After reading it, I was very shocked. How could China's communication technology be so advanced? How could it have reached such a high level without the help of the West.