How tobacco king turned to oranges
If anti-tobacco campaigners want a morality story for their cause, they need look no further than 82-year-old Chu Shijian, who last year produced 4,040 tonnes of oranges in a large plantation in the southwest province of Yunnan .
Chu is a famous figure in the history of Chinese tobacco. He became the head of the Yuxi cigarette factory in October 1979 and turned the Hill of the Red Pagoda into one of the most famous brands in China. During his 16 years as head, it earned 99.1 billion yuan (HK$112.9 billion) in taxes and profits for the state, more than any other single firm in the country.
He used the profits to buy state-of-the-art equipment from Japan, Germany and the United States. Visitors were dazzled to see automated machines produce thousands of cigarettes a minute.
He became a household name in Yunnan. In 1994, the government named him one of the '10 great reform figures'. But, as a state employee, he received in salary and bonus a fraction of what he would have as the chief of a factory in the private sector.
Dissatisfied at his income compared to the time he worked and the responsibilities he carried, he supplemented his income by siphoning off US$1.74 million of the firm's large advertising revenue.
In February 1995, an informant sent details of these illegal payments to the procurator. In 1997, a court condemned him to life imprisonment, a sentence reduced to 17 years in 1999. He was 71. Many considered the sentence unjust, a reflection of the distorted and corrupt system of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration.
In prison, he developed serious diabetes and was released on medical parole in early 2002. Instead of sitting at home playing mahjong and watching television, Chu leased 134 hectares of wasteland and started an orange farm, employing 300 people. He uses similar management methods to those he employed at the Yuxi plant.
Just as he gave tobacco growers the best-quality seeds, so he gives his farmers the best orange seeds and high-quality imported fertiliser. He fixes quality and quantity standards for each orange tree and offers his employees annual bonuses of up to 10,000 yuan, far more than what they would earn if they left the area to work in factories in the east. Most of the produce is sold in Yunnan, with a small amount shipped elsewhere; in 2008, the business made a net profit of 18 million yuan.
He has earned the gratitude of his native province for providing such job opportunities and for managing a project that is improving the environment and gives consumers a nutritious and healthy product.
People wonder how different Chu's life would have been if he had gone into oranges instead of cigarettes. Would he have created a national brand of orange juice sold in the same five-star hotels across China which offer Hill of the Red Pagoda to their guests? After he has gone, would he like to be remembered for his cigarettes or his oranges?
