Early this morning, ZTE made a big news.
Let's put it this way, both A-shares and Hong Kong-based ZTE stocks were briefly stopped trading.
The specific reason for the suspension, ZTE also sold Guanzi, a sentence of "intend to disclose major matters", which triggered the unlimited reverie of everyone.
And just a few hours later, with the release of ZTE's latest announcement, the mystery of "major events" was also revealed.
Bad reviewers will not drag those awkward terms with everyone here.
The content of the announcement is simply: the probation period has arrived, and the sanctions imposed by the United States on ZTE have been relaxed.
As soon as this good news came out, it was immediately reflected in the stock price after the resumption of trading.
In the afternoon, ZTE in A shares is directly up and down, and Hong Kong stocks are also a wave of 20% or 30% big climb.
Self-media friends are also not idle, for a time "480,000 ZTE shareholders boiled! Reports of ZTE completely getting rid of the shadow of U.S. sanctions are everywhere.
And today, the bad reviewer is actually ready to talk about those things about ZTE.
Before understanding ZTE's "probation period expired", we must first know why it was "sentenced" by the United States.
Bad reviewers are here, mainly for those netizens who do not understand the plot or forget a rough idea.
Because it was five or six years ago, friends who are familiar with the plot can directly skip this part.
The cause of the incident was six years ago, when the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security claimed to have caught ZTE's pigtails.
Because ZTE imports some core components such as chips in the United States.
Originally it was free trade, and it was very reasonable to pay for one shipment.
But Lao Mei found that ZTE equipment containing American parts was secretly sold by ZTE to Iran and North Korea.
You must know that the United States has imposed economic sanctions on Iran, North Korea and other countries, and ZTE's behavior is a violation of the US embargo law...
Regardless of whether this law is reasonable or not, ZTE and Huawei are on the blacklist of the US Department of Commerce for similar reasons.
Back to our protagonist ZTE, because the chip is subject to people, to put it nicely, a year later, ZTE and the US Department of Commerce reached a settlement, paid more than a billion dollars in fines, and were removed from the US blacklist as desired.
To say that it is ugly, in fact, ZTE confessed its guilt and paid a fine.
And the U.S. department of justice also gave ZTE a three-year probation period, or probation, and a special agency to supervise ZTE's business transactions.
If they comply with U.S. law within three years, they will be fine and a part of the fine will be refunded.
If you continue to "make mistakes" during this period, then continue to fine money and then go to the blacklist.
I thought it was to pay a sum of money to break the money and eliminate the disaster, but Lao Mei was ready to pinch the soft persimmon to the end.
A year later, in 2018, Lao Mei put ZTE on the blacklist on the grounds that ZTE did not punish and warned the employees involved in the "violation of the embargo" that year, plus there were false statements in the documents submitted by ZTE.
This time, the U.S. ban lasted seven years, requiring ZTE not to "engage in any transaction in any way involving the import and export of goods, software and technology from the United States."
Because the core technology and components are inseparable from the United States, the ban that lasted for more than 80 days directly stopped ZTE, and the company's main business could not be carried out.
Helplessly, this time ZTE reconciled again, or once again had no choice but to admit it.
In order to lift the ban and allow the company to survive, a $1 billion fine and $400 million in escrow funds were provided by ZTE.D.
At the request of the Us side, ZTE's management and directors have also undergone a wave of major changes.
The previous three-year probation period for the U.S. Department of Justice was also increased to five years.
Due to the huge amount of the fine, some netizens even referred to the ZTE incident as the "Nanjing Treaty" in the chip field.
But behind this, what is reflected is actually the helplessness of our chip field being stuck in the neck.
Since ZTE was inspected by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2017, the 5-year supervision period of the U.S. Department of Justice has expired.
Courts in the United States have also confirmed that ZTE's supervision period expires and no penalties will be imposed.
This is also an important reason why ZTE's stock price has soared today, and the media is clamoring.
It's just that it's different from those who can't move is that Chinese companies have won and boiled over.
I would like to share some of my own views.
To put it this way, it is actually too early for ZTE to completely get rid of US sanctions.
Because in addition to the supervision of the US Department of Justice, ZTE also has a US Department of Commerce supervision on its head that has not expired...
The Ministry of Commerce's supervision lasted for ten years from 2018 to monitor ZTE's compliance in import and export.
So if you want to completely loosen the supervision, you will have to wait at least 6 years.
To completely get rid of US sanctions, master core technology, and have real independent research and development capabilities is actually the hardest truth.
When ZTE was sanctioned by the United States and questioned by the Chinese people.
Yin Yimin, the former chairman of ZTE, once said: "Like a restaurant, do you want to raise pigs and make vinegar yourself?" If you do this, no one in this restaurant can afford to eat. ”
It is the same to open a company, master the core technology on the line, should not cover all the supply chain.
I think this statement is true to some extent, but it only fits the ideal model in the free market.
When factors such as geopolitical conflicts and great power games in the real world are added, Yin Yimin's "restaurant problem" is no longer whether he can afford to eat, but whether he has eaten or not.
On the other hand, after many "reconciliations", ZTE's data in the past two years is actually quite eye-catching, and last year's net profit even hit a new high.
And after all kinds of sanctions and stuck necks, many people said that these fragile figures just look beautiful.
Of course, there should not be many companies that can understand the pain of the neck of the card better than ZTE.
At least from ZTE's investment in research and development in recent years, we can see their emphasis on core technologies.
For example, last year's research and development expenses were directly 27% more than the previous year, reaching 18.8 billion yuan. Let's put it this way, ZTE spends 16% of its annual revenue investing in research and development.
It should be known that in the science and technology innovation board dominated by scientific and technological innovation enterprises, the R & D revenue ratio of many enterprises is only 5%.
In the end, the bad reviewer will no longer talk about other nonsense.
I only hope that the end of ZTE's supervision period will be a good start for many Chinese companies that are heavily sanctioned by the United States.
I also hope that enterprises in our country can pay more attention to the research and development of core technology and card neck technology.
After all, it takes a sharpening of the neck as hard as iron to break the hand that is stuck only in our neck.