Chapter 367: Putting conditions on Boeing and NASA, attacking

This type of closed-door meeting is not the most formal meeting, and the opponent on the other side of the ocean who previously felt invincible unexpectedly chose to compromise this time. It is ultimately a great event for everyone here, so the atmosphere Not that serious overall.

As a result, until the meeting officially started, almost every participant had to come over and shake hands with Chang Haonan, which made the latter feel uncomfortable for a while.

Fortunately, this uneasy state did not last long.

"Comrades from the Science and Technology Commission, the Economic and Trade Commission and the Ministry of Foreign Economic Trade and Cooperation, our meeting will begin now."

Following Ding Gaoheng's concise opening remarks, the entire conference room suddenly became quiet.

It was naturally impossible for people like Ding Gaoheng and Wang Yuzhong to speak at length in person at such an internal meeting, so an office staff member sitting next to Chang Haonan was responsible for a brief review of the entire Boeing-McDonnell Douglas merger.

China and Europe have adopted similar strategies since the two companies announced their merger in December last year. That is, both parties will sell products to airlines in their respective countries, which will have an impact on the large business jet market in the economic region. declared to exercise jurisdiction on the grounds of significant impact.

However, at the beginning, the two sides were still in a state of "close positions but fighting on their own".

But both sides soon realized that this would be easily defeated by each other.

For example, in February, the United States used the air crash in the Alps to try to force Europe to compromise.

However, this later indirectly contributed to the in-depth cooperation between China and Europe in the fields of aviation safety and aviation manufacturing.

That is the agreement signed in April.

This was obviously something completely unexpected by the FAA.

So much so that until more than a month later, when the content of the agreement was fully finalized, they were unable to take any effective response measures.

However, the Americans did not take any action after that.

For example, through communication with the new cabinet led by the British, we found that the US was behind the incident at the end of June.

Of course, if they say that they have no idea at all, then normal people will definitely not believe it.

But now that the relationship between the two parties is getting warmer, everyone is tacitly understanding it.

With the approval of the last country, the United Kingdom, on July 7, the European Commission officially passed a legally binding resolution, declaring that the merger between Boeing and McDonnell Douglas was incompatible with the Community market and requiring the parties to the merger to review the original merger. Plans are modified.

Two days later, the U.S. Department of Defense and the Department of Justice issued notices to China and the European Union, stating that rejecting the merger would cause great harm to U.S. defense interests, the corresponding service industry, and the U.S. domestic job market.

However, no response was received in the following week.

Everyone knows that this kind of empty threat is actually a sign of desperation.

Sure enough, on July 7, the day before, Boeing announced that it had received approval from the Ministry of Commerce to begin tripartite negotiations with the EU and China, and stated that it was considering adding relevant provisions to prevent restrictions on competition in the merger agreement.

When the staff member finished speaking the last item, thunderous applause erupted in the conference room.

No organization or leadership is required.

In fact, in the entire conference room, the person who needs this process the most may be Chang Haonan himself.

Although he has promoted almost the entire process of China from entering the game to deepening cooperation with Europe and now breaking the game, he has not continued to follow up on this matter.

Even Boeing's decision to make concessions was only known after coming to the conference room.

But even those who had heard the news before could not hide their excitement on this occasion.

Especially comrades from the Ministry of Foreign Economic Trade and Cooperation.

No one knows better than them how much losses and unequal treatment China has suffered in the commercial field over the years.

Every time we encounter a dispute, it almost always ends in a compromise on our side.

When there is a clear gap in hard power, there is really not much that can be accomplished through negotiation alone.

Many younger people have never experienced anything that can be called a success since they started working.

But this time, they instantly built up their confidence.

It wasn't until Ding Gaoheng raised his hand to indicate that the applause gradually subsided.

"Although we have achieved initial victory, we still cannot relax before the final negotiation results are released."

Everyone returned to sitting upright.

Even the waist is much straighter than before.

"Then, let me introduce the latest situation."

Wang Yuzhong glanced across the venue from left to right, and then he began to say:

“According to the news sent back by our negotiating delegation from Brussels, the conditions offered by the EU are:

1. Within ten years, Boeing will maintain the independent legal status of Douglas, McDonnell Douglas’ business aircraft manufacturing arm, and submit an annual report on Douglas’ operations to the EU;

20. Within ten years, Boeing shall not sign any exclusive supply agreement and give up its -year exclusive supply rights with American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Continental Airlines, but Airbus is not subject to this restriction. ;

3. Boeing will license all competitors to use the patent results and technical secrets it has obtained so far through research and development work funded by government funds;

4. Boeing guarantees not to abuse its market dominance in transactions with suppliers. This clause will be subject to regular review by the EU Council. "

After finishing the four points, he put down the document in his hand:

"Depending on the availability of interoperability between us and the EU, Boeing and NASA should be able to accept this condition."

For a moment, everyone in the venue had wonderful expressions.

Chang Haonan believed that if the two bosses were not sitting at the top and suppressing them, many people would subconsciously use foul language.

"This... I can't even imagine..."

After a long time, someone sighed with a slightly trembling tone.

Who can believe that Boeing, which has always been the dominant player in the aviation industry, would agree to such a request?

Apart from anything else, Article 2 alone states that Boeing is not allowed to sign an exclusive supply agreement within ten years, but Airbus can sign it, which is very likely to directly cause the US and Europe to reverse their market share positions.

The so-called exclusive supply agreement requires the airline purchasing the aircraft not to purchase other competing products of the same type at the same time. As a condition, the airline will generally receive a relatively preferential price.

Generally speaking, this is a powerful weapon used by the strong party to suppress the weak party.

If one had to make a choice, at least in the late 90s, most users would still choose Boeing over Airbus.

But now the situation has suddenly reversed.

"It seems that Boeing is under much greater pressure on this matter than we imagined..."

Even Huai Guomo, who was sitting opposite Chang Haonan, took a while to calm down.

"This is the purpose of our meeting today."

Ding Gaoheng said and lightly knocked on the table in front of him:

"Since Americans can agree to such harsh demands on the EU, what conditions should we put forward?"

Wang Yuzhong, who had just taken a drink of water, added:

"One of the conditions currently proposed by the Americans is that they are willing to reach mutual recognition of the airworthiness of regional passenger aircraft with us, just like JAA. The standards are the same: 50 tons, 100 seats and below, and they need to be produced in my country."

Everyone has suffered a lot of psychological shock tonight, but such conditions still made many people start to look at each other in confusion.

"It seems... a very sincere condition?"

"That's right... when we had mutual recognition with Europe, we seemed to have developed a lot of technologies..."

"If we can negotiate mutual recognition of branch lines with the FAA and JAA, it should be a good result..."

"..."

Negotiation, in the final analysis, must be based on strength.

After all, Europe has a company like Airbus that is equivalent to Boeing, so it can occupy absolute dominance.

After all, China's aviation technology lags far behind in comparison, so rationally speaking, it is impossible to propose the same conditions as the EU.

To take a step back, among the four EU articles, the third article is originally for the whole world and does not need to be raised again, while the other three articles are not of much significance to China——

You have to first create a competing product that is on par with Boeing before you can talk about exclusive supply.

Therefore, everyone basically feels that the mutual recognition of airworthiness for regional airliners will be a result that far exceeds initial expectations.

At most, it would be like adding some agreements with Airbus to produce Boeing aircraft parts in China.

Anyway, just put it into the aviation industrial park that has not yet completed the site selection.

However, at this moment, Chang Haonan raised his hand to indicate that he wanted to speak.

Naturally, consent was obtained immediately.

"I think the American conditions are very misleading and not sincere enough."

"Therefore, we should reconsider formulating new negotiation principles and not let the other party lead us by the nose!"