The establishment of the Standing Committee essentially concluded the inaugural meeting.
The reason for stating it "essentially" concluded was that while most attendees could depart, each company or individual still needed to send a representative to the first meeting of the China Electronic Technology Development Alliance Standing Committee.
This was a crucial meeting where several important alliance management bodies would be elected.
The first to be elected were the Alliance President and the Executive Vice Presidents.
There would be one President and six Vice Presidents, forming the top management body of the alliance, the Alliance Council, with a total of seven members responsible for the alliance's daily affairs. Since the Standing Committee only convened once a year, not all critical matters could be addressed at the meetings, and some urgent situations required immediate handling. Thus, the Alliance Council was established.
According to the alliance's charter, all daily affairs were to be reported to the seven Council members, and each member had the right and responsibility to be informed of all documents.
However, only the President possessed the authority to act on these daily tasks.
This meant that although seven individuals could view the relevant documents, only the President had the power to act upon them, while the other six could only observe and not resolve issues.
Nonetheless, after the President handled a matter, the outcome would be disseminated to everyone. If three or more of the other six Vice Presidents believed the President's handling was unjust or problematic, they could reject the proposed solution.
This would either prompt the President to reprocess the matter or call for an immediate Council meeting to make a final decision through voting.
This particular charter was the most fiercely debated aspect during discussions of various issues, with a significant number of people opposing the Council.
Their opposition wasn't to the existence of the Council itself, but rather to the procedures for handling daily affairs. This concentrated almost all power in the hands of the President. The other six Vice Presidents, while nominally possessing the right to object, required the joint agreement of four Vice Presidents to exercise it.
This implied that as long as the President could secure the unwavering support of three Vice Presidents, they would wield absolute power within the alliance, a situation unacceptable to most members.
In their view, the Council could exist, but it should not consist of only seven members. Instead, it should be expanded to over ten, and all Council matters should be decided by vote, rather than being handled solely by the President.
However, the reason Huang He established this rule was precisely to maintain firm control over the entire alliance's power. Otherwise, after painstakingly pushing for the alliance's formation, contributing a substantial number of technological patents and production capabilities from Jiangnan Group, and fostering a vast mobile phone market, wouldn't it be like doing all the work for someone else's benefit?
Therefore, the entire alliance had to be controlled by Huang He.
Of course, Huang He acted with discretion. Unless the interests of Jiangnan Group were severely compromised, Huang He would handle all alliance matters impartially and justly.
Yet, the majority still felt it was inappropriate. After all, they were all capitalists and understood each other's nature, unwilling to relinquish power so easily.
This was the reason why two-thirds of the participating companies and individuals left directly. They were unwilling to give Huang He the opportunity to lead them.
However, there was a benefit to their departure: no one would cause trouble for Huang He. The remaining one-third were essentially supporters of Huang He. In the final vote of the Alliance Standing Committee, Huang He was elected President of the Alliance Council with an overwhelming 603 votes.
Subsequently, Director Ren and five others were elected Vice Presidents. These six were essentially the six largest enterprises in the alliance, controlling the most resources and possessing the highest prestige.
The reason for such a concentrated voting outcome without any dark horses was that this was the alliance's first vote. No one knew the character or working style of the other participants.
Although electing an ordinary member like Lei Jun might seem earth-shattering, who truly knew Lei Jun? Would Lei Jun later pursue personal gain and disregard the alliance's interests?
Thus, people instinctively voted for the seven individuals with the highest standing, because those with high positions and large companies also faced greater scrutiny and were constrained by social morality and business rules.
Simply put, people with status needed to maintain their reputation and would not engage in overtly shameless actions. Unlike the penniless who often sought to create major news.
For example, a certain blond leader.
After the election of the Council, more than a dozen specialized committees were successively elected, such as the Patent Pricing Committee, the Alliance Personnel Committee, and the Alliance Investment Committee, among various committees responsible for the alliance's specific affairs.
These committees served as the basic administrative units of the alliance, each overseen by seven Standing Council members. They were not responsible for the specific tasks, which would be handled by departments under the committees.
It is worth noting that each company could only hold a position in one committee.
For instance, if Huang He became the President of the Alliance Council, Jiangnan Group was prohibited from sending representatives to any of the more than ten Standing Committees.
Similarly, the other six companies serving as Vice Presidents were also barred from sending representatives to other Standing Committees.
Furthermore, a company serving as a Council member in one Standing Committee could not be a Council member in any other Standing Committee. In essence, power was dispersed as much as possible, a move that received widespread praise from the founding members.
After all, no one wished for power to be concentrated in the hands of a few companies; everyone hoped to gain some form of influence within the alliance.
For Huang He, this was also a great advantage. It prevented any single company within the alliance from secretly acquiring power by securing numerous Council positions.
Although Jiangnan also held only one position, because all final decisions were to be made by Huang He, he naturally possessed the highest authority within the alliance, making his power as solid as a rock.
So, did anyone see through Huang He's scheme and express dissatisfaction?
Of course, they did. Those who expressed dissatisfaction directly refused to join the alliance.
Among the remaining founding members, would anyone be dissatisfied and secretly conspire to oust Huang He from the presidency?
Such individuals might exist, but they would absolutely not succeed.
The reason was simple: they were unwilling to pay.
Under Huang He's plan, the alliance became incredibly vast, with over a dozen administrative committees.
However, these committees themselves did not handle any affairs. After all, the Council members were the bosses or senior executives of various companies. They were already occupied with their own businesses and had to allocate considerable time just to attend meetings, let alone directly manage the alliance's daily operations.
Therefore, the alliance would proceed to recruit over 200 employees externally. These employees would exclusively serve the alliance, handling its various daily affairs and reporting to the Council above them, which in turn reported to the Alliance Council. This formed a hierarchical management structure.
This sounded quite good, but it brought forth a new issue: wouldn't these over 200 employees need salaries?
Moreover, these employees' work was not simple; it required extremely high professional ethics and specialized skills, making it difficult for ordinary university graduates to qualify. It was necessary to specifically recruit industry elites familiar with their respective fields.
The salary for an industry elite would likely be around five to six thousand per month. For 200 people, that would amount to over a million in salaries per month. If the alliance's daily expenses were also considered, such as office space, office resources, various investigation fees, travel expenses, and all other administrative costs, the monthly expenses could easily reach two million.
Thus, according to the alliance charter, these salaries were to be paid from the alliance's funds. However, the alliance had not yet begun operations, and there were no internal funds. Consequently, external funding was needed, meaning members had to donate money.
But the problem was, while members might be very enthusiastic about joining the alliance, they were absolutely unwilling to donate money to the alliance before receiving any benefits.
Therefore, Jiangnan Group very straightforwardly announced that as long as the alliance's funds were insufficient to sustain its operations, all the alliance's daily expenses, amounting to nearly 20 million annually, would be subsidized by the unit holding the position of President of the Alliance Council.
In other words, whoever wanted to be the President would have to contribute over 20 million annually to subsidize the alliance.
Well, at this point, everyone directly gave up their ambitions for the presidency and unanimously nominated Huang He. You have the money, you're the boss!
"Distinguished guests!" As the last Standing Committee election concluded and all representatives breathed a sigh of relief, feeling they could finally go home to their children and wives, Huang He suddenly stood up and smiled, "On behalf of Jiangnan Group, I announce that to celebrate the establishment of the alliance, Jiangnan Group will be the first to open the following resources to the alliance!"
All the founding member representatives were taken aback for a moment, then quickly sat back down, focusing intently on Huang He.
After all, they had been so engrossed in the matter of dividing power within the alliance that they had almost forgotten that the alliance's fundamental purpose was to provide various technological and production patent services to its members.
These things wouldn't materialize out of thin air; they needed to be publicly shared by the alliance members within the alliance. And Jiangnan Group, being the strongest in terms of both capital and technology among the alliance members, it was unclear what kind of resources they would offer.
This was extremely important, as it represented the alliance's future development potential. If Jiangnan Group were to offer only insignificant contributions, then the alliance might very well disintegrate shortly after its formation.