LIU YONGHAO CUTS a modest figure considering he is the fifth-richest man in China and chairman and owner of New Hope Group, the country’s largest privately owned enterprise. A former schoolmaster, he sits in a chilly office in Chengdu and speaks softly of his decision to quit teaching and head to the fields in 1982.
“Back then, my monthly salary was the equivalent of $5,” he says. “I thought I’d lose $5 a month but maybe I could get the whole world in exchange, such were the benefits of Deng Xiao Peng’s reforms.
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