Rebirth 1977 Great Era

Chapter 1284 I knew what the Japanese devils were up to the moment they bent over (Bonus chapter for monthly votes)

"Let me tell you the good news first!" Fang Yan said to Lao Hu.

Old Hu picked up the conversation and said:
"The draft anti-monopoly law has been passed, and the policy has been implemented."

Fang Yan was taken aback and exclaimed in surprise:
"They actually succeeded?"

Lao Hu said:

"Yes, the research institute should receive news about this tomorrow. The news hasn't even come out yet, but I'm well-informed and found out in advance."

Fang Yan continued to ask:

"And there's more good news?"

Old Hu took a sip of water, smacked his lips, and said:
"Tsumura Pharmaceutical and Kobayashi Pharmaceutical's negotiations have broken down, and they are now preparing to use their own methods to fight each other."

Previously, Fang Yan was worried that Tsumura Pharmaceutical and Kobayashi Pharmaceutical had reached an agreement, but in the end, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical gave up competing with Tsumura Pharmaceutical for the market, and history went back to the way it was. Now it seems that things have not developed in the original direction.

It must have been that my appearance made Kobayashi Pharmaceutical see greater profits, which is why they made this choice.

"And what's the bad news?" Fang Yan asked Lao Hu.

Old Hu put down his water glass and said:
"The bad news is that the group behind Tsumura Pharmaceutical will definitely cause trouble, making our cooperation more difficult than we thought."

Fang Yan frowned and said:
"The passage of the draft bill and the fact that Tsumura and Kobayashi have broken off relations is indeed good news, but Kobayashi, that opportunist, is probably going to use us to do his dirty work."

Old Hu immediately understood:

"Are you worried that they'll openly cooperate while secretly using us as cannon fodder? Tsumura has been entrenched in both Japanese politics and business for sixty years. Kobayashi is now betting his entire fortune on the reformists. What if the winds turn against him..."

“Not only!” Fang Yan shook his head and said:

"First, Kobayashi took the initiative to extend an olive branch, but has dragged it out until now, clearly waiting for the draft to be finalized before daring to reveal his hand; second, the Iran project is draining Tsumura's cash flow, and Kobayashi's choice to start the war at this time is clearly intended to force them to bleed on two fronts! This guy is far from being as honest as he was during the initial negotiations, and he has a lot of underhanded tricks up his sleeve. Professor Tamagawa previously advised us not to cooperate, but what we see is the scale of their market and the interests involved."

"So you mean... we're not cooperating anymore?" Lao Hu asked Fang Yan.

Fang Yan shook his head:
"Of course not. Cooperation is definitely going to happen, but I'm sure they'll find a way to cut corners on what they originally promised."

"We must stick to our guns and not give in now. They dragged us down before, now it's our turn to drag them down."

Kobayashi Pharmaceutical promised to respond within a specified time, but they kept delaying until now. During this period, no one responded to any attempts to contact them.

This was clearly a weighing of options at the time.

At that time, they could have abandoned the cooperation at any time. Although this is understandable in business, they were Japanese!
If these people start to have bad intentions, we must be on guard. All the previous conditions were to prevent them from having bad intentions, and we absolutely cannot compromise on them.

After hearing this, Lao Hu nodded and said:
“Yes, stall them! They’re already at war with Tsumura Pharmaceuticals and need our products to get on the market, but they want to cut back on what they promised. So we can keep delaying it.”

He said in dialect:

"I'll call Dean Zhao Xiwu now and tell them about this. Maybe they'll contact us tomorrow."

As he was about to walk towards the study, Old Hu reminded him:

"It would be best to call Professor Wang Yuchuan as well. He knows more about the Japanese than we do, so we can get his advice as well."

……

Next, Fang Yan called Professor Zhao Xiwu and Professor Wang Yuchuan. They were also surprised to hear the news. They had thought that Kobayashi Pharmaceutical had given up on the cooperation, but today Fang Yan and his team had new information.

Without Fang Yan's help in analyzing the situation, the two of them made the same guesses and plans almost simultaneously.

It's speculated that Kobayashi Kazuya is about to say that the main things have been taken care of, but some things need to be compromised, and he hopes to push the product to market as soon as possible.

They planned to delay, using rigid conditions to exert pressure in the opposite direction.

At the same time, they were thinking even further. They could leverage this opportunity to take advantage of the trend of selecting young and middle-aged cadres in China, to advocate for cooperation with higher authorities, get the foreign trade department involved in negotiations, and include the cooperation in the policy projects for the internationalization of traditional Chinese medicine. This would prevent the research institute from bearing the responsibility alone and could also secure additional resources.

In addition, they can also thwart Kobayashi Pharmaceutical's plan to use others as pawns, preventing them from being used as human shields in the attack.

Finally, the delay can be used to gauge the strength of Tsumura Pharmaceutical's counterattack and adjust strategic investments accordingly.

The first question is whether Kobayashi can truly break through Tsumura's distribution channel blockade, and the second is whether the reformist policies can continue to challenge the political party behind Tsumura Pharmaceutical.

The essence of the extension is "defense as offense," which involves extending the negotiation cycle to achieve a triple defense: verifying Kobayashi's sincerity, building a technological moat, and binding policies to mitigate risks.

Their ultimate goal is not to abandon cooperation, but to transform "Kobayashi handing over the knife" into "China wielding the knife," ensuring that China becomes the biggest beneficiary rather than a victim in the process of overthrowing Tsumura's monopoly. Previously, the initiative was in Kobayashi's hands, but now that they have started to take action, the initiative has shifted.

After listening to the analyses of Professors Zhao Xiwu and Wang Yuchuan, which coincided with Fang Yan's thoughts, Lao Hu remarked that these intelligent people in China were far smarter than the professional managers he had employed abroad. Although they might not understand the commercial terms as well, their solutions regarding policy-related matters and the negotiation between the parties involved were significantly more sophisticated. More importantly, they could directly negotiate with the policy-making departments.

Many policies can even be formulated directly in their favor, which is even more impressive than doing business in Malaysia. The government there does not allow Chinese people to participate in politics, and they are very wary of any clauses that affect policies.

But it's completely different here in China.

If they say you're one of their own, then they really do consider you one of their own.

After the matter was settled, the next day at noon, a telegram arrived from Kobayashi Pharmaceutical. Their people needed to come and discuss the matter further. They would depart from Japan the following evening on a chartered plane to Beijing, and were expected to land at the Capital Airport in the early morning of September 1st.

That means I'll arrive in Beijing the day after tomorrow.

They demanded that key personnel be present at the meeting on time, including all those who had participated in the original negotiations.

Also, the Ministry of Health and the foreign trade department.

All of this was within the Fang family's expectations, so the research institute started contacting the foreign trade department and the health department to discuss things together and avoid falling into their trap.

However, they did choose a good date, as most universities start school on September 1st.

Right now, we're incredibly busy.

In particular, Professor Wang Yuchuan, whom they greatly feared, was also the vice principal and was basically too busy to participate in the negotiations at the moment.

Only the graduate program for dialect students is scheduled to start on September 8th for some reason.

Otherwise, Fang Yan probably wouldn't have had time to properly negotiate with them, as he would be busy with school opening matters.

Therefore, it is clear that Kobayashi Pharmaceutical's choice of September 1st as the date for the talks was not a coincidence at all, but rather a "time trap" deliberately set to coincide with the domestic situation.

They had long since figured out Professor Wang Yuchuan's identity and schedule, knowing that early September was a busy period for universities to start the new semester. As the vice president, he would inevitably be overwhelmed with work, and Dean Zhao Xiwu, as the core of the research institute, might also be distracted by matters such as university-enterprise cooperation and talent matching during the start of the semester.

This move of "avoiding the important and focusing on the trivial" was extremely shrewd: without Wang Yuchuan, who was very familiar with the habits of Japanese companies, there was one less person at the negotiating table who could see through their tricks; and if the research institute dealt with the matter hastily due to the start of the semester, it would be easy to expose flaws in the details, giving them the opportunity to lower the price and offer discounts.

What's even more insidious is that they specifically emphasized "requiring key personnel to participate," yet they chose to come when these key personnel were busiest. This was clearly an attempt to create a dilemma of "either compromise or delay." If the research institute said "key personnel are unavailable," they could turn the tables and say "the Chinese side lacks sincerity in cooperation." If the research institute forced its way together to negotiate, it would likely be led by the nose due to insufficient preparation.

Holding the telegram, Lao Hu cursed, "These little devils are up to their old tricks again! They're deliberately trying to take advantage of our weaknesses!"

He said in dialect:

"They're shrewd, but we're not pushovers either."

“They want to avoid Professor Tamagawa, so let’s bring in the official forces. When the negotiating table is filled with people from foreign trade and health, they’ll have to get past the policy hurdle if they want to ask for ‘discounts’.”

He paused, then added, "As for Professor Tamagawa, even if he can't participate in the entire negotiation, we can still expose their tricks by having him tell us in advance what tactics Kobayashi Pharmaceutical might use and what tricks Japanese companies usually use in negotiations."

Zhao Xiwu nodded and said:

“I’ve read Kobayashi Pharmaceutical’s telegram. They chose September 1st to come, which means they’re in a rush right now. I’ve already met with Section Chief Li from the foreign trade department. He’ll bring his team over tomorrow to coordinate with us and go over the policy terms and cooperation framework again to ensure they don’t take advantage of us during the negotiations. Also, I’ve asked the research institute’s technical team to work through the night to compile the core technical data, highlighting the ‘non-negotiable’ clauses in red. We’ll go over them with each clause one by one, and not a single word can be missing.”

Fang Yan felt reassured and replied with a smile, "Don't worry, we'll make sure Kobayashi Pharmaceutical knows that they won't get away with trying to manipulate the timeline or cut corners on the terms."

Seeing Fang Yan's confident demeanor, Lao Hu breathed a sigh of relief:
"So you had already thought of this?"

He said in dialect:

"I know their nature all too well. They're especially good at scheming and never 'by chance.' They want to take advantage of our chaos to launch a surprise attack, so we'll remain calm and make thorough preparations. When the time comes at the negotiating table, whoever panics will lose. They're eager to start a war with Tsumura for resources, but we have plenty of time to wear them down and see who loses their temper first."

That afternoon, Fang Yan made a special trip to the university.

Professor Wang Yuchuan was handling school opening matters in his office when he heard Fang Yan explain his purpose. He immediately put down his work, pulled out several thick volumes of materials from the bookshelf, which were all negotiation cases with Japanese pharmaceutical companies that he had compiled in his spare time.

He's been keeping busy lately since he learned about the collaboration.

"Kobayashi Kazumasa is a typical Japanese businessman. He appears gentle on the surface, but is actually extremely pragmatic." Professor Wang Yuchuan flipped through the documents and pointed to a section, saying, "They love to use 'tight schedule and heavy workload' to force their opponents to make concessions. They chose to come during the start of the school year to prevent you from having time to carefully review the terms. Remember, you must be 'slow' during negotiations. It doesn't matter if you spend an hour on a single clause. Once they lose patience, they naturally won't dare to make excessive demands."

He also specifically instructed: "In addition, they will definitely mention 'supply first, then discuss technical details,' you must not agree to that. You must finalize the core terms such as technology integration, patent division, and profit sharing before discussing supply, otherwise they may turn their backs on you after receiving the goods."

Fang Yan took notes of Professor Wang Yuchuan's suggestions one by one, and before leaving, he also took the collection of negotiation case studies with Japanese pharmaceutical companies. Back at the research institute, he immediately met with Dean Zhao Xiwu and the foreign trade department team, and matched the patterns and policy clauses in the case studies one by one, and formulated a negotiation strategy of "reviewing each clause and never compromising".

Meanwhile in Japan, Kobayashi Kazumasa was smugly addressing a party leader, saying:
"September 1st is the busiest time for Huaxia School. They definitely won't have time to waste on us then, and we can get resources at the lowest cost."

P.S.: I still owe you 32000 words after finishing this chapter. That's all for today, please come back tomorrow.

(End of this chapter)