“Why should I rely on a man to succeed? We women have had to fight since we were little to impose ourselves in this world dominated by men”, insists Chloe Cheng, who has just celebrated her 30th birthday. . A feminist activist? No, a businesswoman with a strong character, and who believes in herself: “I want to succeed, of course, and above all to become rich”, she declares with the greatest seriousness.
His company has only a dozen employees, “all women”, but already generates the equivalent of several tens of millions of euros per year. Perched on top of a white tower, it dominates Guomao, Beijing’s business district. In a monastic silence, young women are busy behind their computers. The offices are simply decorated with small multicolored stuffed animals and holiday photos – “we’re still girls”, she smiles.
“I started my business immediately after university, explains Chloé. I quickly understood that in China a woman has no chance of succeeding in a large structure, because it is the men who lead, and the women ambitious women scare them…” Her online store offers turnkey stays for single women and cosmetic products from all over the world. “I am very proud of my success, and my mother too. I would never have managed to create my business being married and under the thumb of a man,” she says.
Wealth rather than the couple
“Chinese women, when they are married, have to blend into a patriarchal system where they have no say, says lawyer Liao Qihua, a family law specialist. They do not feel safe enough. to raise a family while working and pursuing their own careers, then many prefer to put a line on marriage to devote themselves to their work.”
Living alone to be rich is the creed of those who are nicknamed in China the “combatant Buddhas”. Nearly a quarter of Chinese are single; among them, many women who assume it perfectly. A sociological earthquake in a nation where the Confucian tradition, structured by marriage, has long been respected. The phenomenon even worries the government, which promotes family values to boost the birth rate at half mast.
But it is also at the origin of great successes. “Of the approximately 300 female billionaires in the world, 80% come from China [NDLR : soit environ 240]”, underlines Rupert Hoogewerf, president of the Hurun firm in China, which publishes each year the list of the world’s great fortunes. In his eyes, this means that China is nothing less than “the cradle of women entrepreneurs in the world”. the image of Dong Mingzhu, the emblematic boss of the world’s number 1 air conditioner, Gree Electric, who, widowed at 35, had to provide for her son’s needs and climbed all the ladders of the company.
At only 41 years old, Yang Huiyan, at the head of a real estate empire, is the richest woman in China (her personal fortune is estimated at more than 16 billion dollars). We also find in the list of female billionaires Wu Yajun, 59, founder of the Longfor group (also real estate) or Fan Hongwei, 56, CEO of the petrochemical giant Hengli, and Wang Laichun, 56, whose Luxshare company manufactures Apple AirPods. A worker for ten years, she now runs a company worth more than 35 billion dollars and employing 230,000 people. The vast majority of these Chinese billionaires are self-made women who have created their own businesses.
“China has one of the most active pools of female entrepreneurs in the world, they are in absolute value and proportionally more numerous than in Western countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom”, assures Josh Ding, researcher at the Boston Consulting Group.
Women still deprived of high political spheres
The digitization of the economy has given additional impetus to this feminization. “Digital has lowered barriers to employment and entrepreneurship for women, including in rural and remote areas,” according to a study published by Ali Research last year.
But the road is still long to impose itself in a Chinese world dominated by men. None of those who “carry half the sky”, according to Mao’s formula, sits among the 25 members of the Communist Party’s political bureau. And women do not even represent a quarter of the members of the Chinese Parliament.
Same discrimination at all levels of the administration: no important embassy is entrusted to a woman, no ministerial post, no university presidency… And the glass ceiling is not about to crack, because no law on parity is under consideration. And overly virulent feminists are hunted down: #MeToo has no place in the People’s Republic of China.
But these Chinese entrepreneurs and singles know that the balance of power is beginning to change. China has more than 400 million female consumers aged 20 to 60 who spend more than 1.5 billion euros in purchases each year, according to a 2019 report by Accenture. According to the same study, the traditional roles of men as breadwinners and women as housewives have become “obsolete”: 97% of urban Chinese women have an income, and 68% of they are owners. “The average level of education and income of young women is rising. In recent years, women’s ability to be financially independent has steadily increased, as have favorable views of women pursuing their own careers and equality gender”, concludes lawyer Angela Luo, herself single. That’s good, the Chinese are determined to accelerate.