On May 9, 2025, Chongqing Three Gorges College announced the winning bid (transaction) for the purchase of a firewall DNS device. The announcement showed that the project used a “competitive negotiation” method, purchasing one “export firewall” model “PULIAN TL-R437G,” with a transaction amount of 850,000 yuan (according to PULIAN’s official statement, this model is not an export firewall, but merely a router with firewall functions). However, some netizens discovered that the same brand and model of firewall is available on JD.com’s official flagship store for only 299 yuan. Even more baffling is that the other participating companies in the bidding were “China Mobile Communications Group Chongqing Co., Ltd.” with a bid of 887,000 yuan; and “Chongqing Changlong Jishi Industrial Co., Ltd.” with a bid of 899,980 yuan. It seems that within China, two parallel markets have already formed, showing two vastly different prices for the same product under different procurement methods.
Even more bizarrely, the company that won the bid is not a network technology-related supplier, and its business scope is remarkably broad. Previously, Hong Zheng Trading’s main business was agriculture-related industries and sales, but after 2018, it shifted to electromechanical, computer software, and electronic products. The company’s registered capital is 5 million yuan, but the actual paid-in capital is 0 yuan. Additionally, it has zero insured employees, and its registered address is fictitious (the address is Group 5, Xindi Village, Fengdu County, Chongqing; the village party secretary responded to an interview saying the registered address is the shareholder’s home address). Based on these conditions, this company has only one bid record with Chongqing Three Gorges College. It seems there really is such a business genius who managed to pull off this “white wolf in empty-handedness.”
In response to this matter, Huashang Daily Dafeng News reporters attempted to contact staff at Chongqing Three Gorges College, but all university personnel refused to speak.
In fact, the school staff’s refusal to respond was entirely predictable, given that it has long been an open secret that the bidding and tendering process is manipulated. Bidding companies collude with the tendering units, inflating product prices and sharing the fake and actual prices, thereby distributing surplus value. Corruption and bribery in China’s bidding process have led even the college to admit that many corrupt officials exploit the system, undermining the “market economy order.” According to publicly available cases from the college itself, countless criminals have embezzled tens of millions of yuan through bidding fraud. This also exposes the hypocrisy of the so-called institutionalized system. The seemingly “fair, just, and open” bidding system has, in reality, become a tool for officials to extract profits. It increases the burden on workers’ lives because the direct source of the value paid by the school is public funds (or other forms of income, but overall the same), which come from national taxes, and these taxes are generated by the surplus value created by the working class. “The most hateful are those venomous snakes and ferocious beasts, devouring our flesh and blood. Once they are eradicated, the bright red sun will shine over the world!”