Since 1980 about 1,200 entrepreneurs have committed suicide, Global People reports, and at least 10 billionaires have committed suicide since 2003. Chinese society is often shocked by headlines of a wealthy person who has "hanged himself" or "jumped from a building".
These suicidal billionaires often shared common features such as "kind, low profile and popular, with warm hearts," according to their former employees. Most of them were all optimistic private entrepreneurs who were trusted by the public. Nevertheless, they were all crushed by financial troubles.
Wealthy but haunted
"It's a common sense that billionaires, with their great wealth that we ordinary people can only dream of, should be the last group committing suicide," said the famous critic Pi Haizhou.
But according to his analysis, there were two major factors that haunted these billionaires to their tragic deaths: "Overwhelming competition drove them to depression, and for some of them illegal corporate activity also became a nightmare."
Feng Yongming, an entrepreneur in Maoming, home of the Chinese manufactory industry in Guangdong province, killed himself with a fruit knife at the age of 29. He started to suffer from depression with the downturn of his flour mill. In his suicide note, he complained about the brutal reality and enduring competition.
"The ultimate environmental factor behind all these shocking suicides is the unfair domestic business environment," Bao Yujun, chairman of the Guangzhou Institute of Private Economy Development, said in an interview.
Business environment needs improvement
According to Bao, three factors in the business environment now face Chinese private entrepreneurs, including policies about market access, regulations and laws about resource assignments, as well as financing.
In China, private enterprises hardly get an equal chance in the domestic market due to an unfair policy environment. For example, private companies are rarely able to join government procurement projects. And when their products enter the government procurement catalog they rarely get order.
In addition, regulations and laws are much harsher on private corporations. For example, it is forbidden for them to enter the high profit fields of petroleum, natural gas, electric power and telecommunications.
Bao Yujun added that now funding is posing the biggest challenge to private entrepreneurs, as banks always turn their backs on them.
"Barriers are set when private companies are badly in need of loans by banks," Bao said. The companies are then forced to become risk-takers when they take out usurious loans.
"When they can't pay back the borrowed money, committing suicide is the only escape," Bao added.
