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In 1990s, at the critical moment of national tax security seriously affected by tax evasion, CASIC, entrusted with a mission at this moment, built up firewalls for anti-counterfeit tax control of China with aerospace technologies. Since then, CASIC has stepped in the huge industrial field of government affairs and information construction of China.
The growth of the aerospace information technology industry of China is almost synchronous with the development of society informatization of China. In the ever-changing reform of current market, CASIC is also constantly adjusting its heading direction.
Build a solid foundation for information security
Faced with the situation in which false invoices and inconsistent invoices prevailed in society and tax evasion had caused serious loss of tax revenue of China, in July 1993, Liu Jiyuan, the then General Manager of the China Aerospace Corporation and Xia, Guohong, the then Deputy General Manager of the China Aerospace Corporation wrote and jointly signed a letter to Zhu Rongji, the then Vice Premier of the State Council, and put forward the “proposal for building the national tax control and collection system and assumptions for relevant work”. Over two months later, Zhu Rongji replied, “Agreed. The Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Electronics Industry and the China Aerospace Corporation shall join hands and fulfill the mission by overcoming all difficulties”.
In February 1994, after hearing the report of such organizations as the Ministry of Electronics Industry, the Ministry of Finance, the State Administration of Taxation and the China Aerospace Corporation, Zhu Rongji instructed that the Golden Tax Project should be completed with the primary target of strengthening VAT management at an early date. It would be difficult to proceed with other “golden projects” and there would be no foundation for economic and national defense construction if there was no golden tax project to increase the fiscal revenue of the country.
In 1994, upon receipt of the instructions from the central government for implementing the Golden Tax Project as soon as possible, the China Aerospace Corporation immediately organized experts and cadres to work on solutions.
Entrusted with the significant mission, the aerospace technicians became fully wrapped up in the research and development. When they appeared again, they appeared with a solution for “building the anti-counterfeit tax control system” in hand. This system employs the composite encryption-authentication algorithm and the one-cipher-for-one-machine and one-cipher-at-a-time cryptosystem that cannot be decrypted in theory, demonstrating high confidentiality and security.
“Our country had no commercial ciphers then, not to mention civil ciphers and cryptography was only used for confidential communication of the Party, government and military”, recalled by Wei Hongwen, member of development team for the first-generation anti-counterfeit tax control system and Director of the Aisino Corporation of CASIC, “So, there was no corresponding management organization. We had to go to Zhongnanhai to make report on schemes.”
There was no experience or examples to draw on or follow in terms of these technologies not only in China but also around the world. However, the aerospace technicians who excel at cracking hard nuts provided a satisfactory result.
Meanwhile, the solution of the Ministry of Electronics Industry for tax control and collection machines came into being. Through repeated demonstration and discussion, we found that CASIC’s solution was more practical. It could control the tax source and identify false and inconsistent invoices without being connected to the Internet, thus preventing tax evasion by pulling strings and violating laws and regulations. Eventually, the solution for the “anti-counterfeit tax control system” stood out and gained the initiative.
With the path made clear, the following problems followed. First, the workload of promoting the new system in China was extremely heavy because that involved hundreds of thousands of enterprise users and every tax bureau across the country; second, it was difficult to provide technical services as problems needed to be solved immediately after they occur to the system during application; third, the system needed to be constantly updated.
To solve these problems, a new innovative and systematic solution was required. In the pilot work in 1995, the China Aerospace Corporation suggested that a technical service company should be established in China to provide such services as personnel training, equipment distribution, installation, maintenance and service, which was approved by the State Administration of Taxation. Overnight, the aerospace technicians started from scratch and attracted talents to accelerate implementation of the Golden Tax Project.
The pilot work went smoothly with rapid progress. As approved by Li Peng, the then Premier of the State Council, the central government specified, “manual invoices with an amount of more than a million yuan would be canceled and replaced by computer-version invoices in China from January 1, 1996 so as to promote the anti-counterfeit tax control system.”
The foundation for the firewall built by aerospace technicians for tax security was thus consolidated and gradually stood erect.
Ten years of painstaking efforts
Through years of testing in practice, the safety and stability of the anti-counterfeit tax control system were highly recognized by relevant national ministries and commissions. The State Administration of Taxation decided to gradually promote the application of the VAT anti-counterfeit tax control system among all ordinary tax-paying enterprises across the country from 1999.
To our surprise, just as we were preparing for the new dawn, a dark cloud came head-on again.
Intel Corporation that had not waited until the products were widely promoted, suddenly stopped the production of special core chips for the anti-counterfeit tax control system.
What should we do? Fortunately, the aerospace technicians who were brave to explore would not discouraged by difficulties. We firmly believed that depending on ourselves is the best way out. The 32-year-old Wei Hongwen, entrusted by the mission in case of emergency, led a team to focus on the research and development of special modules for the anti-counterfeit tax control system. “We groped in the dark as the technology level of domestic factories could not reach the requirements.” Wei Hongwen recalled that there was another Japanese company in the world that could make similar chips besides Intel. At first, they could only purchase their processors, connect the memory and then weld together the circuit boards inside.
“Although it was a chip, compared with what they make, ours was like a thick cookie. That’s the best we could do then, but at least we didn’t have to rely on others.” Wei Hongwen had a big box in which were special chips for generations of anti-counterfeit tax control systems treasured by him for years. These chips were arranged from big to small and the box looked like a miniatured museum for the evolution of chips. “This also reflected from another aspect that the upstream and downstream enterprises of the industry chain were cooperating, promoting and supporting each other.” He said.
With painstaking efforts and through multiple tests, Wei Hongwen and his team designed five schemes and vetoed more than 10 times. From imitation to independent research and development, they finally accomplished independent design, research and development of special modules for the anti-counterfeit tax control system. With the successful production of such modules in China, the crisis of suspended production of imported modules was resolved and the technical gap in China was filled.
On August 31, 2000, the construction scheme for Phase II Golden Tax Project was approved by the State Council and 4 subsystems for VAT anti-counterfeit tax control were put into use in China. On November 1 of the same year, the Aisino Corporation controlled by the China Aerospace Machinery and Electronics Corporation (on July 1, 1999, the China Aerospace Corporation was divided into the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and the China Aerospace Machinery and Electronics Corporation) and with information security technology as the core technology was established together with a national technical service system to provide hot-line services and improve service efficiency and quality for enterprises and tax bureaus of China through the call center and the Internet.
In 2003, the construction of the Phase III Golden Tax Project started. The anti-counterfeit tax control system developed and tested for nearly 10 years by aerospace technicians was finally promoted across the country. Through years of development, the VAT anti-counterfeit tax control system has become a system integrated with numerical ciphers, information security, software, special chip and system integration technologies, realizing anti-counterfeit identification and tax control in the whole process of issuing VAT invoices, thoroughly solving the problem of counterfeiting and providing a means for collection of accurate and complete data for the audit system.
“It was indeed ten years of painstaking efforts for one system.” Wei Hongwen still exclaimed when speaking of the past.
Opportunity on the one hand and challenge on the other
In October 2011, the State Council decided to deepen trial reform on the VAT system. From January 1, 2012, business tax was gradually replaced with VAT for some regions and industries where business tax used to be levied.
The “replacement of business tax with VAT” was a major move for reform in the tax field of China, which would also change the industry structure related to taxation. This would mean complicated changes in such links as the way of taxation, groups, tax rate, software system and hardware. Aisino Corporation needed to use such new technologies as cloud computing and big data to update in an all-round manner the VAT anti-counterfeit tax control system according to the requirements of the State Administration of Taxation. This would be a significant technical innovation.
It is both opportunity and challenge. Opportunity means that after the promotion of “replacement of business tax with VAT” was completed across the country, the number of enterprise users of Aisino Corporation was expected to increase in a large degree, indicating more abundant user resources; challenge means that with the increasingly intense market competition, Aisino Corporation had lost its monopoly position and must intensify efforts in innovation and find a new industrial direction.
On the one hand, Aisino Corporation was entrusted with the significant mission by the country and on the other hand, it was faced with urgent needs of the market. An arrow fitted to the bowstring cannot avoid being discharged. The anti-counterfeit tax control system that has been updated several times would soon undergo a significant update again.
In the mid of 2014, the State Administration of Taxation required that the anti-counterfeit tax control system should be updated in an all-round manner to satisfy a series of new needs such as “transferring an invoice right when it is issued”, “Jinshui disk and tax declaration disk made into one”, “safe access” and “holding of digital tax certificates”. This time, in addition to accomplishing the task, Aisino Corporation also had to handle the new challenges brought by competitors.
Although there were many technical difficulties for upgrading this time and the workload was heavy, Aisino Corporation had conducted research early in 2010 and its technical reserves were put into good use. CASIC has been carrying forward the tradition of “producing one generation, developing one generation and pre-researching one generation”. There are no bounds to technical innovation and exploration. Therefore, even taking the lead for several years, Aisino Corporation cannot slack off for even one day.
On January 1, 2015, the updated system was put into use as scheduled and good feedback was received for its stable operation.
Challenging new forms of business
Since its establishment, Aisino Corporation has been focusing on important fields related to national governance, social operation and people's livelihood from the Golden Tax Project in the beginning to the R& D and production of IC cards, and computer software and hardware, and integration of computer systems and services related to the Golden Card Project and Golden Shield Project, then to the “replacement of business tax with VAT”, safety and reliability, and e-government affairs, and finally to entry and exit administration, food and drug administration, informatization of grain industry, financial technologies, Internet Finance and business credit reporting.
Ma Tianhui, Secretary of the Party Committee and President of the Aisino Corporation said, “Nowadays, the name Aisino is not only widely known in tax-related industries, but also widely heard in many fields such as the financial technology service field, intelligent industry and Internet Information industry.”
As the leading enterprise in the information technology industry of China and the bellwether of CASIC in the information industry, Aisino Corporation has made active efforts in the exploration of such fields as cloud computing, big data, the Internet and the Internet of Things and determined the thoughts, objectives and strategies for its own transformation and upgrading. This not only concerns the future of CASIC but also the future of the information industry of China.
It has been a subject that CASIC worked on for a long time as to how to adapt to the change of future technologies, industries and forms of business, re-define the industrial boundary, change the enterprise development mode, satisfy customers’ needs, constantly gain competitive edges, grasp the new opportunities for a new round of industrial revolution and technological revolution in the world and actively handle the new challenges in market-oriented reform and development.
As stated by Gao Hongwei, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and President of CASIC, it is a global consensus that nowadays the industrial Internet has become the new growth driver for manufacturing industry and economic development and promoting fusion of new-generation information technologies (represented by cloud computing) and manufacturing industry will remarkably empower the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry and realize its fundamental transformation. The main connotations of new forms of business established by the Party Leadership Group of CASIC are “combination of manufacturing with services, combination of online services with offline services and combination of innovation with entrepreneurship”.
CASIC took the initiative before enterprises developing all kinds of Internet platforms stood out as the ones that are the most powerful and innovative in global economies. It began demonstration of the first Internet platform early in the beginning of 2014 and founded the CASICloud-Tech Co., Ltd. in 2015, building the first public service platform based on industrial Internet in China. This became the landmark of CASIC to break into the field of industrial Internet.
CASICloud has made fruitful achievements within a short period of 4 years: the INDICS industrial Internet public service platform, the CMSS cloud manufacturing support system, the system-level industrial application of CASICloud “one brain, one cockpit, two studios, two stations and one data mining subsystem” and so on. Upholding the core concepts of “information exchange, resource sharing, coordinated efforts, opening up and cooperation, mutual benefit and win-win progress”, CASICloud has made great efforts in exploring the path for the development of industrial Internet with Chinese characteristics and has become the indispensable and important power for a new round of transformation of the production mode and for promotion of high-quality development of manufacturing industry of China by constantly building and improving the cloud manufacturing industry clusters based on the industrial Internet.
From anti-counterfeit tax control to industrial Internet, looking at the over-20-year development course and future planning of CASIC, we see a path of informatization to the “cloud end”. Currently, the construction of the infrastructure for new forms of business and the construction of application systems have been launched in an all-round manner. CASIC has further put forward the requirements for planning of “one cloud + one network + N platforms + M industry clusters” and the new thoughts and strategies for development of platform economy. “Only by conforming to the trend of history, actively handling changes and initiating changes can we keep pace with the times.” Gao Hongwei stressed more than once.
