The female head of a global shipping giant, Zhao Anji, has been found dead following a car accident.

Zhao Anji's Foremost Group, at one point, was the largest American client in China's shipbuilding industry.

In January 2024, half a month before Zhao Anji's car accident, Foremost still sent a large order with a transaction amount of nearly one billion RMB to a subsidiary of China Shipbuilding, for four 82,000-ton methanol dual-fuel bulk carriers.

There are no shortage of speculations surrounding her death, simply because her family is a very prominent presence in various fields.

If the family in the American movie "Crazy Rich Asians" is considered nouveau riche, her family truly exemplifies what it means to be wealthy and noble.

Perhaps for most ordinary people, the name "Zhao Anji" might be somewhat unfamiliar.

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However, her elder sister is quite well-known in China, she is the first Chinese-American and Asian-American Cabinet member, Elaine Chao.

Elaine Chao and Zhao Anji's father, Zhao Xicheng, is known as the "Chinese shipping magnate," having built the Foremost Group from scratch.

Zhao Anji is the only second-generation family member to inherit her father's mantle, having returned to Foremost in 1996 and officially taking over as chairman in 2018.Currently, Foremost Group is one of the largest dry bulk shipping companies in the United States, with a total capacity exceeding 5 million tons, capable of transporting over 20 million tons of goods globally each year, primarily including grains, soybeans, iron ore, and the like.

Just recently, Foremost Group has placed new orders with Chinese shipyards.

The influence of the Zhao family spans across American politics, business, and academia, altering the course of American history.

All six of his daughters are graduates of Ivy League schools, with four having graduated from Harvard University.

Among his sons-in-law are the Majority Leader of the United States Senate; a major shareholder of Facebook, Chairman of the Advisory Board of Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management, and directors of Walmart, Dell, and News Corporation, etc.

However, the origins of such a family are quite humble.

During the era of war and chaos, Zhao Xicheng came from a poor family in Jiading, Shanghai. Although he graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University with a major in shipping, his first job was merely that of a seaman.

Later, due to the turmoil of war, Zhao Xicheng and his family moved to Taiwan, China, and eventually emigrated to the United States.

Before arriving in the United States, Zhao Xicheng had a promising future in Taiwan, becoming a well-compensated captain at a young age.

Upon moving to the United States, Zhao Xicheng had hoped for greater achievements, but he did not expect to face six years of frustration.It wasn't until the age of 36 that Zhao Xicheng began his entrepreneurial journey in the United States by establishing Foremost Shipping. What truly propelled Zhao Xicheng's venture into rapid development was his eldest daughter, Zhao Xiaolan. At that time, fresh out of Harvard, Zhao Xiaolan drafted a bold yet minimal-risk plan for her father, who was planning to expand his team: before expanding the team, sign a charter contract with the world's second-largest grain company, then use the contract to secure a bank loan, use the loan to build ships, and finally purchase insurance from the world's largest insurance company. This allowed Zhao Xicheng's farming-style business operations to take flight with the wings of finance, enabling rapid expansion without being overly aggressive.

As someone who has studied and worked in the shipping industry for his entire life, Zhao Xicheng is extremely sensitive to risks. He foresaw the risks in the shipping industry early on and sold all his shares in the shipping company in his possession, switching to foreign exchange investments. He became one of the few who safely weathered the 1982 shipping crisis and saw his wealth grow. In those days, the shipping industry was more profitable than the real estate industry.

After all, before 1982, stopping investments in the shipping industry in a timely manner was equivalent to advising Xu Jiayin to give up real estate in 2017. During the same period, three of the four major shipping tycoons in Hong Kong went bankrupt and became indebted due to the shipping crisis, with only Bao Yugang managing to withdraw unscathed.In it, Tung Chee-hwa's father, the world's largest independent shipowner, Tung Chao Yung, left the family with over 20 billion in debt before he suddenly passed away.

It should be noted that at that time, Li Ka-shing's net worth was only a few billion.

However, during the low point of the world shipping industry, Zhao Xicheng did something great: doing business with China.

In his view, the family doing business with China was more important than doing business itself.

At that time, Zhao Xicheng ordered two cargo ships from the Jiangnan Shipyard in China—two 64,000-ton Panamax bulk carriers ("Xin Mei Hao" and "Yue Mei Hao").

Using his own hard-earned money to support his motherland's shipbuilding industry, Zhao Xicheng's move was quite significant at the time, and his company was the first Western shipping company to order ships from China.

Therefore, when the delivery ceremony of these two cargo ships took place, representatives from China and the United States attended. And the one who spoke on behalf of the shipowner was Zhao Anji, who was only in his teens.

In 2002, China had just joined the World Trade Organization but encountered another downturn in the global shipbuilding industry. It was the Foremost Group that went against the trend and ordered 12 cargo ships with a capacity of 175,000 tons from China;

In 2006, Foremost added another four Capesize bulk carriers, with this batch of orders totaling over 1.4 million tons, equivalent to 14 U.S. aircraft carriers.

And the price of a single ship is in the hundreds of millions, this kind of support during difficult times is particularly precious.If Zhao Xicheng only makes a big business, he cannot become the most powerful family in the United States, after all, there are many Chinese families like this. More importantly, the Zhao Xicheng family actively integrated into mainstream American society, widely established their influence, and became a prominent force for Chinese people in the United States; The ceiling;. Among them, Zhao Xiaolan, the eldest daughter of the Zhao family who ventured into politics, gained the trust of two generations of Bush family presidents. In the early 1990s, George H.W. Bush entered the White House and nominated the former president; White House Intern; Zhao Xiaolan was the Deputy Minister of Transportation, becoming the youngest Deputy Minister in the United States at that time. Although Zhao Xiaolan, who is sensitive to the shipping market, was unable to inherit her father's business, she transformed it into a political advantage. During the Gulf War, Zhao Xiaolan provided sufficient and stable support for US military operations with her shipping experience, further gaining the trust of the Bush family. So after George W. Bush was elected president, she was drafted by the latter and became the first; Entering the Cabinet; He is of Chinese descent and the only labor minister to serve two consecutive terms of eight years after World War II. Zhao Xiaolan's husband Mitchell; McConnell was a senator who served under five presidents from Reagan to Obama, and also held the position of Senate Majority Leader. Among her six daughters, Zhao Anji has firmly established herself in the mainstream business world in the United States. Backed by her father's company, Zhao Anji established her influence in the American business world through Fumao and became an outstanding female business leader. And Zhao Anji also has an influential husband in the mainstream business world in the United States -& mdash; Jim· Jim Breyer.Breyer is a director of a string of Fortune 500 companies, including Walmart.

His most well-known identity is as an investor in Facebook, a person whom even Zuckerberg has to call "boss."

In 2005, when Facebook had only 10 employees, Breyer invested $12.7 million, becoming the second-largest shareholder.

Due to his unique influence in the American business community, Breyer has also been treated with respect in China, having previously served as the chairman of the Advisory Board of Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management, a position that was succeeded by Apple CEO Cook.

Due to the unique influence and contributions of the Zhao family, Zhao himself was received, and his younger daughter, Zhao Anqi, accompanied her father in the reception.

Influenced by her upbringing, Zhao Anqi has continued her father's responsibilities, becoming a bridge for East-West communication, and has made many contributions to the development of the mainland, such as donating to Chinese students studying in the United States and donating laboratory buildings to Chinese universities.

It can be said that the Zhao family, although American, has never forgotten their roots in China.

As mentioned in the obituary, although Zhao Anqi was born in the United States, she never forgot her roots and dedicated her life to helping create a bridge for communication between the East and the West.

It is regrettable that on February 10th, a car accident took her life. Farewell, Zhao Anqi.