In the 4th century BCE, the reformer Shang Yang organized the households of Qin into groups of five and ten that watched over one another and were liable together (什伍连坐). According to Sima Qian, anyone who failed to report a wrongdoer was cut in half at the waist. Anyone who hid one was punished like a soldier who surrendered to the enemy.
Chinese Wikipedia calls it the earliest known written law of lianzuo, a system in which a group is punished for the wrong of one person.
法不责众, “the law does not punish the many,” describes a rule that is not enforced because too many people break it.
In June 2025, a commentary warned that if the saying becomes a shield for enforcers, it ends in its reverse: the many ignore the rules, no longer trust the law, and whoever has more people is right.
In many Chinese schools, classes compete for a liudong hongqi (流动红旗), a red flag that moves from class to class, and for the title of “civilized class.” Daily points are added and deducted for class duties, dormitory order and conduct.
A 2016 article in the journal People’s Tribune explained the mechanism. The points tie each student’s daily behavior closely to the honor of the class. Teachers, and especially the head teacher, constantly stress winning the flag.
In the People’s Communes, public canteens collected the farmers’ grain, cooked it together and handed it out to all members according to need. People called this “eating from the big pot” (吃大锅饭). The phrase came to stand for egalitarian distribution in general.
In July 1983, the Shekou Industrial Zone was the first to “break the egalitarian big pot.” It introduced a pay scheme of basic wage, position wage and floating wage.
The Communist Party’s Accountability Regulations, first issued in 2016 and revised in 2019, divide responsibility within a leadership team. The team as a whole bears “overall leadership responsibility.” The principal leader and the member in charge bear “main leadership responsibility.” Members who took part in the decision bear “important leadership responsibility.”
When a Party organization is held accountable, its responsible leaders are held accountable too. Leaders may not shift responsibility onto lower levels. Members who clearly opposed a wrong collective decision, or recorded reservations, can be treated more leniently.
The rules start from the team and then assign each member a share.
Under the baojia (保甲) system, ten households formed a jia and ten jia formed a bao. The households registered together and answered together for order in their area.
Chinese Wikipedia traces the system back to the reforms of Shang Yang. The Ming founder’s version was the harshest. It remained in force until the founding of the Republic of China in 1912.
On a winter night in 1978, dated by Chinese Wikipedia to November 24, eighteen farmers in Xiaogang village, Anhui, signed a pact at great risk to contract the collective land to households. Each pressed a red fingerprint on a worn, creased sheet of paper. The members also promised to raise the leaders’ children until the age of 18.
In 1979 Xiaogang had a record harvest of 66,000 kilograms of grain, equal to its total from 1966 to 1970.
The People’s Liberation Army awards merit to units as well as to individuals. A rocket artillery company of the Army’s 71st Group Army, for example, has been awarded “collective second-class merit once and collective third-class merit twice.”
In January 2024, the Central Military Commission issued a notice commending nine units and twenty individuals for excellence in military training.
一颗老鼠屎坏了一锅粥 One rat dropping spoils a whole pot of rice porridge.
The saying is used when one person’s fault harms the whole group. A teaching dictionary gives a common example: when one person is late for a meeting, everyone has to wait.
诛九族, the execution of nine degrees of kin, was a form of family punishment in imperial China. Chinese Wikipedia attributes its creation to Emperor Yang of Sui. It was used against treason.
As a form of collective liability, it did not rest on what each person had done.