In 1985, Zhang Ruimin, head of the factory that later became Haier, found that 76 of the more than 400 refrigerators in the warehouse had quality defects. He ordered them smashed. He took up the hammer himself and struck the first blow, and the workers who had made the faulty units smashed the rest.
“If I allow these 76 refrigerators to be sold,” he told them, “it is the same as allowing you to produce 760 more like them tomorrow.” The hammer was later taken into the National Museum of China.
On August 6, 1977, at a forum on science and education that he chaired, Deng Xiaoping decided to restore the national university entrance exam, the gaokao. It had been closed for eleven years. The exam was to be restored that same year, with voluntary registration, a unified exam and admission on merit.
In the winter of 1977, about 5.7 million candidates of all ages sat the exam. They came from villages, factories and the army.
After Qin conquered the last of the rival states in 221 BC, the First Emperor imposed one system on the whole realm. He set up commanderies and counties everywhere and unified weights and measures. His measures are remembered in the phrase che tong gui, shu tong wen: carts on the same gauge, writing in the same script.
The six conquered states had each written in their own way. On the advice of his minister Li Si, the emperor abolished their scripts and made the small seal script the standard for the whole country.
On January 28, 1956, the State Council adopted the Chinese Character Simplification Scheme. People’s Daily printed it in full on January 31. From February 1, the first list of simplified characters came into use across the country.
In 1957, during a brief period of open criticism, Guangming Daily and Wenhui Bao printed many objections to simplification. On January 10, 1958, Premier Zhou Enlai answered them. He said that “rightists” had attacked the reform and wanted the State Council to withdraw its order. Simplification, he said, “should be firmly supported.”
On April 1, 2017, the Central Committee and the State Council announced their decision to create the Xiong’an New Area in Hebei. Official sources call it qiannian daji, guojia dashi, “a plan for a thousand years, a major matter of state.”
The new city counts its history from the day of the announcement.
On December 7, 2022, the State Council’s joint prevention and control mechanism issued ten new measures on COVID-19. People moving between regions would no longer have to show a negative test or a health code, and there would be no more tests on arrival. Infected people with mild or no symptoms could generally isolate at home. Temporary lockdowns could no longer be widened at will to whole residential compounds, communities or streets.
Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei, visited IBM in 1997. In early 1999, Huawei began a reform of its product development, Integrated Product Development, designed by IBM as consultant. Ren described the policy as xue zu shi lü, cutting the feet to fit the shoes, and told the company: “The pain of cutting the feet to wear the American shoes well is repaid by the joy of a system that runs smoothly.”
The reform was summed up in a slogan: “First rigidify, then optimize, then solidify. Whoever does not change his thinking is replaced.”
一锤定音 One blow of the hammer fixes the tone. Originally the last blow that set the sound of a gong. Today, a single word that settles a matter.
令行禁止 Orders are carried out at once, and bans are obeyed at once.
雷厉风行 Like thunder and wind. Forceful and fast. In 2024, People’s Daily called it the spirit that leading officials should keep when they put work into practice.
On July 24, 2021, the General Offices of the Party Central Committee and the State Council issued the “double reduction” opinions on homework and off-campus tutoring. Existing tutoring companies for school subjects had to register as non-profit organizations. They could no longer raise capital on stock markets. No new ones would be approved.
Chinese Wikipedia sums up the effect: the policy “dealt a severe blow to the private education industry in mainland China.”
In Chinese government, a leader’s short written comment on a report or document is called a pishi (批示), a written instruction. It turns the document into a task for the people below.
In 2016, Xi Jinping wrote such an instruction on the study of Mao Zedong’s essay on the working methods of Party committees. The Central Organization Department then issued a notice to carry it out. According to the Party’s news site, the instruction set clear requirements for every member of every Party leadership team, and especially for its principal leaders.