On August 26, 1980, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress approved four special economic zones: Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shantou in Guangdong, and Xiamen in Fujian. Official accounts describe them as the vanguard of reform and opening, the first to go ahead and its “experimental zones.”
From One Province to the Nation
In early 1980, the Anhui Party committee backed the household contracting begun in villages such as Xiaogang. That spring, Wan Li, who had supported it in Anhui, moved to Beijing as vice premier. A fierce debate followed, in Anhui and across China, and some said that contracting land to households was not the socialist road.
From 1982 to 1984, the Central Committee’s “No. 1 Document” confirmed household contracting three years in a row as a socialist form of responsibility. According to official data, almost all production teams had adopted it by 1984. Grain output rose from 609.5 billion jin in 1978 to 814.6 billion jin in 1984.
The Negative List
On September 29, 2013, the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone opened, the first in mainland China. With it came the country’s first “negative list” for foreign investment. It restricted parts of 18 sectors, among them mining, manufacturing, construction and retail.
In 2018, a national negative list for foreign investment was published, and it took effect at the end of July.
The Property Tax That Stayed a Pilot
On January 28, 2011, Shanghai began to tax some private homes. Chongqing started a property tax pilot the same month.
Ten years later, in January 2021, the China Securities Journal reported that the pilot cities were still only Shanghai and Chongqing, and that there was no sign yet of a property tax for the whole country.
A pilot can also remain a pilot.
River Chiefs
In May 2007, a large bloom of blue-green algae spread on Lake Tai, and residents of Wuxi rushed to buy bottled water. In August, Wuxi issued trial rules with water quality targets for its rivers and lakes. People’s Daily later reported that this is regarded as the origin of the river chief system (hezhang zhi), which makes the leading Party and government officials of each level responsible for each river.
Changxing County in Zhejiang had already set up river chiefs in 2003. In December 2016, the Central Committee and the State Council ordered the system for the whole country.
Seven Carbon Markets
In October 2011, seven provinces and cities, Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing, Guangdong, Hubei and Shenzhen, started local pilots for trading carbon emission rights.
On July 16, 2021, national carbon emission trading started at the Shanghai Environment and Energy Exchange.
The First Land Auction
On December 1, 1987, Shenzhen auctioned the right to use a plot of land, the first auction of land use rights in the People’s Republic. The plot measured 8,588 square meters. The right ran for 50 years and sold for 5.25 million yuan.
On April 12, 1988, the National People’s Congress amended the Constitution to say that “the rights to use land can be transferred in accordance with the law.”
Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme
In October 2002, the Central Committee and the State Council decided to strengthen health work in the countryside. In 2003, the provinces began to pilot a new rural cooperative medical scheme, xin nonghe. At first, each member paid 10 yuan and the government added 10.
By 2008, the scheme covered basically the whole countryside.
The Vocabulary of Trials
试点 A trial point. Work done first on a small scale to gain experience before it is spread. Also the place where the trial runs.
以点带面 To let the point lead the surface. A breakthrough at a key point drives progress in the whole.
In 2024, People’s Daily wrote: “A pilot is a test field that grows seedlings into a forest, not a potted plant that looks bright and pretty but is worth nothing when transplanted.” In 2015, it had noted a problem: “Some places are very successful in the pilot, but when it is spread, it meets obstacles and cannot be pushed forward.”
Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones
摸着石头过河, “to cross the river by feeling for the stones,” comes from a folk saying. Chen Yun, then vice premier, first proposed it as a working method at a government meeting in April 1950. In 1961 he told the Ministry of Chemical Industry that the work must start from reality and “cross the river by feeling the stones.”
The saying is widely linked to Deng Xiaoping and the reforms after 1978. According to scholars cited by Chinese Wikipedia, Deng himself never used it.