Provisional Decisions Archives - understand-culture

For Trial Implementation

Several of China’s basic laws were first passed “for trial implementation” (试行). The Environmental Protection Law (for Trial Implementation) was adopted in principle in September 1979. A final Environmental Protection Law followed in December 1989. The Civil Procedure Law (for Trial Implementation) took effect on October 1, 1982, and was replaced by a new Civil Procedure Law in 1991.

The Enterprise Bankruptcy Law (for Trial Implementation) of December 1986 lasted longest. It was repealed when the new Enterprise Bankruptcy Law took effect on June 1, 2007.

Provisional for Thirty-Two Years

On December 13, 1993, the State Council issued the Provisional Regulations on Value-Added Tax (增值税暂行条例). China’s VAT rested on these “provisional” rules for more than three decades. On December 25, 2024, the NPC Standing Committee adopted the VAT Law. It took effect on January 1, 2026, and the provisional regulations were repealed on the same day.

Small Steps, Fast Iteration

In a letter to partners published in July 2012, Tencent founder Ma Huateng summed up fourteen years of the company’s experience as a “rule of gray” (灰度法则) with seven dimensions: demand, speed, flexibility, redundancy, open collaboration, innovation and evolution.

On speed, he wrote: “My suggestion is ‘small steps, fast running, quick iteration.'” (小步快跑，快速迭代)

One, Two, Three Children

In November 2013, the Third Plenum allowed couples to have two children if one parent was an only child. From January 1, 2016, every couple could have two children. On May 31, 2021, a Politburo meeting announced that couples could have three, “to respond to the deepening of population aging.”

Marking the Boat

A man of Chu was crossing a river when his sword fell from the boat into the water. He quickly cut a mark on the boat: “This is where my sword fell.” When the boat stopped, he went into the water at the mark to look for it. The boat had moved. The sword had not. (Lüshi Chunqiu)

The book draws the lesson for government: “The times have moved, but the law has not. Is it not hard to govern like this?” And: “The world changes and the times move. It is right to change the law.” (世易时移，变法宜矣)

The Han Feizi tells of a farmer who saw a hare run into a tree stump and break its neck. He put down his plow to wait by the stump for another. “To govern the people of today with the government of the former kings is all of the stump-watching kind.”

Shaped by the Ground

From the Art of War: “The form of an army is like water. Water flows away from high ground toward low ground. An army avoids the strong and strikes the weak. Water shapes its course by the ground. An army shapes its victory by the enemy. So an army has no fixed position and no constant form. One who can change with the enemy and win is called divine.”

Updates Every Friday

Xiaomi released the first version of its MIUI phone software on August 16, 2010. From the start, it pushed out an update every Friday at 5 pm. After the first Xiaomi phone came out on August 16, 2011, development split in two. The “development version” kept its weekly updates. The “stable version” received about one update a month.

Two Prices for One Good

In the 1980s, China used a dual-track price system (价格双轨制) for the transition from a planned to a market economy. The same good had a fixed price inside the state plan and a market price outside it. In May 1984, provisional State Council rules let enterprises price output beyond the plan within 20 percent of the state price. In January 1985, the limit was dropped.

In November 1989, the Party decided to turn “two tracks” into “one track.” The system had also given rise to guandao (官倒): officials or their relatives who used their power to buy scarce goods at the low price and sell them on the market.

The Only Constant Is Change

On September 10, 2019, at its twentieth anniversary, Alibaba announced six new values. The third reads: “The only thing that does not change is change.” (唯一不变的是变化) Its earlier values had included “Embrace change.” (拥抱变化)

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.