Fixed Goals Archives - understand-culture

Quadrupling by 2000

In September 1982, the report to the 12th Party Congress set the overall goal for the twenty years from 1981 to the end of the century. China would strive to quadruple, fan liang fan, the gross annual value of its industrial and agricultural output, from 710 billion yuan in 1980 to about 2,800 billion yuan in 2000.

The goal was later counted in gross national product. By that measure, 1995 output reached 5,760 billion yuan, 4.3 times the level of 1980 after price changes. The quadrupling had been reached five years early.

Ensure Eight Percent

In 1998, Zhu Rongji’s new government made “one guarantee”: to ensure that the economy grew by 8 percent that year. The National Bureau of Statistics later reported growth for 1998 of 7.8 percent.

Ten years later, during the stimulus of 2008 and 2009, officials and economists repeatedly used the slogan bao ba, “protect eight.”

Carbon Peak, Carbon Neutrality

On September 22, 2020, Xi Jinping addressed the general debate of the UN General Assembly by video. China, he said, would “strive for carbon dioxide emissions to peak before 2030, and work to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.”

China would also “raise its nationally determined contributions” and adopt “stronger policies and measures.”

Sayings on Many Roads

天下同归而殊途，一致而百虑 All under heaven come to the same end by different roads. There is one outcome and a hundred considerations. (Book of Changes)

殊途同归 Different roads, the same destination. The Handian dictionary traces it to this line. Different methods reach the same result.

万变不离其宗 Ten thousand changes, never leaving the origin. However the form changes, the essence stays the same.

Two Centenaries

On September 12, 1997, Jiang Zemin’s report to the 15th Party Congress set goals for two dates. By the hundredth year of the Party, the economy would be more developed. By the middle of the century, the hundredth year of the People’s Republic, China would basically achieve modernization.

Chinese Wikipedia traces the Two Centenary Goals (两个一百年) to this report. On July 1, 2021, Xi Jinping declared: “We have achieved the first centenary goal.”

The Military Pledge

A junlingzhuang is a written pledge given on receiving an order. The signer accepts severe punishment if the task is not done. In chapter 46 of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a pledge reads: “I am willing to submit a military pledge. If it is not done in three days, I accept heavy punishment.”

A CCTV News article noted that the fight against poverty was the only task since the 18th Party Congress for which Party and government heads signed military pledges to the Center. Xi Jinping said in 2016: “A military pledge is not made lightly. What we say, we must do.”

Delivered by 11

By September 2011, JD.com had made a firm promise in its own delivery areas, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu. Orders for goods in stock placed before 11 a.m. arrive the same day. Orders placed before 11 p.m. arrive by 3 p.m. the next day.

The Battle Against Poverty

In November 2015, the Central Committee and the State Council issued a decision on winning the “battle against poverty” (tuopin gongjian). All poor areas and poor people were to reach a moderately prosperous life by 2020. The country sent 255,000 village work teams and more than 3 million first secretaries and village cadres to the countryside.

On February 25, 2021, Xi Jinping declared “complete victory.” By the current standard, 98.99 million rural poor had left poverty, all 832 poor counties had been removed from the list and all 128,000 poor villages had been lifted out.

Overtaking Britain

In 1958, the second session of the Eighth Party Congress adopted the general line “go all out, aim high, and build socialism with greater, faster, better and more economical results.” It set the goal of catching up with and overtaking Britain within fifteen years. In August, the Politburo set the year’s steel target at 10.7 million tons, double the output of 1957. A nationwide campaign to make iron and steel followed.

So much labor went into steel that farming suffered and the economy fell out of balance.

Yellow Cat, Black Cat

On July 7, 1962, speaking about how to judge household contracting in farming, Deng Xiaoping said: “Comrade Liu Bocheng often quotes a Sichuan saying: ‘Yellow cat or black cat, as long as it catches mice, it is a good cat.’ He said it about fighting. We beat Chiang Kai-shek because we did not follow the old rules and the old roads.”

The saying is popularly remembered as “white cat, black cat.” In 1976, the Party journal Red Flag attacked the “white cat, black cat” theory for erasing the difference between socialism and capitalism.