Article 13 of the Regulations on the Selection and Appointment of Party and Government Leading Officials, in force since March 3, 2019: “When an individual recommends a candidate for a leading post to the Party organization, he must write the recommendation responsibly and sign it.”
Guarantee Circles
Private firms in Wenzhou often guaranteed one another’s bank loans, forming what the press called 担保圈, guarantee circles. In August 2014, the 21st Century Business Herald reported that at the end of June that year, 28 circles in Wenzhou involved 50.7 billion yuan of bank credit. The figure came from a local post that was quickly deleted.
One plastic film maker in Ruian, Huatai Group, defaulted on about 409 million yuan owed to 14 banks. Five firms had guaranteed it, and it had guaranteed six others for 284 million yuan. Eleven firms were caught in one chain.
Bamboo in the Chest
In an essay on the bamboo paintings of Wen Yuke, the painter Wen Tong, Su Shi wrote: “So to paint bamboo, one must first have the finished bamboo in one’s chest. Take the brush and look closely, and when one sees what one wants to paint, rise quickly and follow it, moving the brush straight on to chase what one sees, like a hare leaping or a falcon diving. Let it go for a moment and it is gone.”
The Handian dictionary traces the idiom 胸有成竹, to have the finished bamboo in one’s chest, to this essay. It first meant having the whole image of the bamboo in mind before painting. Later it came to mean having made up one’s mind before acting.
Numbers in Mind
On March 13, 1949, Mao Zedong wrote Methods of Work of Party Committees. Point 7 is titled 胸中有”数”, have the numbers in one’s chest. “We must pay attention to the quantitative aspect of situations and problems and make a basic quantitative analysis.” Of officials who did not, he wrote: “Everything is without numbers in their chest, and as a result they cannot help making mistakes.”
No Battle Without Certainty
In his report of December 25, 1947, The Present Situation and Our Tasks, Mao Zedong set out the military principles of the People’s Liberation Army. Principle 5 reads: “Fight no battle unprepared, fight no battle without certainty of victory. Make every effort to be prepared for each battle, make every effort to ensure victory in the given balance of conditions between the enemy and ourselves.”
The Vocabulary of Certainty
十拿九稳 Ten grasps, nine firm. Very sure of success. The Handian dictionary gives the example: “His grades are excellent. Getting into university should be a sure thing.”
心中有数 To have the numbers in one’s heart. To understand a matter and be sure of how to handle it. Its opposite is 心中无数, to have no numbers in one’s heart.
Spare Tires
In the early hours of May 17, 2019, after the US Commerce Department added Huawei to its Entity List, He Tingbo of Huawei’s chip maker HiSilicon wrote to its staff. Thousands of HiSilicon people, she wrote, had built “spare tires” for the company’s survival, for a case they had assumed would never happen. “Today history has made its choice. All the spare tires we ever built have become regulars overnight.”
Know the Other
From the chapter on planning attacks in Sunzi’s Art of War: “Know the other and know oneself, and in a hundred battles there is no danger. Not knowing the other but knowing oneself, one wins once and loses once. Knowing neither the other nor oneself, every battle brings danger.” (知彼知己，百战不殆)
One Cut for All
一刀切 One cut for all. To handle different cases by one uniform method, regardless of actual conditions.
因噎废食 To give up eating because of choking. The Handian dictionary traces it to the Lüshi Chunqiu: “If someone has choked to death and one wants to forbid food to the whole world, that is absurd.”
Ten Minutes Between Classes
In October 2023, the Jiefang Daily reported that in some primary schools, pupils could not leave the classroom during the ten-minute break, except to use the toilet or fetch water. Other schools allowed walking in the corridor, but not going down the stairs or out to the playground. The paper wrote that the schools’ biggest worry was student safety, because schools often bore unlimited responsibility.
The Ministry of Education said it would guide schools to “give out-of-class time back to the children.”