Bi yi shi, ci yi shi (彼一时，此一时) That was one time, this is another. The words come from the Mencius. The Handian dictionary explains them: the time is different, and the situation has changed. In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a character uses the phrase to explain why an earlier policy no longer applies.
Redesigning the Bird’s Nest
Work on Beijing’s National Stadium, the Bird’s Nest, began in March 2004. In July 2004 the site stopped work while the construction plan was revised for reasons of cost and safety. The retractable roof of the original design was dropped, and the opening in the roof was made larger.
The redesign cut the steel in the structure by 22.3 percent and the membrane by 23 percent. The revised plan was meant to keep the cost within the 2.267 billion yuan set by the National Development and Reform Commission. Work resumed on December 28, 2004, and the stadium was finished on June 28, 2008.
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.”
BYD’s Price-Cut Email
In November 2024, an email reported to come from BYD’s passenger car division asked suppliers to cut prices by 10 percent from January 1, 2025.
Li Yunfei, BYD’s head of brand and public relations, answered that “annual price negotiation with suppliers is an industry practice.” He said the 10 percent target was “not compulsory” and “negotiable.” The report put the industry’s usual annual cut at about 5 percent.
Price Increase Letters
Chinese suppliers announce price rises to their customers with a 涨价函, a price increase letter. When chip prices rose at the end of 2020, the chip maker Huiding (Goodix) raised its dollar prices by 30 percent from January 1, 2021. Xinjieneng (NCE Power) told customers that the new prices would also apply to unpaid orders already in its system.
Change of Circumstances
Article 533 of China’s Civil Code covers a contract whose basic conditions change in a major way that the parties could not foresee and that is not a commercial risk. If continued performance would be clearly unfair to one party, “the party adversely affected may renegotiate with the other party.” Only if they fail to agree within a reasonable time may either party ask a court or an arbitration body to change or end the contract.
In one reported case, a court refused a request for higher rent based on rising prices.
When Terms Are Unclear
Article 510 of the Civil Code says: “After a contract takes effect, if the parties have not agreed on quality, price or remuneration, place of performance or other matters, or their agreement is unclear, they may supplement it by agreement. If they cannot reach a supplementary agreement, these are determined by the related clauses of the contract or by trade practice.”
Only when this fails does Article 511 supply fixed rules.
Asking for More
In Ming and Qing land sales, a seller could come back after the sale and ask the buyer for more money. The custom was called 找价, “seeking the price,” or 加找. A seller could claim that “the price was not enough.” The historian Cao Shuji found that after the Qianlong era, 加找 became a standard contract form.
A 2012 study in the law journal The Jurist cites the finding that repeated 找价, even after a deed of final sale, was “a very common custom.” Qing law later limited it. Where a deed of final sale did not mention extra payments, none were allowed.