On March 20, 2018, at his press conference after the National People’s Congress, Premier Li Keqiang said: “To protect property rights, we must respect contracts and promote the spirit of contract. Contracts must not be treated as waste paper.”
Double Wages
China’s Labor Contract Law, in force since January 1, 2008, says that “to establish a labor relationship, a written labor contract shall be concluded.” Under Article 82, an employer that has not concluded a written contract with a worker more than one month and less than one year after the work began must pay the worker double wages for every month.
Who Sets the Standard
San liu qiye zuo chanpin, er liu qiye zuo pinpai, yi liu qiye zuo biaozhun. Third-rate companies make products. Second-rate companies make brands. First-rate companies make standards. The business site Jiemian introduced it in 2016 as “a popular saying.”
Contract Disputes in Court
In the first half of 2019, the five largest categories of civil cases concluded by China’s courts were contract disputes, marriage and family disputes, tort liability disputes, labor disputes, and intellectual property disputes. Legal Daily reported the figures, and China News Service carried the report on August 1, 2019.
Mr. More-or-Less
On June 28, 1924, Hu Shi published a short satire, Chabuduo xiansheng zhuan, “The Biography of Mr. More-or-Less.” Its hero’s motto is: “In everything, more or less is good enough. Why be so sharp?” He brings home white sugar instead of brown. He misses a train by two minutes and finds the railway company “too serious.” When he falls ill, his family fetches a cattle doctor instead of the physician. Within the hour he is dead.
After his death, people praise him and give him the posthumous name Master Yuantong, “the all-accommodating.” The essay ends: “But from then on, China became a nation of lazy people.”
White Plus Black, Five Plus Two
According to a report from January 2019, an official of the Ministry of Public Security had said the year before that “5+2” and “white plus black” had become the daily working state of China’s police.
“Five plus two” adds the weekend to the five working days. “White plus black” adds the night to the day.
Emotional Investment
In 2016, China’s Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate issued an interpretation of the law on bribery. It covers an official who accepts property worth 30,000 yuan or more from a subordinate or from someone under the official’s administration. If the gift “may affect the exercise of official power,” it is treated as a promise to seek a benefit for the giver.
The rule applies even when the giver has never asked for anything. A law professor writing in The Paper named what it targets: the so-called 感情投资, “emotional investment.”
Li Hongzhang’s Telegrams
In April 1895, Li Hongzhang negotiated peace with Japan at Shimonoseki. He reported to the Zongli Yamen, the Qing foreign office in Beijing, by telegram, and its replies came the same way. Japan had broken the code.
A Japanese account of 1932, quoted in a Chinese study, says that reading the full text of Li’s telegram of April 11, 1895, “had a great effect” on Japan’s later attitude and on the progress of the talks. In 1929 the Chinese writer Gong Debai concluded: “Since all our secrets were known to them, how could the negotiations not fail?”
Hidden Overtime
Ms. Li joined a technology company in April 2019 and was dismissed in December 2020. She claimed pay for more than 500 hours of overtime. Her evidence included chat records, screenshots from the DingTalk app and a duty roster for the company’s social media accounts on weekends and holidays. The court of first instance rejected her claim.
On appeal, the Beijing No. 3 Intermediate People’s Court ordered the company to pay her 30,000 yuan. According to the reports, the court held that the idea of a workplace should be weakened. What counts is whether the employee provided substantive work. The Beijing News called it the first case in China to address yinxing jiaban, hidden overtime, in a judgment.
In 2024, the Supreme People’s Court wrote the test for hidden overtime online into its annual work report: “substantive work” and “obvious use of time.”
Seats at the Table
At a formal Chinese banquet, every seat has a rank. The seats facing the door are the seats of honor. A 2015 article on Xinhua’s website places the guests around the host’s seat, the zhupei (主陪): “To the right of the host is the seat of the chief guest, to the left the seat of the second guest, and opposite is the seat of the deputy host.”
An etiquette guide published by the Shanghai government adds a rule for drinking. To show respect, a guest keeps the rim of the glass below the host’s.