economics Archives - Page 4 of 22

From One Province to the Nation

In early 1980, the Anhui Party committee backed the household contracting begun in villages such as Xiaogang. That spring, Wan Li, who had supported it in Anhui, moved to Beijing as vice premier. A fierce debate followed, in Anhui and across China, and some said that contracting land to households was not the socialist road.

From 1982 to 1984, the Central Committee’s “No. 1 Document” confirmed household contracting three years in a row as a socialist form of responsibility. According to official data, almost all production teams had adopted it by 1984. Grain output rose from 609.5 billion jin in 1978 to 814.6 billion jin in 1984.

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.

The Wenzhou Lending Crisis

In the first half of 2011, according to the Wenzhou branch of the central bank, the city’s informal lending market had reached 110 billion yuan. Nearly nine in ten families or individuals and nearly six in ten companies took part.

In 2011 the chain broke. Zhou Dewen, head of a Wenzhou association of small and medium firms, said that in August and September alone, more than 100 bosses fled. A commentary in October 2011 called it “a defeat of the business model of the acquaintance society.”

Gift Money

At a Chinese wedding, guests give gift money, a custom called 随份子. A commentary published in Chinese media in September 2026 described its logic. Gift money “has taken on a kind of contractual character.” A guest gives now so as to receive “an equal return gift from the other side” at their own wedding in the future. “From this angle, it is even like an interest-free loan.”

The same piece reported that the city of Shangluo in Shaanxi had issued reference limits on gift money: no more than 100 yuan in the countryside and 200 yuan in the city.

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.

Eating From the Big Pot

In the People’s Communes, public canteens collected the farmers’ grain, cooked it together and handed it out to all members according to need. People called this “eating from the big pot” (吃大锅饭). The phrase came to stand for egalitarian distribution in general.

In July 1983, the Shekou Industrial Zone was the first to “break the egalitarian big pot.” It introduced a pay scheme of basic wage, position wage and floating wage.

The Xiaogang Pact

On a winter night in 1978, dated by Chinese Wikipedia to November 24, eighteen farmers in Xiaogang village, Anhui, signed a pact at great risk to contract the collective land to households. Each pressed a red fingerprint on a worn, creased sheet of paper. The members also promised to raise the leaders’ children until the age of 18.

In 1979 Xiaogang had a record harvest of 66,000 kilograms of grain, equal to its total from 1966 to 1970.

Open on Eid

March 31, 2025, was Id-ul-Fitr, a holiday in many states. It was also the last day of the financial year. The Reserve Bank of India advised all agency banks “to keep all their branches dealing with government business open on March 31, 2025.”

The Income Tax Department ordered that “all the Income Tax Offices throughout India shall remain open on 29th, 30th and 31st March 2025.” These were a Saturday, a Sunday and the Eid holiday.

The Guarantor

Section 126 of the Indian Contract Act of 1872 defines a contract of guarantee: “a contract to perform the promise, or discharge the liability, of a third person in case of his default.” Section 128 adds: “The liability of the surety is co-extensive with that of the principal debtor, unless it is otherwise provided by the contract.”

Banks “have the right to recover the default amount from borrower and/or the guarantor,” Business Standard explained to its readers. “Being a guarantor is as good as taking a loan yourself, in terms of credit exposure.”