China Emerging_ 1978-2008 - Xiao-bo , Wu [20]
mainland and drew hundreds of thousands of fortune hunters to the island. These were part of that army of people who had “jumped into the ocean” by severing ties with their former “unit” of security. All had come with a single purpose.Manywereabletomakeatremendousamountofmoneyandescape with it before the policies changed. In the course of their business ventures, this little island became as sacred to them as the revolutionary sanctuary of Yan’anto the radical Chinese youth during the 1930s and 1940s. Many approached its shores with emotions bordering on worship, having no idea that they were part of a momentous period in China’s history.
G L O S S A RY 2 . 3
Yan’an
A city located in the northern part of Shaanxi Province where the central organizations of the Communist Party of China were located from 1937 to 1948.
Two months after Deng Xiaoping made his trip to Guangdong in early 1984, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made a historic decision. It announced “the opening up of fourteen coastal cities to foreign investment as well as the opening up of the Hainan Island.” Hainan is a lone island in the middle of the South China Sea and covers an area of 35,000 square kilometers. Before reform and opening up, it was merely a tranquil, pastoral place inhabited by very simple people and virtually no industry was found on the island due to its strategic military importance. This suddenly changed in the mid-1980s when the God of Fortune came knocking at Hainan’s door and the island was thrust onto the frontlines of reform.
This god may have come too suddenly for the island’s inhabitants. Local governments had no time for adequate thought preparation. Local policy makers thought of the classic story of borrowing arrows from the enemy by sending out straw boats. They figured out how to turn the special policy granted to the island into pure gold. According to a document issued by the State Council, “the Hainan Administrative Region is authorized to import production materials for industry and agriculture as conditions
G L O S S A RY 2 . 4
Borrowing arrows by using straw boats
During the era of the Three Kingdoms (3rd century AD), the combined forces of Sun Quan and Liu Bei engaged in a fierce battle with Cao Cao at the Red Cliffs of the Yangtze River. Before the battle, Zhuge Liang, who was Liu Bei’s primary strategist, sent in the heavy mist twenty small boats packed with straw toward the other side of the river. Unable to see what these boats were actually doing, Cao Cao’s armies shot the boats full of arrows, after which the boats were retrieved to the other shore. More than 100,000 arrows were obtained in this way.
A young lady getting her ears pierced, 1983.
Young ladies applying makeup.
require, which are to be used in production and construction. The Region may utilize its local reserves of foreign exchange to import consumer goods that are in short supply in the local markets (including those import items that are controlled by the State).” Good at calculations, the people of Hainan quickly discovered that this was a shortcut to wealth. In an instant, a tidal wave of smuggling swept over the island.
Once the gates were open, the situation could not be reversed. Hainan in 1984 was still a place where both officials and people were extremely poor. The entire government budget of the island was RMB 285.6 million. In the words of a local official,
Lively market scene.
“We didn’t even have enough for salaries. And when local towns were supposed to display signs saying the ‘communes’ had been changed to ‘townships,’ they couldn’t afford the signs. When it was time to recruit soldiers, there was no money to buy the paper for making the recruiting banners. That’s the truth.” All a person needed to do then was to get hold of an import authorization, with which he could make instant money. For example, by reselling a document allowing one to import a car, one could make ten thousand renminbi. As far as the people on Hainan were concerned, this was similar