Thirty Years of Turbulence - Chinese Enterprises

作者：admin  点击次数：26  发布时间：2025-07-05

▲ Wenzhou market in the early 1980s



At a time when the "underground factories" in the Pearl River Delta and Wenzhou are like weeds, and in central or sub central cities, the economic activities with individual colors are still so cautious and rare. Long term planned economy has made people accustomed to living in a standardized, disciplined, and organized environment. Once they want to break free from that inertia, it often requires tremendous external force or courage. That is why in the early stages of reform and opening up, the vast majority of those engaged in individual commercial activities came from the bottom of society. They were unemployed, returnees, people with criminal records, and those with low educational levels. These people were excluded from the "warm" and "secure" system, and were forced to embark on the path of business and entrepreneurship when they had no choice. In Urumqi, the desperate 16-year-old dropout Tang Wanxin followed his elder brother Tang Wanli to open a photo printing shop. No one expected that more than 20 years later, he would start from this remote border town and build a Delong Empire with a market value of up to 120 billion yuan. In Beijing, a middle-aged woman named Liu Guixian unexpectedly obtained the city's first individual restaurant license.