Thirty Years of Turbulence - Chinese Enterprises

作者：admin  点击次数：5  发布时间：2026-04-06

Two sided Lei Yu

From the day he was demoted, Lei Yu became a "hero" of reform, often compared to Hai Rui, a Ming dynasty official from Hainan. In 1996, when he was 61 years old, he voluntarily stepped down from the position of Vice Chairman of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and claimed to go home to serve his 90 year old mother, thus becoming a news figure again and receiving sympathy from the public opinion.

The Hainan automobile reselling incident objectively transformed the closed and backward Hainan into a forefront of openness, providing Hainan people who are shy about commodity trading with a profound financial education. The "Hainan fever" that emerged in the late 1980s is closely related to this. In 1996, a financial journalist named Zhu Jianguo spent four months interviewing in Hainan and found that "no matter what unit he went to interview, when people mention the reasons for the tremendous changes in Hainan today, they first say that it is really thanks to Lei Yu

An intriguing phenomenon is that the reason why Lei Yu was so bold is inseparable from the mentality of many people at that time who were eager for change. According to his later recollection, in the early 1980s, the ruling authorities encouraged breakthrough measures in various regions. When he took office in Hainan, a central leader once said that the central government and Guangdong Province should govern Hainan Island without taking action, and at least for three years, they should not use sticks or give "ropes". After Deng Xiaoping's southern tour, some leaders encouraged him, saying that if you work on Hainan Island, be brave and do whatever you want as soon as possible.