Today in Sasha's history.
Author: Sasha
This article was originally written by Sasha and is not allowed to be reproduced by any media
April 1, 1980: China began issuing foreign exchange coupons.
Today's young people have never heard of foreign exchange vouchers.
In fact, foreign exchange vouchers and overseas Chinese remittance vouchers are both products of history and used to be a very important thing in Chinese mainland.
What is an Overseas Remittance Voucher?
This is a way for China to encourage Chinese diasporas abroad to send large amounts of foreign currency back home.
At that time, China was in the era of planned economy, the state strictly controlled foreign exchange, and ordinary people received US dollars, pounds, and Hong Kong dollars from overseas relatives and friends, which were equivalent to a piece of waste paper.
Moreover, Chinese mainland in that era was different from today, everything had to be bought with a ticket, and money alone was useless. For example, if I buy a bicycle as a luxury item, I can't get it with a huge amount of more than 100 yuan (!), and I also need to get enough light industry tickets. These light industry tickets are a means for the state to plan the number of bicycles purchased, and it is difficult for ordinary people to get a large number of them.
If it is useless to simply mail foreign currency back, who will send money? Overseas Chinese have no choice but to send biscuits, canned food, butter, and other physical goods to China. For the state, these physical objects mean little.
Even China in the fifties and sixties needed a lot of foreign currency for international trade.
Thus, the Overseas Chinese Remittance Voucher was born: in this case, the Overseas Chinese Affairs Committee decided to issue the Overseas Chinese Remittance Voucher. Overseas Chinese relatives can exchange overseas Chinese remittance coupons at the official exchange rate according to the amount of remittances they hold, and supply a certain amount of grain, oil, sugar, and other materials that belong to the unified purchase and sale according to the quantity recorded on the overseas Chinese remittance coupons. On July 30, 1957, the State Council approved the directive "On the Issue of Striving for Overseas Chinese Remittances". In 1958, Fujian Province took the lead in issuing overseas Chinese remittance bills, followed by 13 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, including Guangdong, Guangxi, Shanghai and Hunan. In the era of scarcity of materials, overseas Chinese relatives can go to local overseas Chinese stores and friendship shops to buy some daily necessities or high-end goods with overseas Chinese remittance coupons. Usually, there are various vouchers such as grain stamps, cloth stamps, cotton stamps, non-staple food purchase coupons, and industrial product purchase coupons. In addition, in some provinces, the remittance stamps are also printed with rare stamps such as soap stamps, coal stamps, and oil stamps.
In a sense, overseas Chinese remittance bills are the predecessors of foreign exchange bills.
In the sixties and seventies during the Cultural Revolution, overseas Chinese remittance bills were accused of being a legacy of capitalism and were forced to stop using them.
During the Cultural Revolution, overseas Chinese remittance notes did not exist.
By the late 70s, the Cultural Revolution, which had been more devastating to China than war, had finally come to an end.
One more thing to say here.
In 1952, when the Korean War was armistic, China had its first national economic statistics. At that time, China's GDP totaled $30.2 billion, compared to $17.2 billion for Japan, which suffered heavy losses after the war. China is more than twice as large as Japan, and then both countries develop separately!
By the time of the Great Leap Forward in 1958, China's economy had been generally stable, with a total GDP of $50.3 billion compared to Japan's $32 billion. Obviously, the gap between the two sides is a little smaller, but China still has a more than 1.5 times advantage.
At this time, China's economic policy made a serious mistake, leading to a devastating situation for many years to come.
In 1960, China's economic growth plummeted from 22.4 percent in 1958 to 1.4 percent, and the country experienced severe famine.
Academician Yuan Longping saw many people dying of starvation back then: "In the 60s of the last century, when I was a teacher at Anjiang Agricultural School in Hunan, I saw five starvation deaths with my own eyes. Two people were seen lying under the bridge, two people were seen lying in the field, and one time was seen a man lying on the side of the road. ”
In 1961, China's economy grew by 11 percent, and in 1962 it was negative by 6 percent, which means that the economy regressed by 6 percent.
It was also in 1961 that Japan's economy surpassed China's for the first time.
In this way, by 1964, China's total GDP was 59.7 billion US dollars, and Japan has always maintained a growth momentum, exceeding 81.6 billion US dollars in one fell swoop, not only completely surpassing China, but also widening the distance.
After putting an end to the nonsense of the Great Leap Forward, China's economy began to develop steadily, maintaining a growth rate of 8 to 18 percent from 1963 to 1966, which was quite good.
By 1966, the first year of the Cultural Revolution, China's total economic output was $76.7 billion, a little lower than Japan's $105.3 billion, and the gap was limited.
Immediately after the Cultural Revolution began, the whole country fell into great chaos, and the economy was in shambles.
During the 10-year Cultural Revolution, even if we believe the false data of great success, China's economic growth was negative for three years, and the rest of the years only maintained a very low growth level.
By the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, China's total GDP was $176.6 billion, while Japan's was $562 billion, a threefold gap between the two sides.
More importantly, due to the large economic arrears of the previous decades, the gap between the two sides continued to widen in the following years.
In 1981, at the beginning of the reform and opening up, China's total economic output was 277.7 billion, an increase of 100 billion compared with a few years ago, but Japan grew even faster, reaching 1,183.2 billion, four times that of China.
This is still the total, and if converted into a per capita figure, the difference is even more staggering, after all, Japan has only 100 million people, and China already has 1.3 billion.
Here is another question of population.
In fact, Japan is the most populous country in the world.
During World War II, Japan's population was more than 80 million, just less than China, the United States, and the Soviet Union.
The territory of China, the United States and the Soviet Union is very large, and the smallest United States has 9.3 million square kilometers, while Japan has only 370,000 square kilometers.
In the post-war 80s, Japan's population was 116 million, an increase of about 30 million, which is not a large number.
On the contrary, the Chinese population has skyrocketed.
During World War II, the Chinese population was about 450 million, compared to 540 million when New China was founded in 1949.
As a result of population policies to encourage childbearing, the total number of Chinese in 1980 was 987 million, almost double the previous number.
What is even more terrifying is that since the founding of the People's Republic of China, fertility has been greatly encouraged, resulting in an extremely high population growth rate. Even with family planning in the 80s, the population growth rate could not be reduced for a while. Compared with Japan's population of about 120 million, the Chinese population reached 1.3 billion in 2000.
Too many low-quality poor people are devastating for a developing country. In 2000, China's rural population reached 800 million, and the number of poor people by world standards was as high as 460 million.
As a result, for a long time after the reform and opening up, China was very poor and far behind the world level.
Due to the huge gap between China and the developed countries and regions, most of the Japanese who came to China in the 80s and 90s had a feeling of contempt, and the same was true for Hong Kong and Taiwan people who returned to their hometowns to visit relatives.
In the movie "Letter to Dad", Yu Rongguang has a classic line: A few hundred yuan a month, what kind of life do you play!
This is not Yu Rongguang's nonsense, in 1995, when the movie was filmed, the average monthly salary of Chinese people was only more than 300 yuan.
In the same year, the monthly salary of Hong Kong people was more than 6,000 yuan, a gap of 20 times. Although the cost of living in Hong Kong is higher, the income gap far outweighs these cost gaps.
The income of Hong Kong police officers is higher than that of ordinary citizens, and the monthly salary is generally more than 10,000 yuan. Even if the income is higher, the Hong Kong police generally do not work hard when they encounter gangsters, after all, it is just a job to support their families.
In Yu Rongguang's view, it is unbelievable that the mainland public security, whose income is only one-third or four-tenth of that of the Hong Kong police, is working so hard.
Sasha recently watched an old Taiwanese gangster film "Young Man, Anla", which was filmed in 1992 and was about around 1990.
In the movie, an obscene gangster old man in the countryside of Taiwan is definitely a scum in the eyes of Taiwanese city people.
However, this old Taiwanese gangster is another gangster played by Ke Shouliang, and he brags about the experience of prostituting in Xiamen.
The old man admired the young prostitute from Shandong for her good looks and figure, much better than the Taiwanese prostitute, but ridiculed her for coming from a poor place and not even using the water heater in the hotel!
Seeing this, Sasha felt very cold, but I'm afraid this is the truth. In 1990, how many households in mainland China installed household water heaters, let alone in the countryside.
Today, there are many remnants of the Cultural Revolution who are wantonly attacking reform and opening up. Sasha remembers that I had seen a record in North Korea that Kim Il Sung had attached great importance to the development of the military industry after the founding of the country.
Why is this so? Kim Il-sung read history and found that every time a foreign enemy invaded, the weapons and equipment of the Korean army were inferior to those of the enemy, resulting in the frequent fall of the country.
In addition to North Korea's emphasis on culture and light on military force, more importantly, North Korea's economy is not very good, and there is no money to upgrade its armaments, resulting in the nation being ravaged by war again and again.
Regrettably, even though Kim Il-sung and his son have worked so hard to develop armaments, because the DPRK's economy is still not good, the current weapons and equipment are all second- or third-rate in the world, and there is a big gap between them and the ROK. If the two countries do go to full-scale war, or if the United States suddenly invades North Korea, North Korea will also suffer a big loss in terms of weapons.
Let's look at the situation facing China. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, China's economy was backward, and there was a shortage of half of the most basic bullet production, not only was the number of rifles manufactured seriously insufficient, but even most of the military factories could not even manufacture bayonets in large quantities.
On the contrary, our enemy, Japan, has everything from aircraft carriers and large bombers to tanks, fighter jets, artillery, and heavy machine guns.
At that time, the soldiers of the Chinese army stationed in India fired with American-made Thomson submachine guns, and they fired slowly one shot at a time.
The American instructor was very curious: How could a submachine gun be fired in a single shot instead of directly strafing? After the Americans inquired, they learned that because the national army was seriously short of ammunition, not to mention submachine guns, even light machine guns still need to be fired in a single shot, otherwise there will be a serious shortage of ammunition.
So, is it true that the Chinese army can't defeat Japan?
Not really.
Taking the Indian garrison as an example, after being equipped with American-style second-rate weapons and sufficient ammunition, it was invincible in the battlefield in northern Burma, destroying 100,000 Japanese troops in one fell swoop.
If China in 1937 had been able to have the American-style equipment and large quantities of ammunition of 800,000 troops promised by the United States, we would have been able to deal with Japan on our own, at least without losing a lot of territory.
Unfortunately, due to the huge gap in weapons and equipment, more than 30 million Chinese were killed and wounded, and most of the country's land was destroyed. If it weren't for the two atomic bombs dropped by the United States on Japan, it is really unknown whether China would be able to recover territories such as Northeast China and Taiwan.
Today's Japan is tied by the neck by the United States and has become an economic power that does not possess the ability to invade.
Let me ask you, if the United States cannot control Japan and let Japan develop?
With Japan's current scientific and technological strength and national strength, it will be able to build nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers, intercontinental missiles, and a new generation of weapons for the navy, army, and air forces within a maximum of 10 years.
If China were still like Korea, a country with only a few backward army weapons, and Japan invaded China on a large scale again, wouldn't we still have to kill a lot of people?
Therefore, as far as the nation is concerned, it does not matter what doctrines, positions, and religions are, and development is the last word.
Let's take the example of the Air Force weapon, this thing can't be faked at all, it works as it works, and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the J-5, J-6, and J-7 were all copycats of the Soviet Union, and there was no self-research ability.
Well, since the 70s, self-reliance has been carried out on the J-8, trying to develop a new generation of fighters on the basis of the J-7 MiG-21, but in the early 90s, almost 20 years before and after, only some nondescript J-8 fighters of various models have been produced. The performance of the fighter is terrible, and not a single one has been sold internationally.
Let me ask, if we rely on this kind of fighter, how can we compete for air supremacy with imaginary enemies such as the United States and the Soviet Union?
You must know that the MiG-29 developed by the Soviet Union is the J-7, that is, the next generation of the MiG-21 fighter.
And in the 90s, the MiG-29 was still beaten by NATO's F16, not to mention the MiG-21.
And it wasn't until 1996 that the J-8II.M relied on the introduction of Russian technology to barely have combat capability, and it still couldn't handle the F16.
Just nine years later, in 2005, the United States entered direct service with the next-generation F22.
All of the above is the result of the objective technological gap, and it is by no means something that can be made up by rhetoric.
In a decisive battle with the United States, if it is difficult to gain air supremacy, look at the disastrous defeat of Iraq's million-strong army in the Gulf War, and you will know what the outcome of the war will be!
Deng Xiaoping and others insisted on reform and opening up, in essence, so that China could truly develop, at least have the ability to defend the people of its own nation, and in addition, let the people of their own country live a good life.
During the period of reform and opening up, various problems may have arisen, but the general direction is right, and we must not go backwards.
Far from it.
Let's talk about foreign exchange vouchers.
Until the late '70s, China was closed off from the rest of the world. Even if a foreigner comes to China, he cannot move casually, and usually must be accompanied by foreign affairs personnel to travel in some designated areas.
Therefore, foreigners have no opportunity to use money in Chinese mainland, and even if they use money, it is for national shops, restaurants, parks, etc., and there is no problem with the use of currency.
After the end of the Cultural Revolution, China opened its doors, and foreigners began to be able to move freely gradually. At this point, there is a question of the use of currency.
According to Chinese law, foreigners are not allowed to use foreign currency directly, and domestic shops and restaurants are not allowed to accept foreign currency.
From this perspective, the Chinese government issued the first type of foreign exchange voucher in 1979.
When foreigners or overseas Chinese come to China, they need to exchange all the foreign currency they carry into foreign currency coupons when they enter the country, and then exchange all of them from the foreign exchange coupons to the corresponding foreign currency when they leave the country.
Of course, foreigners can also directly take away China's foreign exchange coupons for use in their next visit to China.
In short, foreign exchange bills are a special kind of renminbi.
There are two versions of foreign exchange bills, issued in 1979 and 1988 respectively, with face values of 100 yuan, 50 yuan, 10 yuan, 5 yuan, 1 yuan, 5 jiao and 1 jiao, both issued by the Bank of China.
外汇券的文字也很有意思：外汇券正面为中国的风景名胜和中文“中国银行外汇兑换券”的字样及金额；背面为英文“BANK OF CHINA FOREIGN EXCHANGE CERTIFICATE”、中文“本券的元与人民币等值。 本券只限在中国境内指定范围使用，不得挂失”和英文 "The yuan expressed in this certificate is equivalent in valueto the Renminbi yuan. This certificate can only be used within China atdesignated place. No request to register its loss will be accepted theBank." 的字样及金额。
With all this, what exactly does Sasha want to say?
In the eighties and nineties, there was a very interesting profession that was to pour foreign exchange bills.
Sasha has a classmate who is an ethnic minority in Xinjiang, and when his father walked through Xujiahui on a business trip to Shanghai, he was surrounded by a group of scalpers who wanted to exchange foreign exchange coupons. Why? The scalper thinks that the father of his classmate is a foreigner.
In Wang Shuo's novel, it is also recorded that foreign exchange coupons are popular: I ran to the ground and stood on the street to stop a taxi, and there were many taxis coming and going, but none of them stopped. I walked two streets and saw a few taxis parked on the side of the road, so I stepped forward and asked, a few drivers were paying for the month, and the only one who was scattered one after another said that he wanted to collect foreign exchange coupons. I said I knew, I sat down, took out a wad of foreign exchange coupons from my pocket and showed him. The driver drove the car onto the road and explained to me on the way that he was not discriminating against the renminbi, but that he had to do so because he had not completed his foreign exchange task today.
Now some foreigners who have lived in Beijing for a long time have also run out of gas, and they take foreign exchange to the black market without paying foreign exchange coupons, and everyone is so anxious that they need foreign exchange to buy foreign goods, so they have to organize the Boxer Rebellion to smash the embassy. Mainlanders have to be aggrieved. In fact, he is quite angry, but he is not used to it. I sat in the back seat with a smirk on my face and nodded, my mind drowsy and I just wanted to fall asleep. I know I can't be confused at this time, I have to be clear-headed in the conversation for a while, and I have to be careful about this kind driver. I want to sleep here, he dares to drag me up to Badaling, and finally stole all my money, and even my coat has to be taken away.
The driver is still nagging, but in fact, people don't open the pot, and they don't earn money with ready-made foreign exchange, so many strong foreigners are familiar in China, and at the same time, there are some young women who have nothing to do and live a life without contribution, right? How can you do it if you don't break the old concepts that bind people's minds? You are very patriotic and very worried, and you are a good person who is whimsical; since you are a human being, you have no choice but to admit that you are unlucky, and I have no foreign exchange coupons and can only give you renminbi. When the car arrived at the door of the hotel I was going to, I removed the top sheet of the pile of foreign exchange coupons, revealing the renminbi underneath. If you don't do it, you don't let me go, wherever you pull me, you can do it with the "543" of your convoy public security bureau, anyway, I don't have foreign exchange coupons. The only one can't be given to you, because I still have to take a taxi to make up for it, and I have to find a lot of money to tear up the ticket, or I'll shout, you have to be too bad to be counted as a donkey's kindness and no good retribution - you can beat me.
Why are foreign exchange coupons so popular?
This is because foreign exchange coupons have special characteristics.
In order to reflect China's superiority and show foreigners that China has abundant materials, a policy has been introduced: some scarce and in-demand materials can be bought with foreign exchange coupons, and the price is relatively low.
Some shops, such as the Friendship Store, only accepted foreign currency vouchers and then sold in-demand goods, even luxury goods, which were rarely available on the market at the time.
By 1994, with the development of the economy and the further opening up of the country, the planned economy almost did not exist, and there was no need for foreign exchange coupons. Foreigners entering China only need to exchange RMB directly, and do not need to use foreign exchange coupons.
On 30 December 1993, the Bank of China announced that it would cease issuing foreign exchange bills with effect from 1 January 1994. On 1 January 1995, the foreign exchange notes ceased to circulate in the market and were recovered by the Bank of China, with the deadline for redemption being 30 June 1996. Effective 1 July 1996, the foreign exchange notes lost their value.
As a memory of the times, foreign exchange coupons used to be a hot thing, and it was also something that countless ordinary people yearn for.
Take a look at Mr. Yang You's recollections: In the 80s of the last century, when I joined the Bank of China, I didn't expect that the most contact was not RMB, but a kind of coupon called "foreign exchange coupon", and since then I have opened my fate with "foreign exchange coupon". As for "foreign exchange coupons", many young people born in the 80s and 90s may not even have heard of it. But in the eighties and nineties of the last century, it was a good thing that everyone wanted. If you have some foreign exchange vouchers in your hand, that's a face-saving thing.
As long as you have foreign exchange coupons, you can buy high-end goods that were regarded as luxury goods at that time -- imported wine, cigarettes, color televisions, Swiss watches, and so on, as well as some handicrafts and silk with Chinese characteristics that can only be bought in friendship shops, and these are all goods that are in short supply that cannot be bought by the renminbi.
In addition to foreign exchange coupons held by tourists and international friends who came to China, the salaries of the bosses of foreign companies who came to China to set up foreign companies and some Chinese employees who worked in foreign companies at that time were also paid in the form of foreign exchange coupons. Gradually, owning foreign currency vouchers is no longer the preserve of foreigners. Some residents of the country can also obtain some foreign exchange vouchers from their overseas relatives. As soon as anyone has a foreign exchange voucher, he immediately becomes the object of the eyes of colleagues, neighbors and friends, and can enter and exit the "friendship store" and "overseas Chinese store", because the foreign exchange voucher is a special pass to enter and exit these high-end shops.
Theoretically, foreign exchange coupons should be equivalent to the renminbi, due to the historical background at that time, China's market materials were scarce, and many items could not be bought at all in the official market, but they could be bought using the "special currency" of "foreign exchange coupons". Under the two-track exchange rate system at that time, there was a "black market" for the exchange of foreign exchange coupons, and there were traders who resold foreign exchange coupons and imported high-end goods. At that time, on the black market of foreign exchange transactions, the value of foreign exchange bonds was more than 30% higher than that of the same face value of the renminbi.
Mr. Wang from Xiaoshan, Zhejiang Province, has similar memories: Mr. Wang has a Taiwanese relative who returned to Xiao to visit in 1992. He accompanied his relatives to the Bank of China on Xinnan Road to exchange foreign currency. At that time, 1,000 US dollars could be exchanged for more than 8,000 yuan of foreign exchange coupons (equivalent to RMB). Mr. Wang exchanged the unused foreign exchange vouchers for the equivalent of RMB before his relatives returned to Taiwan.
At that time, there was a friendship shop on Xihe Road in Xiaoshan, a bit like a duty-free shop now, where customers could buy imported goods, such as televisions and refrigerators, with foreign exchange coupons or overseas Chinese remittance coupons, and the price was very cheap. Mr. Wang used more than 400 yuan of foreign exchange coupons to buy an original Hitachi color TV that is extremely rare to see on the market. The market price of this color TV is more than 1,800 yuan, which is almost equivalent to his annual salary income. Even so, this TV has made Mr. Wang's family proud for several years!"
Mr. Ma from Beijing also has very interesting recollections: In the 80s of the last century, when I was working at the Beijing Instrument Factory of the Ministry of Nuclear Industry, a colleague often went to Japan to visit relatives and had foreign exchange coupons in his hand, so his colleagues often begged him to use foreign exchange coupons to help him buy some sought-after goods. At that time, it was very fashionable and enviable to use foreign exchange coupons to buy goods. At that time, the Friendship Store outside the Jianguo Gate was a place dedicated to the use of foreign exchange coupons. The Friendship Store sells imported goods that have not yet appeared in the domestic market, such as Hershey chocolate, Rémy Martin wine, Marlboro cigarettes, and Swiss watches, as well as domestic luxury goods such as Moutai and silk, as well as scarce goods such as color TVs and refrigerators.
In the beginning, the Friendship Store was only visited by foreigners, and ordinary Chinese people could only stop and look curiously at the door. Later, some ordinary people also had foreign exchange coupons in hand, and the friendship store had shoppers of all colors and faces, fashionable girls with well-dressed curly hair, and men with briefcases and shiny leather shoes, who walked out of the friendship store with large bags and small bags. At that time, most of the clothes on the market were black, gray and blue, but the styles and colors of the clothes in the Friendship Store were dazzling, such as women's shirts with lace, men's suits with brown dark lines, and silk cheongsam embroidered with peony flowers. I remember being so excited every time I went to the Friendship Store with my colleagues, and I felt like it was a visual treat even if I didn't buy anything. In order to exchange for foreign exchange coupons, everyone tried all kinds of methods, some were brought by trustees from abroad, some went to school to exchange with international students, and some were poured from scalpers, with foreign exchange coupons in their wallets and faces on their faces.
At the end of the article, Sasha put a record of the views of American scholars traveling to China on foreign exchange bills: On September 11, 1980, the People's Daily published a letter from Richard Robertson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "I am a person who deeply admires the achievements of modern China, and I am writing this letter to you. I recently returned to the United States after a two-week visit to China. Everywhere I went, I was deeply impressed by the vitality of the Chinese people. I believe that by the year 2000, the four modernizations will be realized.
However, I must admit that I am deeply disturbed by the unequal treatment of preferential treatment of foreigners and discrimination against Chinese citizens. I am referring to foreign exchange vouchers issued to non-Chinese citizens. With this foreign exchange voucher, foreigners can stay in special hotels, dine in special restaurants, buy things in special shops - all these special places do not accept Chinese citizens. This system is reminiscent of the privileges granted to foreigners by the Qing government in the 19th century. In addition, special waiting rooms for foreigners, etc., also seem unnecessary. As a foreigner, I am disturbed by these special treatments, which can fuel and deepen feelings of superiority and inferiority. I strongly advocate that this be reconsidered".
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