Your Semi-Annual Golden Week Reminder

It’s that time of year. September, the leaves start to turn and the air grows crisp. Autumn smells arrive; the Chinese prepare for their nationalist Golden Week. Ever since 2014 and the dollar’s rise, that is, eurodollar tightening especially in Asia, these holiday bottlenecks are never boring. To be shut down for an entire week in early October, the banking system in China builds up a liquidity stockpile in September.

There were actually three Golden Weeks up until 2007. The middle one, surrounding Communists’ infatuation with May Day, was quietly dismissed on the recommendation of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). These long holiday breaks were being viewed as disruptive to economic flow.

In September 1999, the State Council devised the original Golden Week holiday system as a way to standardize vacation time (Communists’ infatuation with sameness, which is very different from equality). It was also intended to boost tourism and economic activity. Economists are the same whether Communist or Western; they all think they can increase spending by changing the most arbitrary factors.

The biggest factor in the December 2007 elimination of the third week was an obvious interruption. Cai Jiming, the project leader for the CPPCC in 2007, told government officials that (translated):

There are data showing that since the implementation of the Golden Week Vacation system, the pulling effect on consumption has not been great, but it has brought a series of negative effects, such as increasing short-term costs for businesses, declining service quality, and increasing government public management costs.

China’s National Tourism Administration agreed, so on December 16, 2007, the Chinese Central Government announced a revised Regulation on Public Holidays for National Annual Festivals and Memorial Days. There would now be just the pair in China, two economic disturbances better than three.