Xie Gaohua

Xie Gaohua (; 17 December 1931 – 23 October 2019) was a Chinese politician. When serving as Party Secretary of Yiwu County in 1982, he pioneered free-market policies and established the Yiwu Market, which has since grown into the world's largest small commodities market. He later served as Executive Vice Mayor of Quzhou and was elected a delegate to the 8th National People's Congress. In 2018, the Chinese government awarded him the honorary title of "Reform Pioneer".

Early life and career Xie was born in November 1931 in Henglu Township , Quzhou, Zhejiang, Republic of China, and received a middle school-level education. After joining the Chinese Communist Party in May 1953, he served as a low-level official in Quzhou. During the Cultural Revolution, he was persecuted from 1966 to 1972. After being politically rehabilitated, he was appointed Party Secretary of Longyou Town in Longyou County and later Party Secretary of Qu County.

Establishing the Yiwu Market In April 1982, Xie was transferred to Yiwu to serve as its Party Secretary. Yiwu, then an impoverished rural county, was historically known for its small traders, who mostly bartered sugar for chicken feathers during the Qing dynasty. However, the Communist Party banned the practice as "capitalist activity" after taking power in 1949. Although the Chinese government initiated the reform and opening policy in 1978, private citizens were still in practice banned from selling goods for profit.

A month after Xie arrived in Yiwu, a street vendor named Feng Aiqian complained to him that her goods had been repeatedly confiscated by county authorities and questioned why she was not allowed to sell goods to support her poor family. After their conversation, Xie travelled to Wenzhou, the first Chinese city to allow private enterprises, to conduct research, and concluded that building a free market was compatible with national policies.

In September 1982, Xie announced the establishment of Huqingmen Market in Yiwu under the guideline of "four permissions": permissions for farmers to enter the city, to conduct business, to engage in long-haul trading, and to compete with both state enterprises and private individuals. For the first time, a local government in the People's Republic of China legalized a free market for farmers and vendors.

In October 1984, Xie proposed a new development strategy for Yiwu, with market trading as its pillar industry. The number of market booths exceeded 10,000 in 1991. In 2005, the United Nations, the World Bank and Morgan Stanley jointly published a report calling it the world's largest small commodities market. By 2013, the market attracted more than 20,000 customers daily from all over the world and sold US$11 billion of goods annually.