The Chinese government wants change.  They continuously create and upgrade economic laws and social policy.  But they are very concerned about changing at any pace but the one they have set for themselves.  So Chinese who push or shove the wrong way may end up in prison.

But individual Chinese are still picking their battles in the war of change.  Hao Jinsong, one of China Consumer Journal’s top ten consumer heroes of the year, pushed the railroad companies on an unfair exploitation of tax law and won.  Railroads have been refusing to give out receipts for service on their trains and, by doing so, they have effectively avoided paying income tax on goods and services offered onboard their trains.  You can imagine what a railroad company that carries about one billion passengers a year will lose in income tax from these services.

Why did Hao Jinsong take China’s railroad to court over receipts?  I haven’t interviewed him, but I think he’s just sticking it to the man.  It’s not fair that a big, state-owned company doesn’t have to pay taxes when the average Joe does.  Besides, he wanted his receipts.  Mr. Hao is fighting against the unfairness involved in the system without getting himself labeled as a reactionary.  He wants state-owned enterprises, or any big corporation, I imagine, to be accountable to the government and to the common people.  So he picks his fights carefully, hoping to create change in an indirect way.

This story makes me think of a mouse bringing a lion to its knees.  But Hao did not win this case easily.  To sue the railroad company, he had to go to a special railroad court controlled by, you guessed it, the railroad company.  His first two suits were swatted aside like flies, but Hao managed to get his suit tried in higher and higher courts until he got his receipts.  I mean, his justice.