The "grasping the large and letting the small go" policy (Chinese: 抓大放小; pinyin: Zhuā dà fàng xiǎo) was part of a wave of industrial reforms implemented by the central government of the People's Republic of China in 1996. These reforms included efforts to corporatize state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and to downsize the state sector.
The slogan and strategy were popularized by President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji in 1997.[1]: 215 The "grasping the large and letting the small go" policy was adopted in September 1997 at the 15th Communist Party Congress. The "grasping the large" component indicated that policy-makers should focus on maintaining state control over the largest state-owned enterprises (which tended to be controlled by the central government).[1]: 215–216
"Letting the small go" meant that the central government should relinquish control over smaller and unprofitable SOEs.[2] Relinquishing control over these enterprises took a variety of forms: giving local governments authority to restructure the firms, privatizing them, or shutting them down.[3]
