20240918 Xi and Woks

In Xi Jinping's China, local government officials are using a metaphor about selling woks as scrap metal as they struggle to pay down their mountains of debt. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Getty Images and Yusuke Hinata)

Analysis: 'Smash iron woks' -- a Great Leap Forward idiom returns to China

A buzz phrase telling people to sacrifice everything reflects nation's current plight

Katsuji Nakazawa is a Tokyo-based senior staff and editorial writer at Nikkei. He spent seven years in China as a correspondent and later as China bureau chief. He was the 2014 recipient of the Vaughn-Ueda International Journalist prize.

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