ON A dark wintry night 30 years ago this month, 18 famished farmers in this remote village huddled together and sealed an act of defiance that would transform the Chinese countryside forever.
Pressing their red-inked thumbs onto a crumpled piece of paper, these farmers in central China's Anhui province agreed to do away with the collective farming that had suppressed grain production and left them hungry for years.
Fearing arrest, they scrawled this secret pact: 'Even if we go to jail or are beheaded, we do this willingly, and commune members will raise our children till they are 18 years old.'
Read Sim Chi Yin's full story in Saturday's edition of The Straits Times.
