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When the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949, it clearly identified pawnbroking as mere usury. This continued to be the official line until the late 1980s, when private, semi-private, and even state-owned pawnshop-like businesses began to spring up all over China. It then took about ten years of discussions, struggles, and bargaining to produce regulations that might be implemented by the various actors. Thus the emergence of pawnshops in some ways shows the rising power of civil society in China today.