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If Hangzhou citizens want to obtain incremental quotas for passenger cars through lottery, one way is to rely on luck, and the other is to rely on patience.

If you have participated in the Hangzhou passenger car incremental quota lottery for a total of 72 times, you can directly apply for a "long-lost" quota. Hangzhou draws once a month, which means that the waiting time may be as long as six years.

A Hangzhou resident told China Newsweek that as of July this year, he had drawn the lottery for 47 times in a row. He did not want to spend an extra 10,000 yuan to bid for the license plate, and had originally thought desperately that he would have to wait another two years to get the "long-lost" quota. However, Hangzhou City plans to introduce new regulatory policies recently, and he is expected to be able to apply for a fuel vehicle license plate in the next few months.

On July 24, the Hangzhou Municipal Transportation Bureau and the Municipal Public Security Bureau jointly issued an announcement soliciting public opinions on the "Several Measures to Optimize the City's Passenger Car Control Policy (Draft for Comments)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Draft for Comments"). The announcement mentioned the new policy to relax multiple indicators, among which the application requirements for "long-term unsuccessful lottery" indicators were reduced from 72 times to 48 times, which attracted the attention of many Hangzhou residents.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of Hangzhou's implementation of measures to control the total number of passenger cars. In March 2014, in order to reduce traffic congestion and protect the environment, Hangzhou officially implemented a "license plate restriction order", joining Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Tianjin and Guiyang to become the sixth city in China to restrict the registration of motor vehicles. Hangzhou citizens can only obtain license plates through lottery or bidding. In addition, Hangzhou has also implemented peak-time restrictions for 13 years.

In recent years, Hangzhou has been exploring the possibility of cancelling the "double limits". When will the shoe really fall? Is Hangzhou's transportation ready?

“We expected the policy to move in this direction.”

Liu Zheng, an automobile practitioner in Hangzhou, noticed that people are no longer as anxious as they used to be about whether they can obtain a Zhejiang A license plate.

On July 31, one week after the "Draft for Comments" was released, Liu Zheng, key account manager of Hangzhou Yuantongzhibao Automobile Sales and Service Co., Ltd., found that in the past few days, Hangzhou people who came to the store to look at cars were not excited about talking about this matter, and "there was generally no response."

Wu Weiqiang, a member of the Hangzhou Advisory Committee and director of the Urban Development Research Center of Zhejiang University of Technology, has been tracking and studying Hangzhou's urban transportation for more than 20 years. He told China News Weekly that about two months ago, the Hangzhou Transportation Bureau had sought opinions from relevant experts on this reform, and he was among them. "I said three things to them at the time: I had expected the policy to go in this direction; secondly, I asked why the license plate restrictions were not directly cancelled? Finally, I asked if there could be a clear cancellation time. If it cannot be determined, the sooner the better."

The "Draft for Comments" further relaxes the restrictions on lottery and bidding for private cars in Hangzhou, with five major adjustments: canceling the qualification conditions and quantity restrictions for individuals and units to apply for regional indicators; canceling the qualification restrictions for personal vehicle renewal; adding other indicators for "direct blood relatives"; relaxing the application conditions for indicators that have been "unsuccessful in the lottery for a long time"; and canceling the reserve price of 10,000 yuan for the bidding for the city's incremental private car indicators.

Although relaxing the conditions for "long-term failure to win" is the most popular topic among ordinary citizens, Wu Weiqiang believes that the most noteworthy thing is to cancel the 10,000 yuan auction reserve price. Since 2014, Hangzhou has provided 80,000 additional license plates each year, which are allocated on a monthly basis. 80% of the indicators are determined by lottery, and 20% are allocated by bidding. The starting price of the auction is 10,000 yuan, and there is no price cap.

The auction price has always been a barometer of the supply and demand of motor vehicle license plates in Hangzhou. In November 2017, the lowest individual transaction price rose for 11 consecutive times, breaking through 50,000 yuan for the first time.

Liu Zheng remembers that in 2021, Hangzhou's auto sales reached a peak. His store was only medium-sized, with monthly sales of about 150 units at the time. More than a dozen people participated in the bidding to get the license plate, all of whom were just in need. Public data from the Hangzhou Municipal Transportation Bureau showed that the individual auction price for a Zhejiang A license plate reached 56,000 yuan in March of that year.

In recent years, the Hangzhou Municipal Transportation Bureau has relaxed the license plate restrictions several times. In January 2021, Hangzhou launched the "Zhejiang A regional license plate", which is different from the ordinary Zhejiang A license plate in that it has a wider range of restrictions during peak hours in the morning and evening. Citizens do not need to draw lots or bid, and can apply directly if they meet the application conditions, and it does not hinder the application of regular indicators.

Many experts interviewed pointed out that the establishment of regional license plates is a signal that Hangzhou has begun to design a policy to cancel the license plate restriction. This is also to solve a major "side effect" brought about by Hangzhou's "license plate restriction order" - many citizens who were unable to get a license plate in the lottery before had to hang up a license plate from other places.

Liu Zheng has been engaged in car sales for nearly 20 years and is deeply impressed by this process of "buying a car in a roundabout way". At the beginning of the license plate restriction, everyone was confused, but the market quickly found a coping strategy: people without license plate indicators bought cars in Hangzhou and returned to their registered residence with non-Zhejiang A license plates. Many people also applied for Shanghai C license plates - this is a license plate for the suburbs of Shanghai, which does not require lottery or bidding, and can be applied for with a Shanghai temporary residence permit. Around 2016, Shanghai C license plates were very "popular" on the streets of Hangzhou. During the 2017 Zhejiang Provincial "Two Sessions", a proposal by a CPPCC member wrote that it was conservatively estimated that at least 60,000 Shanghai C vehicles were driving in the urban area of ​​Hangzhou.

How serious is the rampant traffic of out-of-town vehicles? In January 2021, the drafting instructions of the "Notice on Adjusting the Traffic Management Measures for Peak-Time Travel in the Area during Weekday Peak Hours (Draft for Comments)" issued by the Traffic Police Detachment of the Hangzhou Public Security Bureau mentioned that on weekdays, the average daily traffic volume of non-Zhejiang A motor vehicles in the main urban area of ​​Hangzhou has reached 861,000 vehicles, accounting for about 40% of the total traffic volume.

In response, Hangzhou began to introduce regional license plates and increase restrictions on non-Zhejiang A license plates to guide citizens to choose local license plates. In addition, in March 2023, the Hangzhou Municipal Transportation Bureau and six other departments issued policies again, adding four other indicators for passenger cars: "long-term failure to win", "talent special", "multi-child families" and "key enterprises", and the policy was further relaxed.

A citizen who settled in Hangzhou in 2016 told China Newsweek that he had participated in the license plate lottery for six or seven years. After the new policy was introduced, "I was directly 'given' a Zhejiang A license plate."

Nowadays, only a few of Liu Zheng's clients participate in the bidding. "In a month, two or three out of about 100 clients are good." On July 25, the bidding for the incremental quota of small passenger cars in Hangzhou in the past month came to an end. It lasted from 9 am to 3 pm, with 262 participants, and the lowest transaction price was the reserve price of 10,000 yuan. A document released by the Hangzhou Transportation Management Bureau also mentioned that the winning rate of the Hangzhou lottery has risen from the lowest 0.55% to the current 0.96%. The number of participants in the bidding for individual quotas for small passenger cars in Hangzhou every month is less than the quota release volume.

Many interviewees pointed out that Hangzhou residents have gradually become "desensitized" to the license plate restriction policy, and they benefit from being able to freely purchase new energy vehicles. Hangzhou's "license plate restriction order" does not include new energy vehicles. In addition, Zhejiang A new energy buses are not subject to the "peak traffic restrictions" in the urban area and the "odd-even number" traffic restrictions in the West Lake scenic area - this means that Zhejiang A new energy buses are not subject to license plate restrictions or traffic restrictions. A few years later, the sales of new energy vehicles have exploded. Now walking on the streets of Hangzhou, you can see new energy vehicles with "green plates" everywhere.

At the end of 2023, the Hangzhou Municipal Government Information Office released information that the number of new energy vehicles in Hangzhou has reached 728,000, accounting for about 18% of the city's total motor vehicle ownership. Especially in the past two years, Hangzhou has added more than 200,000 electric vehicles each year, accounting for more than 60% of the annual total.

"New energy vehicles have developed rapidly in recent years, and a new problem has arisen. Simply restricting license plates and driving is no longer effective in alleviating traffic pressure," said Tang Hairu, member of the Hangzhou Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government Advisory Committee and former chief engineer of the Hangzhou Planning and Design Institute, to China Newsweek.

Wu Weiqiang said frankly that the license plate restriction policy has failed to completely control the growth of vehicles, whether it is fuel vehicles or new energy vehicles. At the end of February 2014, the number of motor vehicles in Hangzhou reached 2.598 million, and by the end of 2023, this number will rise to 4.42 million.

Relaxation of traffic restrictions

At around 5pm on Monday, July 29, the evening rush hour in Hangzhou had just begun, and the Hangzhou Traffic Congestion Index Real-time Monitoring Platform showed a congestion index of 2.0, which means that traffic is basically unobstructed, but the ramps of the West Lake Scenic Area and some expressways have begun to turn red. During the morning rush hour that day, the number soared to more than 8.

Before the license plate restriction, Hangzhou had been implementing the "off-peak travel restriction" policy in the main urban area since 2011. In recent years, the "off-peak travel restriction" has been gradually relaxed. At present, all Zhejiang A license plates and small passenger cars from other places can freely travel on all ground roads in the original "off-peak travel" area during the morning and evening peak hours on weekdays. The restricted areas are only on multiple expressways.

The current "relaxation" of traffic restriction policy began with a stress test in Hangzhou at the end of 2022. In order to welcome the Asian Games, starting from December 21, 2022, all ground roads in Hangzhou will suspend the "peak travel" measures, while the "peak travel" on expressways will remain unchanged for about one and a half months. Hangzhou taxi driver Xu Song remembers clearly that on January 28, 2022, when work resumed after the Spring Festival, the main urban area was congested on weekdays, and it happened to be rainy, so the congestion was worse than before.

A police officer from the Traffic Police Detachment of the Hangzhou Public Security Bureau mentioned to China Newsweek that one of the backgrounds of this stress test is that because there are more and more new energy vehicles that are not restricted by the traffic restriction policy, Hangzhou needs to explore new management methods.

In fact, as early as January 2021, the drafting instructions for adjusting the "peak travel" traffic management measures bluntly stated that "Hangzhou's 'double limits' dividends have been overdrawn." Relevant departments predict that by the end of 2021, the number of unrestricted vehicles in Hangzhou's main urban area on weekdays will even exceed the total number of vehicles during the "double limits" in 2014, because new energy vehicles account for 8.8%, which is close to the number of vehicles restricted by a license plate number.

Wu Weiqiang provided the media with a record made by a student at the time: the same person recorded, the starting point was fixed, the commuting distance was 14.5 kilometers, from January 30 to February 3, the morning rush hour commuting time was 31-37 minutes; from February 7 to February 13, the commuting time increased to 43-52 minutes.

Many experts interviewed remember that the stress test was not ideal in terms of congestion data. But Wu Weiqiang said that the traffic chaos caused by the lifting of restrictions is in line with the law of traffic, but after three to five months, urban traffic will adjust and adapt, and congestion will be alleviated. In his opinion, the stress test is a good opportunity to test the response and management capabilities of Hangzhou's transportation department and the tolerance of citizens. "I also suggested to the city traffic police at the time that the policy must be continued. If it is retreated, the relaxation of restrictions in the future will cause more opposition."

In Tang Hairu's opinion, the overall stress test did not reach a level that was unbearable for citizens, which strengthened the confidence of relevant departments in relaxing the traffic restriction policy. Therefore, the policy of suspending ground traffic restrictions has continued to this day.

"From Hangzhou's many years of experience, the 'double limit' is only a temporary solution, but it has bought time for Hangzhou to improve public transportation," said Wu Weiqiang. In 2018, Hangzhou formulated the "Four-Year Action Plan for Promoting Comprehensive Transportation Projects in Hangzhou", proposing the "5433" project with a total investment of more than 500 billion yuan. It plans to build 552 kilometers of expressways and highways, 400 kilometers of rail transit, 350 kilometers of railway lines, and three major hub projects for water, land and air. By the end of 2022, Hangzhou will have 13 subway lines in operation with a total length of 516 kilometers. The expressways will also increase from 182 kilometers in 2017 to more than 500 kilometers. The "four vertical and five horizontal" expressways will shorten the time and space distance between the main city, secondary cities and clusters.

Over the past 20 years, Xiaoshan, Yuhang, Fuyang and Lin'an have been relocated from cities to districts. The urban area of ​​Hangzhou has expanded from 683 square kilometers in 2000 to 8,289 square kilometers, and the city has developed in a flat and dispersed manner. Public research shows that the commuting radius of Hangzhou is 33 kilometers.

This has resulted in Hangzhou's traffic being highly dependent on expressways. Data obtained by China Newsweek shows that expressways, which account for only 10% of the total mileage, carry 67% of the conversion traffic flow.

However, structural congestion still exists in Hangzhou. The roads in the West Lake scenic area are narrow, and odd-even license plate restrictions are still implemented on weekends and holidays, and taxis and online ride-hailing vehicles are prohibited from entering. In addition, expressways such as Zhonghe Elevated Road, Shangtang Elevated Road, Qiushi Elevated Road, and Desheng Expressway, especially the on- and off-ramps, have become the most congested areas in Hangzhou.

"Traffic jams only occur during certain periods or on certain core roads." Xu Song told China News Weekly that after people gradually adapted, ground transportation was not as congested as imagined. For example, during rush hour in the morning and evening, when driving on the expressway ramp, sometimes the distance of more than 100 meters will be blocked for more than ten minutes, but after driving on the expressway and merging into the traffic flow, people are no longer anxious.

Tang Hairu said frankly that at the end of 2013, Hangzhou had a permanent population of 8.844 million. At that time, Hangzhou had only one subway line, and the traditional bus system could no longer meet people's travel needs in terms of speed. The "double limit" was a last resort. "With the improvement of the subway network, Hangzhou's road network system now has a certain carrying capacity."

Fundamental changes

Wu Weiqiang believes that Hangzhou has been dealing with urban traffic problems since the establishment of the "Two Dilemmas Office" (Office for Alleviating "Difficult Parking and Driving") in 2002. Over the past 20 years, Hangzhou's traffic congestion has fluctuated, but the current traffic situation has improved significantly. "The most critical change is the fundamental change in the concept of traffic management."

He pointed out in a 2013 paper that Hangzhou's traffic congestion is largely due to inadequate management. For example, some urban areas have too many traffic lights, with an average of 5.56 sets of traffic lights per kilometer, in addition to a large number of auxiliary signals. In addition, at intersections on busy roads, the number of opposite lanes is asymmetric, and "more to less" and "fewer to more" are very common, causing vehicles to slow down, stop, congestion, or cause illegal lane changes and accidents.

For Hangzhou's traffic management department, improving road operation efficiency is a must-solve issue. By the end of 2023, Hangzhou will have 4.42 million motor vehicles. According to data from the Ministry of Public Security's Road Research Center, the traffic carrying capacity of Hangzhou's main urban area is about 480,000 vehicles on the road, and the current peak has reached 495,000 vehicles. The contradiction between road resource supply and demand is becoming more and more prominent.

"Today, Hangzhou's traffic congestion control no longer relies solely on traffic restrictions and license plate restrictions, but instead focuses on improving efficiency. Overall, it has jumped out of the long-term quagmire of simply coping with traffic congestion control." Wu Weiqiang told China Newsweek that due to historical issues, Hangzhou's road planning has limitations, and currently Hangzhou traffic police can only adopt more refined management in terminal management.

Xu Song noticed a detail: five or six years ago, when he drove on certain roads, he was lucky enough to catch the green light on a road. In the past two years, this scene has become more common in urban areas. But this "good luck" is actually a green wave band accurately calculated by big data.

He Tianmeng, a police officer from the Road Order Division of the Traffic Police Detachment of the Hangzhou Public Security Bureau, told China News Weekly that Hangzhou tried green wave belts very early. Early green wave belts mostly ensured green lights in a single direction. He Tianmeng gave an example, saying that if there are 8 intersections on a road, if the speed of cars from west to east during the morning rush hour is controlled at 40 kilometers per hour, they can have a smooth journey. However, the traffic police soon discovered that due to individual differences in driving, the green wave effect at the last few intersections was not ideal. Moreover, due to the time difference, vehicles on the opposite side had to frequently encounter red lights, "these people must have a very bad driving experience."

However, to realize the two-way green wave, it is necessary to conduct precise system monitoring of traffic flow in all directions at the intersection, which is a great challenge. Hangzhou has launched the "City Brain" project since 2017 to conduct real-time monitoring and early warning of urban traffic. The system is updated every two minutes and can analyze the congestion situation and traffic speed of each intersection in real time.

With the help of the "City Brain", the Hangzhou Public Security Traffic Police Department has adopted a short green wave network strategy, taking 3 to 5 intersections as a unit, optimizing the timing of green lights according to the traffic volume at each intersection, reducing the number of vehicle stops, and enhancing the continuity of two-way traffic flow. According to statistics, 310 green wave networks have been established in the main urban area of ​​Hangzhou, covering 450 kilometers of main and secondary roads, and the average speed during peak hours has reached more than 36.5 kilometers per hour.

"Hangzhou's road network has basically taken shape, and improving traffic efficiency at intersections is crucial for traffic police. Even wasting 10 seconds can have a great impact on traffic flow," said He Tianmeng.

For example, the traffic light cycle at an intersection is 160 seconds, but in reality, the north-south traffic may only take 30 seconds to pass. If it is allocated 50 seconds, there will be a waste of 20 seconds. This is all thanks to Hangzhou's big data foundation. "Because of the support of data, we can be more sensitive to traffic and intervene in advance." He Tianmeng said.

The "City Brain" can help traffic police analyze traffic data on the same road during the same period of the past three months, predict congestion data, and avoid traffic congestion in advance. The "City Brain" is also widely used in the optimization and adjustment of traffic lights. In addition, nearly 1,600 lanes of the 430 intersections in Hangzhou have been transformed into variable lanes to meet traffic needs at different time periods.

Data shows that as of the end of 2023, with a significant increase in traffic flow and basically unchanged road supply, the peak average speeds of trunk roads and expressways increased by 3.1% and 4.3% year-on-year respectively, and the traffic congestion delay index ranked 45th among the 50 large and medium-sized cities in the country.

Many experts also mentioned that the "city brain" is currently also used in many aspects of traffic management, such as parking space scheduling, and its data mining capabilities need to be further improved to achieve more efficient traffic management in the future.

Will traffic be more congested in the future?

As the time gradually matures, Hangzhou's plan to cancel the "double limits" has been put on the agenda.

In February 2022, Hangzhou Municipal Party Committee Secretary Liu Jie mentioned at the 13th Hangzhou Party Congress that the city would take the lead in exploring the cancellation of "peak traffic restrictions" and optimizing alternative policy measures. In January 2023, the Third Plenary Session of the 13th Hangzhou Municipal Party Committee also clearly proposed to "explore the cancellation of restrictions on the purchase of passenger cars and restrictions on ground roads."

But before the cancellation, the local government must think clearly about the following difficult problem: Will there be an explosive growth in the number of motor vehicles in Hangzhou after the cancellation of the "double limit" in the future? Will the traffic be more congested?

A Hangzhou auto industry practitioner with 20 years of experience estimated to China Newsweek that if the license plate restriction is lifted, the sales of low-end and mid-range fuel-efficient vehicles will increase to a certain extent. For customers with limited budgets and daily commuting needs, such vehicles are very attractive. The adjustment of the purchase restriction policy has little impact on the sales of new energy vehicles, whose sales are mainly driven by incentives such as "trade-in".

Wu Weiqiang also believes that the number of motor vehicles in Hangzhou will not grow rapidly due to the cancellation of license plate restrictions, "because the growth is already happening, and it is only the cancellation of license plate restrictions for fuel vehicles, so the increase will not be large."

There is a famous "Dangs' Law" in the field of traffic planning, which states that newly built roads will temporarily ease traffic congestion, but at the same time will stimulate new traffic demand and create new congestion. When choosing a mode of transportation, travelers will consider costs such as time and money. To truly solve the problem of road congestion, managers need to reasonably guide traffic demand.

Tang Hairu stressed that congestion on commuter roads during peak hours is a normal phenomenon, which reflects the vitality of the city. The goal of traffic management is not to simply eliminate congestion - this is impossible to achieve, but to return the right to choose travel to citizens. If people can accept congestion, they can choose to continue driving; if not, they can choose other travel methods.

Many experts mentioned that an internationally recognized important indicator for alleviating commuter congestion is to increase the share of public transportation. Data obtained by China News Weekly shows that at present, the share of motorized travel by public transportation in Hangzhou is only 47.6%, lower than that of megacities at home and abroad such as Tokyo, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Even if public transportation such as subways are constantly improving, it is not easy to replace private cars. Let's compare another set of data: In 2018, the total mileage of Hangzhou's three rail transit lines was more than 100 kilometers. Combined with travel modes such as buses, the average daily passenger volume of public transportation in the main urban area was 4.809 million. By 2022, the operating mileage of Hangzhou's rail transit will exceed 500 kilometers. After adding bus travel, the total number will be 3.95 million per day, which is lower than four years ago. Tang Hairu pointed out that the current new subway passengers are mostly converted from past bus passengers, rather than people who originally drove.

In 2022, Tang Hairu participated in a traffic management research project commissioned by the Hangzhou Municipal Transportation Bureau. The important theme of the project was: If Hangzhou cancels the "double restrictions", can urban transportation cope with the possible increased pressure? What other aspects can be optimized for government departments to refer to for decision-making? "At that time, we concluded that the time was ripe for the opening of the 'double restrictions', but we still needed to further enhance the attractiveness of public transportation," Tang Hairu told China Newsweek.

Tang Hairu and a team from Zhejiang University found that although many subway stations have been put into use and have large design capacity, some passages and entrances and exits have not yet been opened, limiting the traffic capacity of the stations. Some stations also have unadjusted basic farmland around them and cannot be used directly. "We have done an analysis and are working to maximize the effectiveness of rail transit by strengthening the coordination of land use and transportation planning."

Wu Weiqiang also noted that there are problems in the planning and design of the Hangzhou Metro, mainly reflected in the mismatch between the network layout and the distribution of population and resources, and the unreasonable setting of stations, resulting in poor connection with the end of residents' travel. He gave an example to China News Weekly, Zhejiang University of Technology Zhaohui Campus is located in Gongshu District in the city center, with more than 40,000 teachers and students. Although there are three subway lines around, it takes 30 minutes for teachers and students to walk to the nearest station. He believes that in order to improve the service capacity and attractiveness of the subway, relevant departments must comprehensively examine the defects in the layout of the subway network and stations, and must be close to densely populated areas.

How can rail transit effectively replace private car travel? Tang Hairu believes that the opening of Metro Line 19 in 2022 is a landmark event. Line 19 is the first rail express line in Hangzhou, connecting large transportation hubs such as Hangzhou East Station, West Station, and the airport, as well as places where young people gather such as Hangzhou Future Science and Technology City and Haichuang Park, with a speed of 120 kilometers per hour. The intuitive feeling of passengers is: fewer stations and fast long-distance commuting. Before this, it took more than an hour to get from the airport to Wulin Square in downtown Hangzhou by subway. Now it only takes 30 minutes to take Line 19. Tang Hairu noticed that after the opening of Line 19, some citizens who originally drove chose to travel by subway instead, which was a good exploration.

Today, as Hangzhou expands and gradually moves towards a spatial structure of a 50-kilometer radius metropolitan area, the existing road network system is unable to support commuter traffic within a 50-kilometer radius metropolitan area and a 33-kilometer commuter radius. Wu Weiqiang suggested that since the subway runs too slowly, Hangzhou can refer to world-class cities such as Tokyo and plan to run commuter rails with a speed of 150-180 kilometers per hour as soon as possible to support one-hour commuter traffic within a 15-50-kilometer radius.

In Wu Weiqiang's view, the many traffic problems currently facing Hangzhou are mainly due to inadequate planning and design. Refined traffic management should not be limited to terminal control by traffic police, but should also cover areas such as traffic planning and design. "We should have a deep understanding of the long-term trends of urban development and plan ahead on this basis to ensure the sustainability of the transportation system and meet future needs."

At present, in his opinion, as far as Hangzhou is concerned, the cancellation of the "double limits" is an inevitable trend, because Hangzhou's traffic management capabilities are able to accommodate the increase. "Now there are more than 4 million motor vehicles in Hangzhou, but the traffic situation is much better than in 2013. Especially considering that our traffic management level is still in its early stages, there is great potential to adopt more scientific methods in the future."

(Xu Song is a pseudonym in this article)