When a Beijinger Owns 1,000 License Plate Numbers

Beijinger Wang Xiuxia should be in the Guinness World Records book for holding 1,000 license plate numbers, equivalent to 5 percent of new Beijing numbers issued monthly. She rented them out for profit. The case, exposed in late August, involves a number of legal and public policy questions worth analyzing.

Wang's rental business had two models of operation. Before a purchase limit was enacted by the Beijing city government in 2011, she rented identity cards to people from outside Beijing so they could register license plates. After the purchase limit came into effect – a limit that requires locals to enter a lottery system to get a plate – she rented out plates under her own name.