This phenomenon is not merely a return to old habits or rural mysticism. It has become a nationwide consumer frenzy, driven by the very demographic the Communist Party hoped would be its most rational constituency: the young and educated. In chasing these modern symbols of hope, they are losing more than just money.

[…] In today’s China, the most popular “spiritual” items aren’t books or teachings but small objects—especially crystals. These are sold not only as fashion items but as tools for cosmic power. Supposedly, they bring wealth, block bad energy, and balance inner forces. Livestreams offer quick lessons in “crystal basics,” and influencers promote them with the excitement once shown for new tech.

[…] Along with the crystal craze, astrology, tarot, and fortune-telling have become small but growing businesses. Highly educated youth—graduates, civil servants, tech workers—are quitting their jobs to become full-time “mystics.” On platforms like Taobao and WeChat, paid readings are everywhere. In many cities, you’ll find stylish little shops doing tarot readings, often run by baristas turned fortune-tellers.

This is happening despite—or maybe because of—government crackdowns. In 2021, China banned religious content on e-commerce sites and tightened rules on spiritual services. But the demand only adapted. Tarot readers now call themselves “emotional consultants.” Horoscope sellers move to foreign platforms like Discord. The state fights superstition with censorship, and loses every time.

[…] It would be wrong to see this wave of superstition as a uniquely Chinese flaw. But since 2024, China’s superstition boom has become a pressure cooker where many deep problems have gathered: economic slowdown, job stress, burnout, pushy online systems, and a desperate need for meaning.

Young Chinese are not naturally more superstitious. But they are trapped in an unstable system, and with no clear future, they are buying ready-made ones. These crystals and tarot cards aren’t ancient traditions—they’re quick-fix stories built from what’s left in the marketplace. Meanwhile, sellers and platforms continue testing how much people are willing to pay to ease their fears. [Source]

The Economist in January similarly described trends such as app-based horoscopes and fortune-telling and offline “metaphysical bars,” fueled by frustration at “a sluggish economy, a tight job market and intense competition in many aspects of life.” (Another Economist report the week before noted similar phenomena in the U.S. and India.)

The Communist Party has long tried to rid itself of what it calls “feudal superstition”. Last year the Central Party School, a training academy for officials, expressed concern about the number of members and cadres “believing in ghosts and gods”. It tried to clarify the party’s restrictions by publishing a Q&A on the matter. Occasionally participating in local folk customs or consulting a fortune-teller on a name for your baby? That’s fine. Spending a lot of time and money, especially public funds, on superstitious activities? Unacceptable.

The masses are also discouraged from embracing such practices. A notice issued by the city of Sanming in 2023 stated: “The public should improve their scientific literacy, enhance their psychological immunity to superstitious activities and not seek spiritual comfort through ‘fortune-telling’ when encountering real setbacks.” Other cities have followed suit. Last year some local governments cracked down on the burning of fake money and other paper offerings to the dead during the annual grave-sweeping festival.

State censors, with the help of internet firms, have tried to curb the spread of superstitious beliefs and divination services online. Search terms such as “astrology” and “fortune-telling” have been blocked on Taobao, an e-commerce market. But on Weibo, a social-media site, popular astrologers have accumulated tens of millions of followers. Some speak of playing a cat-and-mouse game with the authorities. A 24-year-old tarot-card reader in Shanghai jokes that she tries to divine her own fate—to see if jail time is in the offing. [Source]

There is also online hay to be made from confronting superstition. In April, South China Morning Post’s Zoey Zhang reported on Shandong-based influencer Zhang Shulin, who has built a following with video stunts debunking beliefs such as hauntings, shamanism, and ghost marriages. This, too, can be a hazardous approach if targets include traditional practices favored with official endorsement, however. Mixed martial artist Xu Xiaodong was hit with censorship, travel restrictions, financial penalties, and forced apologies following his efforts to puncture the inflated claims of purported kung fu masters, some of whom he flattened in bouts lasting only seconds. In 2022, a number of prominent online voices were silenced in apparent retaliation for their criticism of Lianhua Qingwen, a traditional Chinese medicine-based herbal product promoted by Chinese authorities for treatment of COVID.

A pair of translations at CDT last month described how other frustrated young Chinese are turning to another old ritual: the annual civil service exams.

The controversy entered the public eye in late April, courtesy of a leaked letter from the estranged wife of Dr. Xiao Fei, a thoracic surgeon at Beijing’s prestigious China-Japan Friendship Hospital, to the hospital disciplinary committee. The letter contained details of the doctor’s alleged affairs with several colleagues (including one Dong Xiying, a young resident at the hospital), and an allegation that Dr. Xiao left a patient anesthetized on the operating table for 40 minutes while he left the operating theatre to comfort Ms. Dong. After a brief investigation, Dr. Xiao was sacked by the hospital and expelled from the Chinese Communist Party.

But that was simply the first act in what would become a much larger controversy. Internet sleuths who dug into Ms. Dong’s background discovered that she was a “returnee” who had earned an economics degree at Barnard College in the U.S., was from a fairly influential family background, and had enjoyed an academic and career trajectory that may have been helped along by nepotism and string-pulling. Perhaps most controversial was Dong’s rapid rise via the “4+4” accelerated-degree pilot program at Peking Union Medical College (PUMC), which allows a small number of “elite” university graduates—even those with undergraduate degrees unrelated to medicine or biology—to attain a medical degree in only four years, a much shorter timeline than is typical for medical students in China. Netizens also raised questions about Ms. Dong’s publication history, including a graduate thesis that was suspiciously short, and author credits on research papers for projects she didn’t seem to have played much of a role in. (For more background on the multifaceted scandal, we recommend What’s On Weibo’s excellent account of the key protagonists and events.)

Discussion of the scandal proved so popular that at one point, it accounted for more than half of the top 50 “hot search” topics on Weibo, according to WeChat blogger “History Rhymes.” But just a few days later, as the blogger noted on May 5, they had disappeared from the list:

I checked Weibo’s “hot search” list today, and there are no longer any topics about Miss Dong, Peking Union Medical College, etc.

Keep in mind that just a couple of days ago, more than half of the top 50 “hot search” topics were about or related to her.

But just because it’s not trending, doesn’t mean that people aren’t discussing it. Netizens are still digging into the matter. [Chinese]

In addition to Weibo apparently muting the topic, there was also self-censorship on the part of PUMC, which removed content related to Ms. Dong from its website and edited her name out of a 2023 commencement speech given by the college president. Ms. Dong’s graduate thesis and other publications mysteriously disappeared from the academic database portal CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure). After their removal was noticed, it briefly became the top trending search topic on Weibo.

CDT Chinese editors have archived 21 articles and essays related to the “4+4” scandal and its various corollaries; at least three of these have since been censored. The first of these deleted articles appeared on May 1, under the headline, “Could Miss Dong’s Family Be Considered Beijing Brahmins?” Written by journalist Wang Mingyuan, who runs the WeChat public account Fuchengmen Courtyard No. 6, the article argues that Ms. Dong’s family are simply upper middle class, not highly privileged cadres, suggesting that the kind of string-pulling behind her career could be even more pervasive and concerning. Wang’s article also includes a widely circulated (and now censored) meme poking fun at hospital corruption. In the now iconic cartoon, every doctor, nurse, patient, lamp, and piece of medical equipment in the operating theater claims to have gotten into the hospital by leveraging connections:

Patient on the operating table: I got in here through connections.
Doctor: Me, too.
Row of nurses: I did, too. Me too! Same here.
Various medicine cabinets and items of medical equipment: Me, too.
Overhead surgical lamp: Same here!
Another item of medical equipment, with a thought bubble: Hey, didn’t we all?
(source: Wang Mingyuan/WeChat)

Another now-deleted article, published on May 4 by WeChat account Elephant News, provides details about PUMC’s accelerated “4+4” doctoral degree program, and compares it to the usual "5+3+4" route for Chinese medical students: five years of undergraduate-level medical education, followed by three years of master’s-level medical coursework and four years of doctoral-level medical coursework. The author notes how unusual it was that Dong Xiying, whose undergraduate degree was in economics, was allowed to help perform surgery when she was only in her second year of medical school. The article also includes a screenshot showing angry comments left under a PUMC social media account, with netizens complaining that going to see a doctor now feels like “making a holy pilgrimage,” expressing concerns that their doctors might not be qualified if they graduated from the accelerated “4+4” program, and demanding that PUMC make the list of “4+4” program participants public.

On May 5, CDT Chinese editors archived a deleted WeChat article by Sina Finance, which reproduced the answer given by Tencent’s Yuanbao AI chatbot in response to a Sina editor’s query about what other individuals might be implicated in violating the regulations of PUMC’s “4+4” program. The chatbot gave a detailed answer organized into four headings, the first of which listed known participants in the “4+4” program. The second listed individuals who may have benefited from personal connections or affiliations. The third section, enumerating some characteristic examples of systemic privilege, claimed that “35% of the ‘4+4’ program participants have parents who are departmental-level or higher-level cadres, which far exceeds the proportion found among students in typical medical school programs (2.1%).” The chatbot also claimed to have found admission loopholes (“Some of the ‘4+4’ students did not meet the pre-med course requirements”) and possible academic fraud (“Some of the students’ thesis papers did not meet the required page length, with some only 12 pages long”). The fourth and final section in the AI’s answer discussed the broader public opinion controversy over the “4+4” scandal.

One WeChat essay, published on May 6 and still available online, provides an interesting personal and historical perspective on how socioeconomic privilege has evolved since the beginning of China’s Reform and Opening. In "Deteriorating Circumstances Have Given Rise to ‘Second-Generation Privilege,’” essayist and commentator Xipo (“Western Slope”) explores how slowing economic growth, fiercer competition, and fewer opportunities for social mobility in recent years have spurred those with privilege to resort to ever more extreme measures to pass on that privilege to their children:

After publishing my last article [“All that Remains of the ‘4+4’ Scandal Is the Meme About It”], a friend and I discussed the phenomenon of “second-generation privilege.” That discussion made me realize that the unchecked proliferation of second-generation privilege is actually the result of deteriorating [socioeconomic] circumstances. It took me a while to realize this, but now that I do, it makes a lot of sense.

This friend of mine works at a scientific research institute in southern China. He was at university around the year 2000, a critical juncture in time [for the purpose of our discussion]. I won’t mention his field of study, but let us call him “Professor A.”

Professor A recalls that when he was at university, few of his classmates were what we might call “second-generation scions.” While there were some who excelled at their studies and followed conventional paths mapped out for them by parents, most students pursued majors in different fields from those of their parents.

Back then, of course, the overall population was much less educated than it is today. Many university students had parents who were farmers or factory workers, which is something we should keep in mind.

Professor A observes that when he was a student, even the children of professors and department heads rarely followed in their parents’ footsteps. “In those years, there was an abundance of choice when it came to academic majors and career paths. The children of faculty members chose various majors, regardless of what their parents happened to be teaching.”

But there has been a palpable shift over the past six or seven years, he notes. Now an academic advisor to university students, Professor A has found that most of his colleagues’ children are pursuing the same fields of study as their parents.

Thinking back over the news and public discourse of the past few years, I found that many things instantly clicked into place. That oft-repeated term “involution” [内卷 nèijuǎn, a profound sense of burnout caused by cutthroat academic and socioeconomic competition], suddenly took on a concrete form.

As the old saying goes, “Pavilions situated closest to the water are the first to bask in the moonlight” [近水楼台先得月, jìnshuǐlóutái xiān dé yuè; in other words, proximity has its benefits]. But in order to benefit from structural proximity, there must first be a structure in place. If we examine the history of China’s gaokao [university entrance exam], the most illuminating example can be found in the large cohort of post-Cultural Revolution exam-takers. [This cohort encompassed individuals across an unusually diverse age range, from teens to thirty-somethings whose education had been interrupted by the chaos of the Cultural Revolution.] Back then, teachers and students alike were starting from scratch, and everyone was positioned at the same starting line.

As the educational system gradually returned to normal and became more standardized, a certain group of people (or more accurately, a certain group of families) came to occupy central positions in the hierarchy of academia, scientific research, and resource allocation. This is not to dismiss them entirely, of course, for their contributions were essential as China was starting again from scratch.

During the phase of socioeconomic expansion, this wasn’t too big a problem. Right around the year 2000, for example, socioeconomic conflict was still largely centered in rural areas, and the “three rural issues” (agricultural production, rural development, and rural income) commanded nationwide attention. Although this was only a couple of decades ago, it now feels like a distant memory.

Naturally, by then, some far-sighted types had already begun grooming their second-generation successors. But it was also a time in which emerging industries were booming, culture was vibrant, and society was suffused with ambition and optimism. Even privileged members of the “second generation” didn’t just want to ride their parents’ coattails: they wanted to outdo them, to leave them in the dust.

But as China began to transition from one phase to the next, from expansion to contraction, both the first and second generations came to realize that the most reliable path to success was for children to follow in their parents’ footsteps.

By the latter half of the 2010s, China’s period of breakneck urbanization and industrialization was drawing to a close, and [socioeconomic mobility] had begun to congeal. There were also harbingers that China’s integration into the international economic system had run its course.

Now that we’re as materially well-off as other countries, and are more or less able to compete at the same level, our once-blue oceans of opportunity have become churning red seas of competition.

This is the point at which the first generation advises their children to follow in their footsteps, the better to avail themselves of a wealth of parental first-hand experience and ready-made resources. If the children demur, the parents might say, “Fine, go out and try to make your own way in the world. See how you like competing with a mob of people, all fighting over the same lousy job.” And after taking a quick look around and sizing up the competition, the second generation might think to themselves, “Sure, I’ll take your advice. Work is work. What more could I want?”

Uncertainty about the future is spurring those who already occupy lofty positions to marshal all available resources to pass their competitive advantages on to the next generation. This type of survival strategy does not differ fundamentally from that seen in the animal and plant kingdoms.

Naturally, these sorts of collective choices can have extremely negative consequences. Amid deteriorating circumstances, second-generation scions may happily “settle” for enjoying their second-generation privilege, but today’s bona-fide “first generation,” those with no parental legacy to lean on, suffer a dual blow. There are fewer opportunities available to them, and increasingly unfair competition for the few opportunities that do remain.

With this in mind, I have even more empathy for young people today. The ones wailing in frustration are those who bear the brunt of this “dual blow.”

Yet I would still advise them not to conflate their own career development with critical analysis of the socioeconomic environment. As I’ve said before, we can’t wait for society to improve before we start living our own lives. Even in conditions of unfair competition, we must take the initiative and find our own ladder to success. But I now have a deeper understanding of the dejection that so many are feeling right now.

And to those privileged first and second generations, I would like to say: “Other people still exist, even if you don’t see them. Other voices still exist, even if you don’t hear them. They are not simply your competitors; they are emblematic of shared opportunity and a path forward for everyone.”

Although humans are part of the animal kingdom, too, we should be able to do better than simply adhere to the doctrine of “survival of the fittest.” Even beavers know how to shape the environment to their advantage by building dams. Human beings, especially those who consider themselves “elites,” must learn to take responsibility for the environment they shape and inhabit.

After all, someone needs to think about the long-term prospects and overall health of our society. [Chinese]

On Thursday, the Made in China Journal (MICJ) published its latest issue, titled “Chinese Journalism is Dead: Long Live Chinese Journalism!” The issue traces transformations in China’s media landscape over the past decade to demonstrate the ways in which journalism has both deteriorated and adapted to the Party-state’s tightening grip on information. One article, by Dan Chen, analyzes how Chinese local television news "performs governance." Chen focuses on a genre of local television news called minsheng xinwen (民生新闻, literally “news about people’s livelihood”), which highlights “citizen grievances and bureaucratic failures, framing them within a narrative of governmental accountability and responsiveness.” While these sorts of programs reinforce the state’s legitimacy, their top-down orchestration has also eroded public trust in media:

This practice of ‘controlled criticism’ allows limited critiques of governance to flourish within carefully delineated boundaries. Minsheng xinwen programs use investigative reporting to expose problems such as delayed services, poor infrastructure, and bureaucratic inefficiencies. Yet, far from threatening the regime, this critical reporting reinforces its legitimacy by positioning the state as both responsive to citizen concerns and capable of delivering solutions.

[…] In the early years of minsheng xinwen, many reports arose organically, driven by journalists who independently identified compelling stories through citizen complaints, hotline calls, or grassroots investigations. These organically initiated stories often reflected the agency of journalists within the constraints of state control. However, as political oversight tightened under President Xi Jinping’s leadership, this space for spontaneity has steadily diminished.

[…] The shift towards orchestrated reporting carries significant implications for the credibility of local television news. Early iterations of minsheng xinwen enjoyed widespread public trust, as their investigative tone and tangible outcomes made them appear authentic advocates for citizen concerns. Over time, however, the increasingly performative nature of orchestrated reports has eroded this trust. [Source]

At a smaller scale, a similar sleight of hand by the state can be seen in the evolution of print media. Last month, Jianbing Li, Jiakun Jack Zhang, Duoji Jiang, and Weifeng Zhong published an article in the Journal of Contemporary China titled, “Domestic Politics and Editorial Control Over Foreign News Coverage in the People’s Daily, 1993–2022.” The article found that, particularly under Xi Jinping, news coverage of foreign affairs in the People’s Daily has been steadily replaced by editorializing about foreign affairs:

This study examines the dynamics of foreign coverage in China’s official media as the country becomes more globally active. Many scholars argue that China has adopted a more assertive foreign policy and positioned itself as a global leader under Xi Jinping. Yet, analysis of over 1 million People’s Daily articles from 1993 to 2022 reveals that official Chinese media have notably reduced foreign news coverage during his administration. The authors suggest that foreign coverage is influenced more by domestic politics than by China’s growing international interests. As Chinese leaders consolidate power in their second terms, they exert greater editorial control, replacing foreign news coverage with commentary on foreign policy. This trend is not unique to Xi, but it is particularly pronounced during his tenure. [Source]

Our analysis reveals that foreign coverage is influenced more by domestic politics than by China’s growing international interests.

As Chinese leaders consolidate power, they exert greater editorial control, replacing foreign news coverage with commentary on foreign policy. pic.twitter.com/BFBt9WAV2m

— Jack Zhang (@HanFeiTzu) April 21, 2025

Many journalists are also deterred by their lack of autonomy and grueling work conditions. The South China Morning Post recently highlighted the story of a young woman who obtained a master’s degree in journalism from Peking University, interned at prominent state media agencies, and then swapped her high-paying media job for working at the university canteen. She stated that at the media outlets where she had worked, she chafed at the rigorous performance indicators and pressure to reply to messages from her boss at all hours of the day and night. “Compared to those jobs, working as a canteen auntie brings me more joy,” she said. In an article for Initium Media, translated by China Media Project, Xiaobai Yu described how many state television stations not only impose arduous working conditions but also force journalists to solicit advertisements in order to alleviate financial pressure, which corrupts their journalistic work and erodes public trust in the media:

In China today, there are 389 broadcasting and television stations at the prefecture-level and above, according to early 2024 data from China’s National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA). There are 2,099 county-level television stations, and 33 educational television stations. Each television station broadcasts across several channels, and some operate 10 or more. But in 2024, as rumors circulated on social platforms that “nearly 2,000 local television stations are on the verge of collapse” (有近2000家地方電視台行將倒閉), the veneer of viability seemed to slip.

Regarding this figure, an individual working in a propaganda management department of a central government institution told Initium Media that while the above statement may to some extent be exaggerated, the fact that numerous local television stations face financial difficulties is undeniable. “Everyone is living like beggars, including China Central Television and leading provincial satellite TV stations,” they said.

[…] The gradual “salesification” (銷售化) of reporters has become a trend for television station workers in China, including at major state-run outfits like China Central Television (CCTV). To alleviate financial pressure, many television stations assign business tasks to their staff, meaning that directors, editors, and reporters must actively solicit advertisements. This, in fact, has become the primary standard for assessment when it comes to key performance indicators, or KPIs.

[…] “Under the current atmosphere of high-pressure control and political prioritization, television will gradually die out,” [said the aforementioned source working in the propaganda office of a central government institution]. “This is an inevitable end.” [Source]

In the face of these challenges, many Chinese journalists have ventured abroad to pursue media initiatives in the diaspora. Vivian Wu, founder of the media platform Dasheng (大声), wrote in MICJ about how the influx of fresh talent through migration has made Chinese diasporic media more diverse and active in offering uncensored content that both complements existing news from mainland China and offers its own unique perspectives. Last month, Oiwan Lam at Global Voices sampled several Hong Kong exile media outlets, among hundreds of Hong Kong journalists who left the city since the National Security Law. She also noted their struggles for financial sustainability (Flow HK announced it will shut down) and against transnational repression (numerous media workers are among those wanted for national security cases).

Land sales measures, foreign investment data and unemployment indicators have gone dark in recent years. Data on cremations and a business confidence index have been cut off. Even official soy sauce production reports are gone.

In all, Chinese officials have stopped publishing hundreds of data points once used by researchers and investors, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.

In most cases, Chinese authorities haven’t given any reason for ending or withholding data. But the missing numbers have come as the world’s second biggest economy has stumbled under the weight of excessive debt, a crumbling real-estate market and other troubles—spurring heavy-handed efforts by authorities to control the narrative.

[…] Some data are still publicly available but harder to get. Beijing passed a law in 2021 that caused data providers to make certain information—such as corporate registry data and satellite images—accessible only in mainland China.

[….] Some information that has disappeared defies explanation. Data providing estimates of the size of elementary school toilets stopped being released in 2022, then resumed publication in February. Official soy sauce production data stopped appearing in May 2021, and hasn’t returned. [Source]

Another reminder of the unreliability of China’s official statistics came in March after the U.S. announced that its embassies around the world would cease publishing data about local air quality. This long-running transparency initiative began in 2008 when the U.S. Embassy in Beijing shared real-time information about toxic levels of PM2.5 microparticles in the capital’s air. The Chinese Foreign Ministry later complained that because the U.S. data conflicted with China’s (which measured only larger PM10 particles), they were causing “confusion” and undesirable “social consequences.” Under pressure, the Chinese government eventually established its own PM2.5 monitoring system, admitted that air pollution was a significant problem, and took greater corrective measures. However, there is still insufficient transparency in this domain. A recent paper in the journal Nature revealed notable discrepancies between China’s annual and monthly official statistics regarding CO2 emissions between 2014 and 2020 when calculating near real-time estimates of those emissions.

Shaky statistics such as those help Chinese state media’s external propaganda. In an article from March titled “Fact Check: What Western media get wrong about China’s economy,” Xinhua argued that “Western media’s relentless fixation on peddling narratives of China’s economic doom demonstrates their entrenched bias and agenda-driven reporting. Contrary to those claims, […] key economic indicators showed significant improvement” in China’s economy. Western reporting aside, China’s official annual GDP growth rates have been widely seen as misleading, generating doubts about the true state of the Chinese economy. In March, Nicholas R. Lardy and Tianlei Huang at the Peterson Institute for International Economics noted that while China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has improved the quality of certain macroeconomic data—such as fixed asset investment, international trade in goods, household income and expenditure, and value-added in financial services—it continues to selectively withhold other important information:

The paradox of China’s economic data thus lies in its dual character: The disappearance of certain data points, sometimes those related to economic weakness, raise concerns about the authority’s selective transparency. Yet at the same time, Beijing has better aligned its data with international standards and improved their quality. While its push for quality improvements shows its commitment to more reliable statistics, its selective withholding of information inevitably undermines confidence in the overall picture. If Beijing really wants to build trust in its economic data, it needs to ensure greater transparency, even though some statistics may expose vulnerabilities in its economy. [Source]

Last November, Vincent Brussee published an article in The China Quarterly about the “missingness” of Chinese policy documents. Among the hundreds of thousands of policy documents he scraped from official sources between 2021 and 2023, nearly 20 percent were unavailable two years after their publication. Within the latter group, 10 percent were unavailable due to issues uploading the websites, 7.7 percent due to broken links, and 1.9 percent had been intentionally deleted. Brussee described the implications of these findings for researchers’ knowledge base of China:

As this paper demonstrates, there is significant variation in policy transparency and document availability over time. Transparency originally improved between 2008 and the mid-2010s. Today, however, transparency is in decline in several fields, especially in fields where there are related geopolitical tensions. There is also significant variation among types of documents, with top-level policies seeing significantly higher disclosure rates than lower-level documents. Variation among topics appears primarily in the extent to which a topic is related to national security or citizens’ daily lives. Finally, disappearance of documents is a real challenge for research. Thus, studies working with policy data must be open about how they mitigate missingness.

[…] This paper invites broader reflection on the fragility of our knowledge base and the use of convenient datasets in China studies. Policy documents are not propaganda, yet the fact that all these data are available to “us” also suggests that their availability serves a political purpose. The developments highlighted throughout this paper suggests that this curation of information sources is only likely to intensify. Understanding the context in which these sources are produced and what can – and, more importantly, cannot – be learned from them is crucial. [Source]

CDT has covered numerous incidents of Chinese sources publishing, and often later censoring, official data in ways that many netizens deem questionable. The following is a non-exhaustive list of examples from the past two years.

• January 2025: After online sleuths found numerous examples of data fraud in clinical trials for generic drugs in China, China’s National Medical Products Administration claimed the data irregularities were simply “editing errors” and then blocked access to the data.
• December 2024: Viral video and transcripts of two unusually critical speeches about the accuracy of official statistics on the Chinese economy—by economists Gao Shanwen and Fu Peng, respectively—were deleted from multiple Chinese social media platforms, and the economists’ WeChat accounts were shut down.
• August 2024: After the State Council Information Office hosted a series of press conferences intended to showcase government accomplishments using optimistic statistics, some netizens sardonically mentioned “launching Sputniks” or “10,000 catties per mu,” phrases that reference the insanely optimistic targets and grossly exaggerated rice and grain yields reported by localities during the Great Leap Forward.
• July 2024: Public access to a tanker-truck tracking app was suspended after investigative reports revealed that cooking oil was being transported in fuel-oil tanker trucks that were not washed between transports.
• April 2024: The NBS announcement of a high nationwide average per-capita disposable income led many netizens to mock this “daily dose of humor” and wonder, “When can I expect to receive my portion of this increase?”
• February 2024: A Guangzhou research center’s public opinion poll on the state of the private economy, the outlook for employment, and current incomes showed the largest drop in public satisfaction in 30 years. A post about the poll was deleted from WeChat.
• August 2023: After youth unemployment hit a record 21.3 percent, the government stopped publishing data on the subject and online censors targeted discussion of unemployment.
• July 2023: A report on provincial cremation statistics was removed from Zhejiang’s government website and discussion of the statistics were censored on Q&A site Zhihu, after the central government stopped publishing cremation data.
• June 2023: A series of infographics from Sohu News highlighting poverty, youth unemployment, and other social issues, using statistics mostly drawn from government sources, were scrubbed from Weibo.
• May 2023: Media outlets reported that China’s top financial data provider, Wind Information, began restricting foreign access to its data in 2022, and company information databases Qichacha and Tianyancha also shut down access for foreign users.
• January 2023: After the NBS announced China’s sharp population decline, the state-affiliated Beijing Business Today reported on a survey purporting to show that “80% of university students would like to have two children,” drawing online mockery about the misleading results.

For more on this topic, see CDT’s archives related to data and statistics, and our interview with Jeremy Wallace about data manipulation in China. (This CDT post from May 2024 also contains a related timeline about censorship of economic content in China, which includes but is not limited to content about official statistics.)

Over the past 100 years, the most important achievement of theoretical innovation and practical development of the Party’s labour movement cause has been the formation of the trade union development path with Chinese socialist characteristics. This path adheres to the Party’s comprehensive leadership over the labour movement cause and trade union work, ensuring that the labour movement always advances in the correct direction.

[…] Trade unions at all levels must fully implement the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee, promote the high-quality development of trade union work, and write a more magnificent chapter of our country’s labour movement cause in the new era.

We must adhere to the correct political direction and unite the broad masses of workers and labourers closely around the Party. We must resolutely uphold the authority and centralised unified leadership of the Party Central Committee, and implement the Party’s leadership throughout the process and in all aspects of trade union work. Persist in using the Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era to arm minds, guide practice, and promote work; resolutely shoulder the political responsibility of leading the workers and labourers to listen to the Party and obey the Party… [Source]

Some Chinese state-media reports unintentionally revealed the tension between the government and the people over what constitutes fair labor practices. One example, described by China Media Project (CMP), involved the aftermath of a heroic rescue of a child stuck in a narrow well by Bupatam Abdukader, a 24-year-old female auxiliary police officer in Xinjiang. As the story went viral online, many netizens wondered why she had been working in an informal role with pay and benefits that lagged behind her formally employed counterparts. This public pressure led Xinjiang authorities to give her a promotion, but only within the confines of her auxiliary status. This in turn led to more public pressure and forced the authorities to make an announcement—praised by CCTV and a Xinhua-run official journal—advocating the importance of following strict procedures of career advancement. CMP summarized the situation as such:

At its core, Bupatam’s story is about a gap in visions of what heroism means, and how it should be rewarded. While public sentiment called for the officer’s brave human acts to be rewarded with real and tangible benefits, and the dignity that comes with truly equal status, the authorities managed to contain her within the Party’s limited vision of heroism. In that vision, the hero’s extraordinary sacrifice works only to serve and preserve the system — even if that system is premised on the most ordinary perpetuation of inequalities. [Source]

In other cases of divergent visions of ideal labor conditions, netizens directed their criticism directly at the media. This was seen in reactions to a viral Weibo topic, covered favorably by state-aligned media, about a construction worker who had ostensibly saved two million yuan over nine years by carrying bricks on his back. In one WeChat article commenting on the story last week, author Song Qingren wrote skeptically about state media’s propagandistic glorification of such low-paid and physically gruelling work, and noted that only a few carefully selected comments with scant likes appeared under the high-engagement post: “Propaganda is very inspiring, sure, but will people actually buy into it? No, not only will people disbelieve such content, they will sigh in frustration and proceed to ridicule and mock it. And the more the media publishes such content, the lower they will fall in the public’s estimation, the more they will be despised.” Another WeChat article, by Unyielding Bamboo, excoriated media coverage that purports to be encouraging but in fact treats workers as little more than beasts of burden to be exploited:

The media, rather than doing what they ought to be doing—that is, exposing and reporting on serious issues—are instead encouraging people to sacrifice their health and well-being in pursuit of profit. Rather than tell the truth, they fritter away their time penning fictitious scripts; rather than bring problems to light, they focus on manufacturing delusions. I simply cannot comprehend such misplaced priorities. [Chinese]

Avenues for successfully pushing back against poor labor conditions are limited. As China Labor Watch has argued, workers in China “are routinely denied their fundamental right to strike and to both form and join unions of their choice and take part in relevant activities.” Those that attempt to strike are often met with violence. In April, police reportedly beat some of the hundreds of female workers at Hubei’s Chenlong Electronics who went on strike to protest six months of unpaid wages and two years of missing social security contributions. Nonetheless, China Labour Bulletin has documented at least 573 strikes across the country since the start of 2025, almost identical to the number of strikes in the same period from last year.

Perhaps in reaction to public pressure, some companies have enacted policies encouraging employees to work less, such as mandatory clock-off times and bans on after-hours meetings, according to Reuters. A Beijing law firm was also given a rare fine in March for failing to take corrective measures after illegally extending staff working hours. But as The Economist reported last month, this new phenomenon of limiting working hours might also be motivated more by the state’s economic self-interest than by a concern for labor rights:

These new policies align with two of the Chinese state’s current priorities. One is to try to curb a phenomenon known as neijuan—often translated as “involution”. People use the term to describe a situation in which extra input no longer yields more output, like running to stand still. The government wants to prevent this intense, self-harming competition. Perhaps not surprisingly, the new policy has met plenty of cynicism from involuted workers. One newspaper summarised their online snark with the question: “Are the companies that long enforced brutal overtime now going to lead the fight against involution?” Some point to Europe’s new ban on products made with forced labour, including “excessive overtime”, as the motivation for export companies to take action.

The second priority is to give people more time off in order to help bring about the much-needed switch in the economy away from exports and infrastructure towards consumption. In March the government presented a new “special action plan” to increase domestic demand, vowing to deal with “prominent pain points such as the prevalence of overtime culture”, and to protect “rest and vacation rights and interests”. It increased the number of public holidays this year by two days. Getting people to eat out and spend money is difficult if they are stuck at their desk. [Source]

Translations by Cindy Carter.

The US Empire’s confidence has three roots: the USD, its armed forces, and high technology.

Our confidence has three different roots: tree bark, wild herbs, and Guan Yin clay! [Chinese]

Tree bark, wild grass, and Guan Yin clay (so-called for its use in Buddhist figurines, and potentially fatal to ingest) were three things widely eaten to stave off hunger during China’s Great Famine, in which as many as tens of millions are estimated to have died.

State media have sought to paint a rosier picture of the trade war. A recent report from state broadcaster CCTV, for example, focused on a Zhejiang manufacturer of home appliances which said its overseas orders had actually increased slightly since it turned toward other markets in response to U.S. tariffs. CCTV plugged the story with the hashtags “#Number of overseas orders actually increased after loss of U.S. orders” and “#For Cixi Home Appliances, the East Brightens as the West Dims.”

The story became a “rollover scene” (翻车现场 fānchē xiànchǎng), attracting widespread attention and mockery. CDT Chinese editors compiled a number of reactions from Weibo and X, ranging from the apparently convinced to sarcastic endorsement to outright scorn. Several of the comments play on the tendency for state media to wring claims of victory for China out of any new development.

蔚蓝的白日梦： If we’re winning this much after losing the U.S. market, imagine how much we’d be winning if we lost all of them.

用户130000： Winning this much, and still filtering the comments … our country is modest indeed.

股海东方不败： The point of this news is to convince everyone that even though we’ve lost the American market, business just keeps getting better and better.

心向阳光-奔跑吧少年： China May Be The Biggest Winner

花衿茵梦： Orders drying up? Cixi Appliances says just change the packaging and sell, sell, sell!

长安静轩阁主： Out of respect, I’ll take your word for it. In the meantime, you do you.

财金条： Supplier defeats customer

崇正视角： The days when they could swindle the masses like a bunch of fools are long gone. Unfortunately our bureaucrats are still deluding themselves about their prowess.

zrw2017： Striking first brings swift victory; striking harder brings more wins. Apparently in this trade war they struck too softly, too late.

bodyno214755： Isolated examples can’t show the big picture. This is just a typical propaganda play.

Momo20240808： This is just one very specific, unrepresentative example. What are things like for the majority of businesses?

轻风细雨大叔新号： Looks like everything’s great—raising tariffs boosted exports. The more sanctions, the better!

五更不惑： Looks like it’s a good thing, so let’s have more of the same!

W因紫而来： Whatever you do, don’t tell Trump about this—he’d blow his top.

OL1EiqcQJpZL9nr： Actually this isn’t impossible. According to the article, they relaxed the minimum orders, i.e. they started accepting smaller orders, and lowered the required quantities. The claim is that the number of orders increased, but it didn’t say anything about profits. If a factory does smaller production runs, then unit costs will go up. It’s obvious whether this is a good thing or not.

冲浪冠军很多年： I haven’t seen a single news report so far describing adverse effects from the trade war on domestic businesses.

jenner70873905： "A bit more suffering for the masses"—Ming Dynasty 1566 [A historical TV drama: "During the Ming dynasty, as economic prosperity masked social unrest, the corrupt official Yan Song’s oppressive policies spark a power struggle and intrigue within the imperial court."] [Chinese]

As marriage registrations in China continued to decline in the first quarter of the year, local governments have dangled cash rewards as high as 40,000 yuan (US$5,487) in front of young couples in a bid to rekindle the will to wed and stave off the worst of a demographic crisis.

In the first three months of 2025, 1.81 million couples registered for marriage, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said last week. This represents a decrease of 159,000 couples compared to the same period last year for an 8 per cent drop, with a simultaneous 10 per cent increase in the number of divorce registrations.

[...] Last year, China recorded the lowest number of new marriages since 1980; only 6.10 million couples in China tied the knot in 2024, down 20.5 per cent from 2023, according to the ministry. [Source]

Earlier this month, the government announced a revision to the marriage registration ordinance, the first since its enactment in 2003, that will reduce paperwork and give couples more flexibility to choose where to register their marriage, including in locations beyond their places of permanent residence. Last week, The Economist described how Hohhot and other cities have offered child-care subsidies as part of their pro-natalist push, but that these have been received without much enthusiasm:

In Hohhot, however, the uptake so far appears weak. On March 13th, with fanfare in national media, the city announced one of the biggest cash-for-kids schemes in the country. Mothers will now be paid 10,000 yuan for a first child, 50,000 yuan over five years for a second and 100,000 yuan over ten years for a third. That third-child reward is double the city’s average annual salary. But Hohhot is not offering much beyond the cash payments, and at one local office that processes subsidy registrations an employee said that they have received only seven or eight inquiries in the month since the policy announcement.

Ms Liu at the baby store, who is 35 and has one child, said she would like to have a second if she had more money, but the new incentives do not offset the lack of child-care support and the high costs of raising children in a competitive environment. “The policy might change the minds of people on the fence about having kids, but people like me won’t consider it,” she says.

For Ms Wu, a 29-year-old civil servant about to give birth to her first child, the 10,000 yuan “adds flowers to the brocade” and could help with her mortgage or car loan, but “50,000 yuan is not going to cover the costs of a second child”. It costs high-income families 1.3m yuan to raise a child to adulthood, estimates YuWa Population Research Institute, a think-tank in Beijing. The figure is more like 130,000 yuan for low-income families. Wang Feng of the University of California, Irvine, thinks Hohhot’s policy will not “make a dent” in the city’s population decline. “Babies cannot be bought,” he says. “The cost is lifelong and it’s not just monetary.” [Source]

Many Chinese women have balked at government plans to raise the birth rate. Even Xinhua shared a comment last week by one Weibo user who wrote, “If I were married, there’s no way I’d enjoy the kind of freedom I have now,” and another who wrote, “If I can’t find the right person, I’d rather stay single than settle.” One major impediment is that the government has also made it harder for couples to divorce. This was one of the main points made by behavioral economist Jia Yongmin, who recently published an opinion piece in Fengsheng OPINION discussing why China’s recent pro-matrimony policies are failing to persuade young people to get married:

In fact, increasing impediments to divorce have had a dissuasive effect on marriage. "Marriage is like a fortress besieged: those who are outside want to get in, and those who are inside want to get out." The preceding quote comes from Qian Zhongshu’s [1947] masterpiece "Fortress Besieged." Although they are the words of a novelist, the theory behind them has been borne out by economic research.

A paper published by Hauert et al. in the journal Science proved that the freedom of participants to choose to withdraw is a necessary condition for the emergence and maintenance of cooperation. Marriage is undoubtedly a cooperative undertaking. Without the freedom to exit that "fortress besieged", there will surely be less incentive to enter it in the first place. [Chinese]

Highlighting another pro-natalist effort gone awry, women have reported receiving unsolicited WeChat messages from their local “family doctor,” apparently tasked with contacting women aged 14-49 in their district and asking them, “Has your period been normal recently? On what date did you last get your period? Please respond via text. Thank you!” According to screenshots of these messages on Chinese social media shared by Teacher Li, some netizens interpreted this as a call to have children. The incident is similar to reports from last fall that netizens had received calls from local government authorities asking, “Are you pregnant? Do you plan to be? Do you have a boyfriend?”

More promising approaches might be found elsewhere. Elsie Chen at the AP reported on Tuesday about how young Chinese singles are looking for love in video chats:

Frustrated with traditional dating and using the apps, Chen jumped on a new trend among young, single people in China. Those looking for love go into video chatrooms hosted by what’s called a “cyber matchmaker,” all while thousands of viewers watch and comment in real time.

The number of single people in China over 15 reached a record-high of 240 million in 2023, according to government data. Facing a plummeting birth rate and an aging population, the government encouraged single people to marry and have multiple children. Last year, the State Council, China’s cabinet, mandated that local governments build various platforms for youth to have more opportunities to date.

[...] For those who want to get married though, the livestreamed videos are an appealing alternative to traditional matchmaking methods, like marriage markets — where families exchange resumes and arrange dates for their unmarried children.

They’re also another option for those tired of dating apps. [Source]

It is not just drones that are promising – or threatening – to upend the tempo of urban life in China. Humanoid robots are particularly buzzy. The highlight of this year’s Spring festival gala, which was viewed nearly 17bn times, was a dance performed by a troupe of humanoid robots made by a company called Unitree. On Saturday, the world’s first humanoid v human race – a half marathon – took place on the outskirts of Beijing.

“Applying artificial intelligence to robots basically really kicked into high gear last year,” says Rui Ma, a China technology analyst and investor based in San Francisco. The shift could allow the industry to grow at a much faster rate in 2025 than in previous years. Reinforcement learning, which means training robots to learn from experience rather than relying on rigid models, allows humanoid robots to be trained in months rather than years, hastening the pace of innovation. Toy robot dogs are already part of daily life in China. At a wholesale market in Yiwu, a trading hub in east China’s Zhejiang province, a child plays with a robot dog while his mother haggles with exporters over the price of false eyelashes. On the streets of Shanghai, a woman walks her robot dog, which is helpfully carrying a basket of shopping on its back.

The development of China’s robotics industry is intimately linked to advances in AI. For years, China has been trying to catch up with the United States. Xi wants to drive economic growth through “new quality productive forces”, a concept that includes advanced technologies. [Source]

Some scientists and observers have tried to manage the public’s expectations of China’s AI rollout. Zeyi Yang at WIRED described the setbacks of the “stumbling and overheating” humanoid robots competing in the half marathon, and also noted that “by the end of the race, many people who tuned into the livestream started to comment on how exhausted the robots’ human operators looked.” At a meeting last Wednesday, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology ordered representatives from dozens of automakers to stop hyping up the capabilities of smart driving technology. (This followed a highly publicized incident last month, in which a Xiaomi electric car crashed and killed three passengers while the vehicle’s autopilot feature was engaged.) Similarly, leading AI scientist Zhu Songchun recently warned that AI hype and reality have become detached in China, partially because the media have fed the public “exaggerated” stories about AI. Alex Colville at China Media Project described how Zhu’s critical stance appears to have been ignored, if not overridden:

Zhu’s critique of the propaganda-driven approach appears to have fallen victim to precisely the dynamic of hype he described. While his remarks found outlets in more market-oriented publications like Tencent Technology, Caixin and The Paper, flagship state media organizations like Xinhua and the People’s Daily conspicuously omitted his warnings from their coverage. Instead, these Party organs continued to showcase a parade of applications and robots — the very surface-level achievements that Zhu suggested are distracting China from the deeper scientific work needed to truly lead in artificial intelligence. In a system where positive messaging trumps critical analysis, even warnings from one of the nation’s top AI scientists can be edited out of the narrative.

[...] This disconnect was illustrated once again over the weekend, as Beijing hosted a half marathon where Chinese-built robots raced alongside human competitors. The CCP’s official People’s Daily described the event as a “fierce competition” that had pushed the robots to their limits. Xinhua sang about “infinite possibilities,” and proclaimed in its headline that the racing event had “closed the distance between us and the future.” The less stellar reality, alluded to in a report by Guangzhou’s Southern Metropolis Daily that noted the “many problems” holding the race down, was that the robots had suffered constant failures and necessitated nearly constant repairs by the exhausted human crews running alongside them. In the end, only six of the 21 robot entries completed the race, and one quite literally lost its head.

But in another sense, the race pointed the way toward the possibility of a healthier, more open and more self-critical attitude toward technology and progress — an alternative to the propaganda of constant rise. The Global Times, though in English-language coverage only, remarked somewhat disingenuously that “[behind] this ‘imperfect’ robot half-marathon is the mature atmosphere of tolerance, understanding and acceptance of failure that has developed in Chinese society from top to bottom toward the high-tech industry.” If that were true, of course, no public moderation of Zhu Songchun’s remarks behind closed doors would have been necessary. It would be perfectly acceptable to say: We are getting this wrong. But the Global Times was on to something. [Source]

China’s rapid deployment of embodied AI is at least partially fueled by its competition with the U.S. for technological superiority. Liu Gang, a professor at Nankai University in Tianjin, stated, “We are picking a path where we lower the costs for innovation and industrialization,” adding, “When many can do things with a comparable quality, whoever makes it more cheaply will have a bigger chance to win.” This is evident in the significantly lower costs of Chinese robot dogs and humanoid robots compared to American ones, and in the free rollout of DeepSeek’s AI chatbot. A recent Foreign Affairs article titled “What America Gets Wrong About the AI Race” underlined this dynamic: “The real lesson of DeepSeek’s success is that AI competition is not simply about which country develops the most advanced models but also about which can adopt them faster across its economy and government.”

Indeed, China’s robotics industry is surging ahead. According to a recent industry report, China will likely produce over 10,000 humanoid robots this year, amounting to over half of global production. Late last month, Du Zhihang, Bao Hongyun, Liu Peilin, and Han Wei from Caixin Global provided a deep dive into China’s production of humanoid robots, underscoring the government’s major investments in this booming sector:

Embodied intelligence has become a buzzword in AI and investment circles in the past two years. Unlike traditional industrial robots, such as mechanical arms, embodied intelligence focuses on humanoid robots that can adaptively perceive and interact with their environments using human-like physical forms. These robots emphasize advanced motor coordination — akin to a cerebellum — and cognitive abilities in vision, language and movement, enabling more natural and versatile interactions. This shift represents a move beyond factory automation toward robots capable of more complex, human tasks.

[...] Since 2024, several Chinese regions have rolled out incentive policies to support AI and robotics industries as the country aims to lead the global tech race. Hangzhou in the eastern Zhejiang province offers up to 5 million yuan in rewards and 25% project funding subsidies, while Beijing has established a 100-billion-yuan government investment fund to support startups. Southern Guangdong province provides up to 50 million yuan for robotics companies and 10 million yuan for AI firms, and Shenzhen has set bold targets for embodied intelligence, aiming to cultivate more than 10 companies valued at more than 10 billion yuan and achieve an industry scale exceeding 100 billion yuan by 2027. Shanghai and the southwestern Sichuan province have also introduced supportive measures.

[...] While China and the United States are seen as equals in AI and robotics technology, China’s strengths in large-scale manufacturing and software optimization give it an edge in industrializing humanoid robots.

[...] As China’s governments increase support for AI and embodied intelligence, leading companies stand to benefit. In March 2025, embodied intelligence was named one of four future industries — alongside biomanufacturing, quantum technology and 6G — in the government work report. [Source]

While the occupation of a three-million-square-mile island nearly two thousand miles from China might charitably be described as fanciful, China’s development of capabilities to project maritime power further across the region is more grounded in reality. A new report from Domingo I-Kwei Yang at the Prague-based Sinopsis also takes the recent naval exercises as a starting point, arguing that economic and commercial activities carried out under the Belt and Road Initiative lay foundations for potential future militarization. From the report’s introduction:

In February 2025, Australia, New Zealand, and regional actors were caught off guard when the PLA conducted live-fire exercises there with little notice, forcing dozens of flights to reroute. The incident served as a wake-up call, highlighting China’s expanding military reach beyond the Third Island Chain [[See background on the Pacific’s strategic island chains]. China’s military presence in the Pacific will continue to grow, driven by its expanding hegemonic ambitions in the region. China has been steadily building its military capabilities and extending its security sphere through infrastructure projects in the Pacific for many years.

China’s military reach is hidden, embedded in its foreign investments and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects. While research on the BRI has expanded since 2013, most studies focus on economics and foreign aid, downplaying its security and military dimensions. Even as China’s overseas basing ambitions draw attention—especially after its first military base in Djibouti in 2017—the security risks of its Pacific infrastructure projects remain largely ignored.

[…] This policy paper explores whether China is preparing to weaponise its infrastructure in the Pacific to strengthen its hard power presence. It first analyses the strategic nature of the BRI in the region, arguing that China’s geopolitical ambitions outweigh its economic objectives. It then identifies four key categories of strategic infrastructure: ports and wharves, fishery facilities, aeronautical hubs, and ICT networks. The paper further explores how these assets could be militarised before assessing China’s long-term strategy for leveraging them in the Pacific.

This paper argues that China uses its development projects in the Pacific as covert infrastructures to advance the PLA’s force projection toward the Third Island Chain. Far from serving purely economic interests, these projects act as force multipliers—tangible and intangible assets that enhance military capability and strategic value. Through dualuse infrastructure, technology, software, and hardware, China expands its influence and strengthens its military reach. In a transition from peace to war, these assets could be weaponised to restrict regional actors’ freedom of action. [Source]

The paper concludes:

If China consolidates control over […] strategic nodes, it could manipulate trade flows, disrupt global markets, and exert political pressure on both regional and global actors. Countries that rely on open and secure sea lanes—such as the U.S., Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific small island developing states—must recognise the long-term risks posed by China’s infrastructures located at geostrategic chokepoints.

Ultimately, China’s expansion in the Pacific is not only about territorial influence but about shaping the future balance of power. Chinese infrastructure projects have the potential to become military footholds and multiply power projection capability. A proactive response—through strengthened alliances, strategic investments, and regional cooperation—is essential to preserving peace and stability. For the U.S., its allies, and regional actors, this is not just about countering China; it is about defending a free, open, and rules-based international order in the Pacific. [Source]

The report ends with a set of recommendations emphasizing the importance of solidarity and collaboration with allies across the region.

China’s reliance on dual-use resources was also highlighted in a recent New York Times report on the development of new landing barges apparently intended for use in the event of an invasion of Taiwan:

The satellite images did not show any vehicles actually being unloaded. But ferries and cargo ships that took part were of a kind built or modified to handle heavy armed vehicles, like armored personnel vehicles or even tanks, said Jason Wang, the chief operating officer of ingeniSPACE, a company that analyzes satellite images and other data, including about the Chinese military.

Taiwan’s western coastline, facing the Chinese mainland, has relatively few beaches or ports where landing is easy, and those areas are relatively well guarded. The barges would theoretically enable China to pick other areas on Taiwan’s coast that might be more difficult to land on but are less defended, from which to come ashore, several experts said.

[…] “China still doesn’t have enough gray hull naval ships to assault Taiwan’s main island on their own,” Mr. Wang said, referring to the typical color of warships. But when you add specialized dual-use ferries and cargo ships, “then that becomes a different story,” he said.

“You’re then starting to have enough vessels to be able to deliver a battalion on shore quickly,” he said. [Source]

In the two weeks since Trump launched what he called his “Liberation Day” tariff blitz, Chinese diplomats have taken to X and Facebook — platforms that are banned within China — to post archival footage of President Ronald Reagan deploring trade wars and former Chinese leader Mao Zedong declaring China’s determination to defeat the United States in the Korean War.

Chinese state media have reposted a TikTok video made with AI that shows unhappy American workers sewing garments and assembling smartphones, with the caption: “Make America Great Again.” Several times a week, the state-run China Media Group has been sending personalized emails to reporters covering the trade war, offering them updates on China’s perspective.

[...] “It is not so much a change in China’s propaganda tactics, but that Trump himself messed up, allowing China’s propaganda to score points,” said Deng Yuwen, former deputy editor of the Communist Party-affiliated Study Times, who now lives in the U.S. “The huge controversy caused by the Trump administration has allowed the Chinese government’s methods to win points.”

[...] Now, Beijing is also delivering that message in catchy short videos and snarky memes aimed directly at Americans. A video posted on Facebook earlier this month by Guo Jiakun, a Foreign Ministry official, featured images of stock market indexes crashing and streets full of American protesters, while a narrator intoned in English: “The so-called global beacon now puts America first. … With China here, the sky won’t fall.” [Source]

Some of these efforts have backfired against domestic Chinese audiences. A CCTV account on Douyin published an AI-generated video that showed a factory assembly line of gloomy American government officials, including Trump and J.D. Vance, which evoked a satirical future of revitalized U.S. manufacturing that Trump seeks through his trade war. As CDT Chinese editors highlighted, many netizens criticized the video for its tone-deaf mockery of lower-income, labor-intensive jobs that many Chinese citizens are forced to endure in the present. In response to the avalanche of comments, the account closed the comment section and eventually deleted the video. A selection of critical comments have been translated below:

枫落秋末：The work you look down on is exactly what Chinese workers do every day.

¥金金：I don’t even know who this is trying to humiliate.

热拿铁：What’s the point of this? You’re mocking your own people.

BFSUNSET2887：What you hate is my life.

Xiaxia1357346：Officials know that factory work is grueling and poorly paid, yet they still claim that Chinese folks are poor because they don’t work hard enough.

sinji198183：You’re shooting yourself in the foot here.

WeileiFromSanqi：This is basically the consensus of the Chinese elite: the lives of the lower class are not worth living. If by some stroke of bad luck, they could no longer live an upper-class life, they would rather die.

Nick22022420863：This isn’t America’s desired future; it’s the Chinese people’s present. [Chinese]

Le Monde reported that Chinese influencers have flooded American social media platforms and urged American users to bypass American tariffs by buying goods directly from Chinese factories, which allegedly procure the same goods for a cheaper price than retailers. Some of these videos have received millions of views, propelling Chinese cross-border e-commerce app DHgate, which allows users to buy directly from Chinese factories, to become the second-most popular app on Apple’s App Store in the U.S. on Wednesday. But this alleged workaround may not last long, since the Trump administration’s elimination of the de minimis rule—which exempted Chinese shippers from paying U.S. taxes on goods worth less than $800—will go into effect on May 2. Moreover, many Chinese workers are already suffering from the impacts of the trade war. Yaling Jiang and Rongrong Zhuge at the Following the Yuan Substack shared RedNote posts by Chinese exporters and factory workers, including one from an employee who had just been laid off from their job at a cross-border e-commerce company:

“Who understands? I’ve been working at this company for almost four years, thinking I’d be here until retirement… But then, I received the news — the company had to close down due to 🇺🇸 tariffs! Our boss was truly amazing. He treated all of us like friends. Not only did he pay us our full month’s salary, but he also prepared personal farewell gifts for everyone. I’m so moved 🥹

No fake marketing here, just sharing my personal dramatic experience. I didn’t expect so many others are in the same situation. Please, don’t misjudge based on this.”

Comments:

• So soon, shouldn’t your company wait and see? Maybe your boss has been wanting to quit for a while, that’s why they’re lying flat. // The payroll cost must be high, I assume most of their businesses are with the US. The policy isn’t stable and the uncertainty may last a while. [Source]

This dizzying back-and-forth has generated a surge in online commentary on Chinese social media, some of which have been subject to apparent censorship. On Thursday, CDT Chinese published a list of Weibo hashtags—some taken from state-media or government talking points—that yielded no results at all on Weibo:

• #U.S. imposes 104% tariffs on China, effective today
• #104 tariffs
• #U.S. to impose 104% tariff on Chinese goods
• #145% tariffs

Others displayed results only from "Big V" verified users:

• #Foreign Minstry responds to 104% U.S. tariffs on China
• #We will fight to the end
• #This is China’s attitude
• #Trump tariff measures could put 200,000 Americans out of work
• #Foreign media: U.S. suffering is self-inflicted
• #China doesn’t provoke trouble, but isn’t afraid of it
• #If the American side insists on following this path, China will fight to the end
• #China has the confidence to handle its own affairs
• #America’s so-called reciprocal tariffs are mutually destructive unilateral bullying
• #If the American side wants dialogue it should show some respect
• #America’s unilateral bullying wil eventually backfire
• #Who do U.S. tariff policies hurt?
• #U.S. wages trade war while pleading for eggs
• #Several countries decline to give U.S. eggs

Last Monday, the People’s Daily attempted to calm nerves in China with an article headlined “The Sky Is Not Falling,” stating that Trump’s trade war cannot crush China’s economy. The article was widely criticized as unrealistic and overconfident. Jing Ziku from the WeChat account New New Youth posted a now censored article titled “The Real Danger is Thinking You’re Omnipotent,” which criticized the People’s Daily article for being out of touch. Jing wrote: “Empty and hollow, vapid and naive, this article speaks only of peaceful things, but does not condescend to look down and see the lives of the common people. It refuses to recognize the problem, and not recognizing the problem is the biggest problem of all.” That day, Teacher Li wrote on X, “One blogger said, ‘Today you have to be careful what you say about the stock market, especially if your comments are bearish. I’ve seen a lot of people’s posts being deleted.’”

On Wednesday, the WeChat account 老干体v posted another now-censored article, “104%! The Worst-Case Scenario Has Come to Pass: We’re Taking on America Alone.” The author describes three possible tariff scenarios outlined by Zhao Wei, a professor of economics at Zhejiang University, and argues that the least desirable—number three—appears to be happening: (1) “The U.S. vs. many,” in which China and dozens of countries respond in kind, global trade war breaks out, and the U.S. is outmatched; (2) “The U.S. vs. many, limited edition,” in which China and some E.U. countries respond in kind, resulting in a global trade war; and (3) “China vs. many,” in which other countries choose to compromise with the U.S., leaving China to face America alone.

Reuters reported that Chinese internet censors took down many posts from Chinese companies highlighting the negative impact of Trump’s tariffs, while allowing comments mocking the U.S. and depicting it as a globally irresponsible trading partner. On Wednesday, Vivian Wang at The New York Times provided more detail about Chinese social media censorship related to the trade war:

On Weibo, a popular social media platform, several hashtags that used the number 104 — such as “104 tariff rate” or “America to impose 104 percent tariff on Chinese goods” — returned an error message that said: “Sorry, the content of this topic is not displayed.”

But other hashtags that focused more squarely on mocking the United States, or on touting China’s strengths, were allowed to trend — and in fact were explicitly initiated by state media. “America is fighting a trade war while begging for eggs” was one popular hashtag started by CCTV, China’s state broadcaster. “China does not provoke trouble but is never afraid of it” was another.

[…] It was not clear whether other more negative posts had been censored, or why censors had targeted the hashtags about the 104 statistic in particular. Many individual posts that mentioned the figure were still visible, even as the hashtags themselves were blocked, and they generally expressed confidence about China’s prospects in the trade war.

[…] “I think the CCP may not want to reveal how serious things are,” [said Ja Ian Chong, a professor of political science at the National University of Singapore], referring to the Chinese Communist Party.

The party and China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, “may not have a plan on how to address such complications as yet, so are probably trying to control narratives and direct vitriol toward the U.S. and Trump,” he added. [Source]

Censorship of trade war commentary was also imposed offline. He Bin, deputy director of the Public Policy Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), touched off a firestorm when he posted this criticism of the Chinese government’s tariff response to the Public Policy Center’s WeChat Moments: “This is an utterly mistaken ‘countermeasure.’ It’s akin to saying, ‘Well, if you’re going to beat your wife, then I’m going to beat my wife, too.’ Just because the U.S. is shooting itself in the foot by raising tariffs doesn’t mean that we should shoot ourselves in the foot as well. The correct countermeasure is to unilaterally abolish tariffs on imports from all countries.” The consequences of He’s post quickly compounded. As Yuanyue Dang reported for the South China Morning Post, CASS released a statement on Sunday explaining that its Public Policy Center, including the center’s social media accounts and website, were being shut down “amid a new round of ideological reinforcement”:

The now-defunct centre was once headed by economist Zhu Hengpeng, who was also deputy director of the Institute of Economics. He was last seen in public at the end of April 2024.

Sources familiar with the matter said that Zhu had been investigated and removed from his post in May for criticising China’s economic policies in a group discussion on WeChat.

CASS, once home to many liberal academics who were vocal in their criticism of the authorities, is undergoing a major shift towards greater loyalty to the ruling Communist Party.

In August, the academy replaced the economic institute’s leadership, including the director and party secretary, without explanation. A few months earlier, CASS had initiated an academy-wide major study campaign on party discipline.

The campaign, which began in June, required researchers to “take absolute loyalty to the party as the starting and ending point of all their work”. [Source]

Meanwhile, in response to Trump’s tariffs, the Chinese government has dug in its heels. The Ministry of Commerce said on Tuesday, “China will fight to the end.” Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning posted to X, “We won’t back down,” and shared a video of Mao Zedong in 1953, during the Korean War, proclaiming, “No matter how long this war will last, we’ll never yield.” On Wednesday, the Chinese government released a white paper outlining its position on China-U.S. economic and trade relations and arguing that the U.S. tariffs “reveal the isolationist and coercive nature of U.S. conduct.” On Thursday, the Chinese government announced that it would further curb the number of American films allowed to screen in China. Last week, it launched an anti-monopoly probe into American multinational chemical company DuPont, imposed export curbs on certain rare earths and other restrictions on dozens of American companies. A wide range of other Chinese countermeasures are expected to follow.

Opinion leaders on both sides of the Pacific shared their gloom about the inevitability of prolonged tensions. “I do not remember ever being this pessimistic about the trajectory of US-China relations, […] with no obvious off-ramps or even desire to walk things back,” wrote Sinocism’s Bill Bishop on Wednesday. A WeChat article by popular science writer and commentator Xiang Dongliang, titled “U.S.-China Decoupling Has Reached the Point of No Return,” discussed how decoupling and tit-for-tat tariffs might affect the lives and fortunes of ordinary Chinese people. Xiang included a list of practical recommendations, advising Chinese citizens to make a realistic assessment of their career prospects, re-evaluate their investments and purchases, have a back-up plan and enough cash on hand to cover a year of living expenses, to give up any hope of immigrating to the U.S. in the near future, and even to approach studying in the U.S. with caution. Chairman Rabbit, the pseudonym of influential commentator Ren Yi, wrote, “The trade war is not simply an economic friction but ‘a war without smoke,’” adding, “Decoupling is absolutely not China’s goal, but it is a necessary response at this stage.” Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Xinhua Net Liu Hong wrote on Tuesday, “what goes around comes around. The storm that the tariff war will bring to the United States has only just begun.”

Translations by Cindy Carter and Samuel Wade.

Becoming an official has always been something that countless people in China dream of.

From the ancient imperial examinations to the civil service exams of today, entering the realms of officialdom has long been synonymous with success, respect, authority, and affluence.

This deeply-rooted "officialdom complex" leads people to view official rank as life’s highest aspiration, as different from other stations as heaven is from earth, even to the point that our whole society revolves around it.

But any country that views becoming an official as the "one true path" to social mobility is a country whose developmental path is a dead-end.

An "officialdom complex” presents many dangers. Not only does it limit the flow of human talent and constrain market vitality, it also leads to pervasive formalism and bureaucratism within government itself, and of course it fuels corruption.

In the 40-plus years since the start of Reform and Opening, economic development has soared, but there are many places where power—rather than innovation, markets, or the labor force—remains the most valuable “natural resource.” How can we talk about modernization if this doesn’t change?

The most malignant aspect of the "officialdom complex" is that authority consumes everything.

China’s millennia of feudal history have deeply instilled the maxim that “when a person reaches attainment, even his dogs and chickens ascend to heaven.” As a direct result, power is less about responsibility than perks and privileges.

As a rule, Chinese people are infatuated with privilege. Even those who call for anti-corruption measures are actually jealous of those with the privileges of power. Were they able to enjoy those privileges themselves, they would quickly change their tune.

Although the market-driven economy has become the mainstream in today’s China, there are still many places where the official-centric mindset determines how society operates.

For example, there’s no shortage of places where entrepreneurs with any instinct for self-preservation rely not on innovation, but on cultivating guanxi; where those seeking to develop their talents rely not on ability, but on patronage.

The civil service exams are as hotly contested as ever each year, with candidates battling it out to enter the system not out of any passion for public service, but because the work is stable, prestigious, and confers various “hidden perks.”

The pervasiveness of such “all-consuming authority” has a number of serious consequences:

1. Markets are usurped by the authorities, and companies become less competitive. When bureaucratic authority determines the allocation of resources, business competition tends to rely on connections rather than product quality, and genuinely innovative firms often lose out.

2. Young people are demotivated, and society is drained of vitality. The best and brightest are drawn into the civil service instead of scientific research or entrepreneurship, and society loses a wellspring of innovation.

3. The government becomes a "resource referee" instead of serving society as it should. Instead of maintaining its proper role of establishing rules and guaranteeing fairness, it becomes the primary distributor of benefits, and may even become a resource-competitor itself.

These phenomena are not as common in countries with a less entrenched officialdom complex.

In the United States, for example, although elites still need a strong network, an officialdom complex like ours—in which official titles lead directly to privilege—is much weaker, and young Americans rarely view public service as highly prestigious.

In Germany, a highly skilled blue-collar worker can still achieve high social status. What’s really valued in countries like this is not authority but individual ability, creativity, and professionalism.

In Europe, with no officialdom complex, people’s values and pursuits are generally very diverse.

But in China, many people still see becoming an official as the best choice. Even some successful entrepreneurs, as soon as they’ve made their fortunes, neglect R&D investment and instead pull every possible string to sidle up to those in power—making donations, pulling in favors, and arranging jobs for officials’ children, all to ensure smooth sailing for their own businesses.

This phenomenon deprives market participants of a level playing field. For example, only the well-connected can obtain startup loans, while real entrepreneurs are shut out. The whole of society sinks into a kind of "power-centrism" in which it seems as if the only sense of security comes from proximity to power.

So, how can we break out of this officialdom complex? Truly changing all this will require a multifaceted approach:

1. The government should step back, and allow markets real control of resources. The government’s core responsibility should be the provision of public services, not direct control of economic resources. It should reduce oversight and regulation, and give businesses and individuals more room to grow.

2. Roll back officials’ privileges so that the system is no longer seen as a “golden ticket.” Make government a genuinely service-oriented institution, rather than a reaper of benefits. Reduce the hidden perks of officialdom, strengthen accountability, and put public service instead of personal advancement at the center of official work.

3. Promote respect for innovation and expertise. Give those with entrepreneurial, technical, and scientific skills their proper social status and rewards, so that young people can see that there are more possibilities in life than just becoming an official.

4. Strengthen rule of law so that power is constrained. If there is rule of law, officials won’t be able to arbitrarily interfere with the market, businesses will be able to succeed on their own merits, and individuals won’t have to rely on connections to get ahead.

There is no construction without destruction, no reform without sacrifice. If the officialdom complex is not reformed, there is no way we can move forward.

If the officialdom complex remains intact, society will be trapped in a vicious cycle of officials fixating on power, businesses fixating on befriending them, young people fixating on becoming officials, and the whole country’s energies wasted on meaningless power games.

If China is to truly modernize, it must rid itself of these ideological shackles, and let markets be markets, power be power, and talent gravitate to where it has real value.

This process won’t all be smooth sailing, but reform really is the only way forward. [Chinese]

The second post, from WeChat public account A Thousand Sheep On Fire, also highlights the longstanding grip that official employment has held on Chinese ambitions. It alludes to Fan Jin, the protagonist of the 18th century satirical novel “The Scholars,” whose successes in the civil service exams after decades of failure eventually drive him insane. It notes that the dream of an official career is currently enjoying a resurgence, as oversupply of graduates for hot career choices like medicine or computer science leads to less certain prospects, falling pay, and deteriorating working conditions. The post highlights a rise in the number of civil service exam candidates to 5.3 million this year, vying for a mere 166,000 vacancies. Next year, it adds, the number of hopefuls may pass seven million, with an unusually large graduating class exceeding this year’s by as many as 300,000.

[…] For now, I’ll just focus on this one issue: the public’s fixation on “system status” has almost reached the point of madness.

Compared with others these days, just standing still is getting ahead, whether in the eyes of judgmental elders or in terms of your value in the marriage market. Secure “iron rice bowl” jobs, once stereotyped as the last resort of the unambitious and academically mediocre, are now powerful trump cards.

Contrast this with programmers, lawyers, junior faculty, and doctors—across the board, these once-glamorous professions have lost their shine, with those who aren’t laid off facing low pay and fierce competition.

But let’s look at programmers, the occupation whose reputation has suffered the most. In fact, it’s not true that they’re all laid off at 35, or that 996 is the norm. (There’s a lot of overtime in some official jobs, as well.) They have access to a relatively broad field of job opportunities, and they can save enough to retire on before they’re cast aside, as long as they don’t sink those savings into a house.

(It’s not easy to join one of the big-name firms, of course, but compared with the cattle auction of the spring and autumn job fairs, computer science majors still find work more easily, and for higher pay.)

Apart from the lucky few who can move back home and become “full-time children,” most of those who’ve graduated in the last couple of years and haven’t yet found suitable work are probably living like hermits, preparing for the civil service exams. Even niche platforms like Douban now have communities of hundreds of thousands of exam preppers, and in groups that used to be carefree and artistic, the hot topics now are things like “Should I switch jobs or take the civil service exam?”

The consoling cliché among these civil service candidates is that “if you sit the exam enough times, you’re bound to make the cut.” But this is obviously impossible. Even a ratio as low as 30 candidates for each role means despite all their efforts, the other 29 amount to no more than cannon fodder. Those who live to “fight another day” in next year’s exam will be even worse off, competing with fresh graduates whose brains are in peak condition while their own have been numbed by endless practice tests.

Why is there such bias against certain occupations? Why does getting into the system cast such a spell? There are hundreds of hopefuls battling it out for a town or county post miles from home, shelling out large sums on training courses, giving up life experiences … and for what?

According to the logic of Chinese humor, the goal is probably a kind of “off-the-peg life”: more stable work begets higher social status, higher social status begets preferential treatment in selecting a mate, a premium mate begets premium offspring, and so on.

Those studying for the civil service examinations may be doing so mainly because they see no alternative. If they had a single decent job offer in hand, the fierce competition wouldn’t be so terrifying. Ultimately, given the stark reality of the acceptance ratio, all their efforts are laughably deluded.

From the point of view of society as a whole, using a couple of hundred thousand official vacancies to placate ten million young people is undoubtedly an epic feat of social engineering. But from another angle, a society of Fan Jins flocking toward a chance at stability runs a serious risk of ossification and imbalance.

I’ve really been quite struck by occupational bias recently. For degree-holders in some fields, the civil service exams are the only way out. [Chinese]

The brutality of the current job market was illustrated recently by a censored meme comparing attendees at a Hangzhou job fair with the famous Terracotta Warriors in Xi’an. “The Terracotta Warriors aren’t packed in as tightly,” quipped one Weibo user. “Different armies, same hole,” commented another.

The sale of CK Hutchison’s two ports at each end of the Panama Canal was part of a US$23 billion deal to sell 43 ports spread over 23 countries to a consortium led by United States investment firm BlackRock. CK Hutchison will pocket US$19 billion.

[…] “We have noticed this transaction, and will review it in accordance with the law to ensure fair competition in the market and safeguard the public interest,” a spokesman from the anti-monopoly department under [China’s State Administration for Market Regulation] said in a written reply.

The watchdog did not reveal when the investigation would be launched but its response was later reposted on the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office website.

[…] Earlier on Friday, a source close to CK Hutchison said the conglomerate would not go ahead with the expected signing of the deal [this] Wednesday.

“There will not be an official signing of the two Panama ports deal next week,” a source close to CK Hutchison told the Post [last Friday].

April 2 was a deadline set for CK Hutchison and the BlackRock consortium to sign a definitive agreement over the deal for the two ports, according to an announcement of the sale on March 4. [Source]

The Chinese government signaled its opposition to the deal through the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office’s reposting of over half a dozen articles published by pro-Beijing Hong Kong newspaper Ta Kung Pao that criticized the deal. The articles described the deal as being “in concert with US hegemony” and said it would lead to “historic mistakes”. On Saturday, the CCTV-linked Weibo account Yuyuantantian posted that the deal was “tantamount to handing a knife to an opponent,” but the post was deleted just minutes later. (See our recent explanation of “handing someone a knife” for more details on the phrase.) On Monday, Oiwan Lam at Global Voices described the criticism of CK Hutchison’s deal in these articles:

Hong Kong-based Chinese propaganda slammed CK Hutchison’s deal as a betrayal of the “motherland” through a series of commentaries which were republished on the website of Beijing’s top office on Hong Kong and Macau Affairs.

The patriotic opinion pieces were first published in China’s state-funded Ta Kung Pao on March 14. The first piece rejects CK Hutchison’s explanation that the deal was a purely commercial decision. It describes Blackrock’s role as an expanding US port operator that would repress China’s international trade upon taking over CK Hutchison’s port and concludes the deal was an act of betrayal:

[…] The second commentary praises other Hong Kong business leaders, including Henry Fok Ying-tung and Yue-kong Pao, for staying loyal to the party and, in particular, highlights Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei’s role in safeguarding the technological sovereignty of the Chinese telecommunication industry. It urges Chinese businessmen to safeguard China’s national interest. The third and fourth pieces were written in a similar manner, stressing the need for the business sector to serve national interest and demanding that CK Hutchison suspend the deal.

Pro-Beijing influencers also relay China’s discontent. @Hnbhger17, for example, argued on X that CK Hutchison should prioritize selling its port to Chinese corporations, or the deal would negatively impact China’s national security. [Source]

The issue of Li Ka-shing’s patriotism, or alleged lack thereof, has been the subject of heated debate by Chinese netizens, and many online articles and comments supportive of Li have been deleted by platform censors. CDT Chinese editors have archived ten recent essays and articles on the subject, at least three of which have since been censored. A now-deleted satirical essay from WeChat public account 捉刀漫谈max (Zhuōdāo màntán max, "Ghostwriter Chat max") posed the facetious question “How About If Li Ka-Shing Just Sells the Ports to Russia?” and mocked the blind nationalism of those urging Li to ignore business fundamentals and bend the knee to Beijing. An article by WeChat blogger Xu Peng noted the irony of those who would criticize Li for not being “patriotic” enough—despite his decades of generous donations to charitable causes in China—while conveniently overlooking nationalist pundit Sima Nan’s rather unpatriotic record of tax evasion. A now-censored article by science and current-affairs blogger Xiang Dongliang pointed out that CK Hutchison’s proposal only involves the sale of usage rights to the ports—because the ports themselves are under the sovereignty of the nations in which they are located—and that the company does not plan to sell the usage rights to any ports located in China or Hong Kong. Xiang argued that the proposed sale is motivated by CK Hutchison’s need to hedge economic and geopolitical risk, and that absent other Chinese buyers (who would be subject to the same challenges), it is only rational for the company to offload usage rights to the ports to American consortium BlackRock. If the Chinese government and online nationalists are genuinely concerned about port control falling into American hands, Xiang wrote, they should encourage so-called “patriotic” Chinese companies such as Huawei or Hongxing Erke to bid for the ports instead.

A selection of Weibo comments compiled by CDT Chinese editors gives some sense of the heated nationalist rhetoric on Chinese social media in response to Li Ka-shing and CK Hutchison’s plan. “Li Ka-shing’s ‘selling out the country for his own benefit’ deserves the contempt of every Chinese person,” fumed one Weibo user. "Those who insist on ‘short-selling’ their own motherland will disappear in the end!" wrote another. Some of the critical comments brushed aside arguments that the proposed sale was simply a sound business decision: “The interests of the nation and the people should always outrank individual benefit,” one Weibo user opined. “Businesspeople must not be solely profit-driven.”

While Beijing announced it was investigating CK Hutchison’s deal, legal experts said it could be difficult to prove a real risk of breaching China’s anti-monopoly laws. Alonso Illueca at the China-Global South Project described how the Chinese government might also resort to Hong Kong’s National Security Law in order to stop the deal:

In this case, articles 31 and 37 of the national security law allow for its application to companies. Although CK Hutchison is registered in the Cayman Islands and its owner, Li Kai-Shing, has moved most of its assets to Canada, both China and Hong Kong still retain some leverage.

There are reports of ongoing talks to find “a reasonable way out” of the current situation, accompanied by a pause in new collaborations between Chinese state-owned companies and CK Hutchison. Given the broad interpretation of “safeguarding national security,” the principle that guides the Hong Kong national security law, Beijing and Hong Kong could argue that the CK Hutchison-BlackRock deal threatens China’s national security and warrants intervention from the State to safeguard it.

Moreover, Ta Kung Pao called for applying China’s Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law against CK Hutchison, which allows Beijing to impose countermeasures on foreign entities that enforce sanctions or harm China’s interests and has advocated for punitive measures if the deal goes forward. The newspaper also invoked Hong Kong’s National Security Ordinance, further signaling potential legal challenges. [Source]

#Panama: Why did #China pressure Hutchison Port Holdings to delay the @BlackRock deal?

Hutchison was the single largest Chinese company in the business. A deal for 43 ports in 23 countries–199 berths–would have meant one-third of #PRC's global port network wiped out instantly. pic.twitter.com/fYxyAqV8R1

— Ryan Berg, PhD (@RyanBergPhD) March 28, 2025

Many commentators highlighted the consequences should Beijing succeed in blocking CK Hutchison’s deal. Bryan Mercurio, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said “it would be an unprecedented move that could reinforce the claims of President Trump and others asserting that Hong Kong’s trade, finance and policies are not entirely independent from China.” Josh Lipsky, senior director at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center, said, “Torpedoing the deal . . . would send shockwaves all around the financial world.” Commentator Xiang Dongliang noted the potentially chilling effects: “Global investors would conclude that there is no real difference between the government oversight of Hong Kong companies and mainland Chinese companies.” Sinocism’s Bill Bishop predicted, “Now that the PRC has made clear the national security concerns about [the] ports deal, all of their ports globally may be suspect. So they may block this deal, but expect pressure on PRC port holdings in other parts of the world now.”

In an article for Al Jazeera, Erin Hale described Li’s evolution from having close relations to Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin, to his waning political influence under Xi Jinping, along with his gradual divestment away from China. The article references Kevin Yam as saying that “Beijing could use the deal to make an example of the Li family, much as it did to Alibaba founder Jack Ma.” (In 2020, Xi took the dramatic move to suspend the initial public offering of Ma’s Ant Group after Ma openly challenged government regulators.) A now-deleted article from Sina Finance highlighted the precarity of Li’s situation—and indeed that of all Chinese entrepreneurs—where national interests are at stake: “When capital collides with the contest between great powers, even the smartest entrepreneurs discover that they are just ordinary people—buffeted by the tides of history, or trapped between a rock and a hard place, and utterly unable to control their own destiny.”

The investigation was launched earlier this month, and Belgian authorities last week arrested four people on charges of corruption and being a member of a criminal organisation. A fifth person was charged with money laundering but released after questioning.

Among the arrested suspects is a lobbyist for Huawei who used to work as an assistant in the European parliament. He is suspected of orchestrating the payment of bribes to parliament workers — notably to secure support for a letter several MEPs signed defending the Chinese company’s interests.

[…] The letter, signed by eight EU lawmakers and sent to the European Commission in January 2021, warns about the “politicisation of the deployment of 5G technology” and criticises the ban of foreign 5G devices based out of an “unsubstantiated fear of national security risks”.

[…] Two people familiar with the investigation said the alleged bribes also included offers of Huawei smartphones and tickets to see a match of the local Anderlecht football team. [Source]

According to the investigative judge in charge of the Belgian probe, “A sum of €15,000 [over $16,000 U.S. dollars] was offered to the writer of the 5G letter, while each co-signatory was offered €1,500,” and “suspicious payments” worth tens of thousands of euros were allegedly arranged in exchange for the related services. Huawei said it takes the allegations “seriously” and has a “zero tolerance policy towards corruption or other wrongdoing.” After the corruption case was announced, E.U. institutions expelled Huawei lobbyists from their premises, but some lawmakers expressed concern about loopholes that the lobbyists could use to circumvent the ban, including using a visitor pass or lobbying through umbrella trade associations that continue to represent Huawei. Last week, Politico described Huawei’s extensive record of lobbying within the E.U.:

The company threw lavish parties in glamorous venues featuring fancy buffets and dance performances — like its reception celebrating the Chinese new year at the Concert Noble in Brussels — and was known for thanking contacts with generous gift bags, some including a Huawei phone.

[…] To navigate the geopolitical storm [over security and espionage concerns that spiked after 2019], the firm offered six-figure salaries to former Western journalists and politicians with direct lines to places of power like the Elysée and Westminster.

[…] According to EU transparency register data, Huawei Technologies spent between €2 million and €2.25 million on EU lobbying in 2021, 2022 and 2023 — a lot, but still below its lobbying costs in preceding years, which were estimated at around €3 million in 2018, 2019 and 2020.

Huawei in October declared it had 11 full-time EU lobbyists, nine of whom were accredited to access the European Parliament. At its peak it declared 21. [Source]

On Monday, Alexander Fanta and Simon van Dorpe at Dutch investigative news outlet Follow the Money published an article about the scandal, underlining the alleged, long-running role of top Huawei executives:

The bribery allegations, including the amounts allegedly paid to the signatories, correspond to a complaint that the NGO Transparency International EU received in 2022 and forwarded to the EU anti-fraud office OLAF. However, OLAF decided not to open an investigation, stating there was “no sufficient suspicion”.

[…] According to the arrest warrant, the money transfers intended to disguise the bribes “would have been endorsed by the Chinese executives of Huawei, in particular Abraham Liu”, who at the time was the company’s vice-president for the European region and its chief EU representative. The warrant does not state why investigators believe Chinese executives were involved.

[Valerio] Ottati, Huawei’s Belgian-Italian head of public affairs [who is accused of orchestrating the bribery operation], allegedly told a Polish Huawei employee that Brussels lobbyists “often cross the line and even pay for amendments”, according to a wiretap in his Volkswagen Tiguan, referred to in the arrest warrant.

Former Huawei staff members in Brussels told Follow the Money, Knack and Le Soir that Ottati’s problematic behaviour was widely known within the company, but tolerated by higher-ups. Several employees said they had raised concerns about Ottati, including warnings about possible corruption, but that these were never seriously followed up on. [Source]

The current Huawei corruption scandal evokes the 2022 Qatargate corruption scandal, in which European authorities seized 1.5 million euros in cash and arrested four MEPs on corruption charges related to illicit influence by Qatar, Morocco, and Mauritania. (The full investigation is still ongoing.) Politico noted that one of the offices sealed in the Huawei probe belonged to Adam Mouchtar, co-founder of a group that had as its president Eva Kaili, who was arrested in the Qatargate probe. In reaction to the Huawei probe, Nicholas Aiossa, Director at Transparency International EU, said “These new allegations are as sweeping and serious as Qatargate and make a mockery of democracy at the European Parliament. For too long, MEPs have taken a carefree approach to ethics and continue to exist in a culture of impunity. If MEPs want to protect the integrity of the Parliament, they need to bring about swift, wide-ranging, and substantial ethics reform.”

Against the backdrop of the Huawei scandal is a shifting and at times contradictory E.U. policy landscape vis-a-vis China. Last week, The Financial Times reported that the European Commission had begun an investigation into whether China provided unfair subsidies for a BYD electric car plant in Hungary, underscoring the E.U.’s concern with Chinese economic and security threats. But recent data also shows that 17 E.U. member states have not fully implemented the Commission’s 5G cybersecurity toolbox from 2020 that mandates a ban on Huawei and ZTE from their networks. The nationalist tabloid Global Times pounced on these divergences in three recent editorials, arguing that “Europe should dismantle the barriers of suspicion” when it comes to Chinese telecom suppliers and make “a rational choice to turn further toward China.” However, the Global Times has so far made no mention of the Huawei corruption probe. Acknowledging the growing fractures in the transatlantic relationship, a recent article in The Economist suggested that “Europe will have to zip its lips over China’s abuses” in order to safeguard its broader trade goals.

The frequently self-congratulatory “315 Gala” has long been accused of targeting low-hanging fruit, ignoring China’s glaring lack of consumer-product oversight, and naming and shaming only the most egregious offenders. One WeChat article, “Could Our Standards Possibly Fall Any Lower?,” complained that amidst a constant flood of product-safety scandals such as fake hot-pot ingredients, pig ears adulterated with glue, and dangerous fillings used in everything from sanitary pads to down jackets, March 15 Consumer Rights Day seems like nothing more than “a drop in the ocean.” A leaked censorship directive from 2018 reveals how Chinese news outlets, including state media, are encouraged to trumpet the successes of the “315 Gala,” particularly when the targets are foreign companies behaving badly. While a recent opinion piece in the China Daily acknowledged that “consumer rights protection should be a continuous effort, not just reliant on an annual gala that names and shames,” its main argument was that improving consumer rights protection is essential to stimulating consumer spending to shore up a flagging economy. Perhaps not coincidentally, on March 15 Chinese financial regulators also launched a crackdown on “rumors and fake news” about the stock market. According to the Securities Times, regulators plan to “hit early, hit hard, and hit at the heart" of the issue.

There is also some censorship of online discussion and comments critical of the 315 Gala. In one now-deleted comment, Weibo user 渝剑飘尘三代 (Yú Jiàn piāochén sāndài) highlighted the profound disconnect between the many public- and product-safety scandals and the insistence by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs that China remains one of the safest places in the world:

Food is unsafe, cafeterias are unsafe,
edible oil is unsafe, shopkeepers’ property is unsafe,
students’ lives are unsafe, our personal data is unsafe,
the elderly are unsafe, women are unsafe,
even sanitary napkins are unsafe.
—But the Ministry of Foreign Affairs says: “China is globally recognized as one of the safest countries in the world!” [Chinese]

CDT Chinese editors have archived five articles and essays about 2025’s Consumer Rights Day. The first, from WeChat blogger Xiang Dongliang, focuses on how lax supervision facilitates the sale of counterfeit and substandard goods (often classified as “white-label” or “bulk-sale” products) on Chinese e-commerce platforms. “Destroying one such ‘den’ might throw a scare into an industry and bring about a temporary pause,” the author writes, “but if the root cause—e-commerce platforms looking the other way and allowing counterfeit or shoddy “white-label” products to flood their sites—is not eliminated, then next year and the year after that will see yet another tainted industry, yet another dark scandal brought to light.” A lengthy article from WeChat public account “Uncle Lei Writes Stories” mainly discusses quality problems with sanitary pads and other products. The author praises e-commerce site JD.com for paying attention to quality control, but complains that other platforms neglect their responsibilities to consumers and are afflicted by brutal price competition that incentivizes them to keep advertising shoddy products from third-party sellers. A piece by WeChat public account Gen Z Lab also notes the ongoing problem of sanitary pad quality, in addition to a roundup of current issues and news events related to women, including the topic of domestic violence.

An article from the youth-focused WeChat public account “Fourth Ring Road Youth” highlights a viral exposé about the reuse of food scraps at certain franchise locations of the vast fast-food chain Yang Mingyu’s Braised Chicken with Rice. After some restaurant employees told a Beijing News investigative journalist that they collected food scraps at the end of the day, mixed them together, and reused them the following morning, the journalist reminded readers “not to order takeout before 11:00 a.m.” The story horrified netizens and it became a trending topic online.

An article from WeChat public account QUEERTAIK异见 described a consumer-rights-themed March 15 broadcast from Jiangsu Radio and Television and Lizhi News that called on certain language learning apps to ban LGBTQ+ content because it was “incorrect.” Some of the so-called "incorrect" English-language examples mentioned on the broadcast included the word “lesbian” and the sentence “My aunt has a wife.” Incredulous netizens accused the show of “trying to erase the existence of gender minorities” and heaped scorn on the broadcasters:

"Considering all of the TV shows I’ve watched about straight men and women falling in love, how come I haven’t become straight yet?"

“Do they think just reading the word ‘lesbian’ is going to make people gay?”

"Cartoons show Prince Charming kissing Snow White, but it’s not like after watching them, kids run around the next day randomly smooching people!” [Chinese]