Milan (AsiaNews) – Unlike in the past, the Chinese government now openly acknowledges that the level of consumption in the country is too low. A few weeks ago, Qiushi, the Communist Party’s theoretical journal, published a commentary on the gap between sustained supply and weak consumption, admitting that the imbalance is affecting the entire economy.
In the same article, however, Beijing’s ideological mouthpiece is quick to play down the phenomenon, describing it as temporary and arguing that it is not indicative of a low standard of living. As a remedy, the magazine reiterates well-worn solutions such as major infrastructure projects and points out that this year’s investment in networks – from water to energy – will exceed 7,000 billion yuan.
Meanwhile, in August, retail sales grew by a mere 0.4 per cent and the gap with industrial output reached its widest level in over three years. At a seminar on consumption organised in Nanchang, some economists close to the government proposed expanding consumer credit, whilst others noted that an ageing population is unlikely to spend more.
According to economist Huang Yiping, a member of the central bank’s monetary policy committee, artificial intelligence risks exacerbating the imbalance, as it increases production capacity faster than household incomes are rising.
A key issue that official documents merely touch upon without addressing it fully is that of social spending. China allocates around 8 per cent of GDP to this expenditure item, compared with an average of 21 per cent in OECD countries, and the pension system remains marked by profound inequalities. Pensioners in the public sector receive several thousand yuan a month, whilst for some 180 million elderly people living in rural areas, the average amount is just 287 yuan, equivalent to around 38 euros.
There are also significant inequalities regarding contributions and healthcare. In many cities, the threshold on which healthcare contributions are calculated is much higher than the minimum wage, with the result that, after deductions, lower-paid workers end up with an actual take-home pay below the level stipulated by law.
From January 2027, enrolment in medical insurance for residents will become compulsory, after around 83 million people had stopped paying their contributions between 2019 and 2025 due to a lack of funds. The Chinese already pay almost a third of national healthcare expenditure out of their own pockets – more than double the OECD average – and in the situation described, saving becomes a form of insurance against future expenses for many.
Work, wages and discontent
This need to save also leads people to work far longer hours than in other countries. Employees currently work an average of 48.2 hours a week, compared with the statutory maximum of 44, and nearly 70 per cent of workers are unable to take all the annual leave to which they are entitled. However, the longer working hours do not translate into a significant increase in income.
The nearly 300 million migrant workers earned an average of 5,075 yuan per month last year, just 2.3 per cent more than the previous year, whilst labour disputes over unpaid wages are rising sharply. As Mingwei Liu, director of the Centre for Global Labour and Employment at Rutgers University, observes, the implicit pact whereby the more sacrifices one makes, the greater the reward, has been broken.
In September, discontent over these conditions turned into a protest that used consumer spending as a means of exerting pressure. The initiative targeted tiaoxiu, that is, the system of compensatory days whereby the state schedules longer national holidays, whilst making the weekends immediately before or after them working days.
On 20 September, in the run-up to the traditional national holiday week in early October – during which consumer spending typically reaches one of its annual peaks – three of the top four most searched topics on Weibo, China’s leading social network, concerned precisely these compensatory working days. Topping the rankings was a hashtag about the gap between how this system is applied in China and how it works abroad, followed in second place by the slogan “tiaoxiu is designed to encourage spending, not rest”.
A call to boycott spending during the holidays quickly rose to fourth place before being censored. Meanwhile, another hashtag opposing the make-up days exceeded 360 million views. Many users announced that they would spend nothing during the holidays, whilst others called on people to go out without buying anything to leave shop tills empty. The protest overturns the reasoning of the experts who, at the Nanchang seminar, had proposed changing the public holiday calendar to give citizens more free time to devote to leisure and spending.
The protest against businesses
Another form of protest, however, has directly targeted businesses. Between July and August, the movement for a free weekend, shuangxiu, began collecting reports from employees of companies that do not guarantee two days’ rest per week, urging consumers not to buy their products or services.
An app created specifically to compare working conditions across different companies had gathered around 150,000 submissions before being suspended in early September, and the app that had since replaced it was also shut down on the 26th of last month.
In videos calling for a boycott of companies accused of excessively exploiting their employees, the name BYD – China’s largest electric car manufacturer – features particularly prominently, followed by other major groups such as Huawei. As the national holiday approached, the protests took on new forms.
On 28 September, a China Unicom employee in Liaocheng, Shandong, revealed that his branch had informed staff they were required to work during the first three days of the holiday, without overtime pay or compensatory time off, in order to meet sales targets.
On 1 October, the first day of the holiday, videos began circulating on Douyin – the Chinese version of TikTok – showing workers with their heads covered in black sacks denouncing the fact that their company was not granting them time off during the national holiday period.
The authorities responded once again with censorship. On 24 September, a video posted on the Bilibili platform by the Communist Youth League, dedicated to the flags displayed in cities for the national holiday, was inundated with comments; the word shuangxiu appeared more than 1,700 times in just twenty minutes.
A few days later, the ability to share the video was blocked, and virtually the only comments left visible were those offering good wishes to the motherland.
The previous week, the Cyberspace Administration – the body that regulates the internet – had ordered platforms to remove content that disparaged state-owned enterprises or contradicted their public statements, thereby targeting one of the tools used by the movement to promote boycotts. Yet some critical voices have even managed to find their way into the state-run press.
The Qilu Wanbao, an evening newspaper in Shandong province, wrote that the protection of the right to rest often remains an empty promise and that the authorities must remedy this.
What has happened in recent weeks has highlighted a contradiction that is difficult to resolve. The Chinese system needs consumers, but it produces exhausted workers who use their refusal to spend as a weapon to voice their dissatisfaction.
