As the National Day and Mid-Autumn holidays ended, Beijing’s propaganda machine roared to life. In a bid to “restore confidence,” People’s Daily released eight sweeping essays extolling China’s economic “resilience” and “potential.” Instead of reassurance, the campaign sparked a wave of derision online.
The essays—laden with lofty titles such as “China’s Economic Transformation from a Global Perspective” and “Understanding the Logic of Long-Term Stability”—acknowledged “challenges” only to pivot back to the Party line: transformation takes time; different groups feel differently; the “temperature gap” between data and daily life is normal. The message was unmistakable: Don’t judge the entire economy by a few unhappy business owners—see both the trees and the forest.
The metaphor backfired. Social media erupted with biting sarcasm: “You can’t say the economy’s bad just because restaurants are empty, factories idle, and apartments unsold.” “You can’t deny success just because 99% of small firms are losing money.” “Don’t let your misery negate the leaders’ happiness—officials and tycoons are doing just fine.”
Behind the humor lay a deeper resentment—toward a system divided between “taxpayers” and “tax-eaters.” Private entrepreneurs and workers bear the weight of stagnation, while bureaucrats and Party elites remain shielded from risk. No wonder millions of young people are now scrambling to join the civil service: stability has become the new aspiration.
For People’s Daily to claim that “some are doing well” as proof of national prosperity struck many as darkly ironic. Netizens compared it to Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying’s notorious remark: “I’m one of China’s 1.4 billion people. My colleagues are too. Why haven’t we felt any oppression?” Others recalled propaganda classics like “The Whole of China Is Brimming With Optimism.”
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Analysts noted a subtler irony: the louder Beijing speaks of “certainty,” the more uncertain it appears. “The obsession with stability reveals a system deeply unsure of itself,” one economist told The Epoch Times. Ordinary citizens, not Politburo theorists, understand the real economy—because they live it. To many, the essays read less like domestic policy analysis and more like foreign propaganda designed to project calm.
Inside the system, a lone truth-teller warns Beijing: ‘Reform or decline’
Among China’s chorus of loyal economists, Wang Xiaolu stands out as a rare truth-teller. Measured yet unsparing, his recent remarks have reverberated across policy circles.
Recalling the Mao-era planned economy, Wang noted how the state once sought to control everything. By 1978, on the eve of reform and opening, China’s per capita GDP was just US$200—proof that central planning leads only to poverty. “Relying on the government to solve everything simply doesn’t work,” he said. Marketization, he argued, is not a Western idea but a universal rule of human progress. China, he warned, must learn from global experience rather than reject it for ideological reasons.
Today, per capita GDP stands around US$12,000—an enormous leap, yet far from prosperity. The median disposable income in 2024 was 31,000 yuan (roughly US$360 a month), meaning that half of all Chinese citizens still struggle to cover basic needs. Boasting of being “the world’s No. 2,” or soon “No. 1,” is, Wang cautioned, “a dangerous illusion.” “Even the U.S. calls China a developed country,” he quipped, “because China itself keeps saying so.”
China’s most corrosive fault line, Wang argued, is inequality. The official Gini coefficient of 0.46 already exceeds that of the United States—and the real gap may be wider. High-income groups often conceal earnings for tax or political reasons, skewing official statistics. “This isn’t just inequality,” Wang said. “It’s a credibility crisis for the entire data system.”
Real estate is another trap of the regime’s own making. Local governments rely on “land finance”—monopolizing land sales to fund themselves and inflating housing prices. Years of easy credit turned property into the default stimulus tool, creating a glut of empty apartments and unsustainable debt. “Relaxing restrictions might ease the pain,” Wang warned, “but it won’t cure the disease. We’ve spent tomorrow’s demand to sustain today’s illusion.”
Consumption: The core of the crisis
The deeper problem lies in consumption. Household spending makes up only 38 percent of GDP, compared with more than 60 percent in developed economies. Half of China’s 460 million urban workers are migrants with no local welfare coverage. “When they lose their jobs,” Wang noted, “they lose everything—forcing them to save rather than spend.” “Consumption isn’t stimulated,” he said. “It’s earned—through security and trust.” Car subsidies and “holiday coupons” may buy time, but not confidence. Without social protection, households will continue hoarding cash instead of driving growth.
Wang accused local officials of chasing short-term GDP targets by pouring money into vanity projects and post-COVID “quarantine hospitals” long after they were needed. The result is a legacy of debt, overcapacity, and disillusionment. “Consumption, not construction, should be the engine of growth,” he said. “Otherwise, investment only builds empty towers and ghost factories.”
Market interference and the call for reform
While Beijing champions “internal circulation,” Wang warned that it must not become isolated. Private enterprises produce most of China’s growth, yet face relentless interference. Local authorities even plant “liaison officers” inside companies—officially to assist, unofficially to monitor. “In a market economy,” Wang said, “those who meddle without bearing responsibility only make things worse.”
His prescription is simple yet radical: redraw the boundary between state and market. The government should shift from controller to service provider—delivering public goods, not manipulating industries. Fiscal reform must redirect spending from showcase projects to social welfare. Land and household registration reforms must accelerate to create a unified national market. “Equal public services,” Wang said, “mean equal rights, not identical benefits.” Why, he asked, “should two city workers doing the same job enjoy different protections?”
Today, unemployment insurance covers barely half of China’s jobless population, and only a quarter actually receive benefits. Such inequities, Wang argued, “crush confidence—and with it, consumption.”
Wang rejects populist welfare as unrealistic amid a slowdown. Instead, he advocates “universal but modest coverage”—a safety net for all, not luxuries for a few. China’s strengths remain vast: its scale, technological potential, and adaptability. But its threats are structural—an unbalanced system, a debt-laden model, and a government allergic to letting go. “An aging population isn’t the enemy,” he concluded. “Complacency is.” Automation can replace labor—but not freedom, innovation, or trust.
China’s ‘Golden Week’ turns bronze: Record travel, shrinking spending
Wang’s warnings echo in the latest data. Behind the packed tourist sites and glowing headlines lies a sobering truth: the Chinese are traveling more—but spending less.
During the eight-day National Day–Mid-Autumn holiday in 2025, domestic trips hit 880 million, yet total spending reached only 809 billion yuan. Average daily spending per person fell 13 percent, to just 114 yuan—the lowest in a decade. Even with statistical “beautification,” the message is clear: the middle class is tightening its belt. The era of “poor man’s tourism” has begun.
Scenic sites overflowed, but restaurants and hotels were half-empty. Guesthouses that raised prices in anticipation of a boom saw occupancy drop below 50 percent. Young travelers now sleep in cars, eat self-heating meals, and camp by highways. Traffic no longer equals revenue. For the first time, China’s tourism industry is facing the collapse of its “cut-and-harvest” model.
The same applies to entertainment. This year’s National Day box office hit just 1.8 billion yuan—its weakest since 2015, excluding the pandemic years. Between 2016 and 2018, when property prices doubled, ticket sales nearly tripled. Since 2021, both have crashed in tandem. When property wealth evaporates, so does confidence. For many households burdened with debt, leisure has become a luxury. Spending hundreds of yuan and half a day for a movie now feels extravagant when short videos offer instant, free distraction. If there’s a symbol of China’s consumption downgrade, it’s the empty cinema.
Even the stock market’s 50 percent surge since 2024 hasn’t lifted the mood. Equities make up only 15 percent of household assets, so even big gains raise total wealth by barely 7 percent. Most investors reinvest their profits; the poor have none to invest. Economists call it the marginal paradox: the rich save more as they earn more, while the poor consume less as they earn less. The result: crowded streets, empty wallets.
Reform or ruin: Beijing’s “spiritual prosperity” cannot hide a material decline
The Party’s propaganda blitz, bleak consumption data, and Wang Xiaolu’s unflinching critique all point to a single reality: beneath the shimmer of official data lies an economy in quiet distress.
China’s leaders have tried to drown anxiety in optimism—publishing essays about “resilience,” “certainty,” and “confidence.” But citizens feel none of it. The numbers may shine on paper, but daily life is dimming. A decade into Xi Jinping’s rule, people are not moving up—they are scaling down. “Frugal travel” has become the new prosperity.
Amid the silence of conformity, voices like Wang’s are exceedingly rare. He calls for structural reform, fairer distribution, and a rebalancing of power between state and market before China sinks into the middle-income trap—a purgatory where ambition outpaces freedom and progress stalls. His warning is both moral and economic: prosperity cannot be faked.
Beijing’s greatest danger now is self-deception. It celebrates “spiritual wealth” while material hardship deepens; it measures growth by slogans instead of satisfaction. But no nation can feed its people with propaganda. If China’s rulers truly wish to restore confidence, they must listen to the governed—not the echo of their own speeches. Real reform, not rhetoric, is the only path forward. Anything less will turn “high-quality development” into yet another Party slogan—glittering in print, hollow in life.
