In the previous edition of the meeting in 2015, Xi also delivered a keynote address. He presented four key proposals in both his 2015 and 2025 addresses. Comparing the two reveals important shifts that highlight China’s latest progress and top-level policy guidance on gender equality, as well as its evolving perspective on women’s development from a global standpoint.

First, we should jointly foster an enabling environment for women’s growth and development. Their all-round development is achieved under the prerequisite of peace and tranquility. We need to uphold the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, and must safeguard world peace, so that all women can bask in the sunlight of happiness and tranquility and stay away from the shadow of war and turmoil.

The shift in the ordering of points is notable. In 2015, “combating violence against women” and “peace and tranquility” were addressed as the third and fourth points, respectively. This year, they were moved to the first point, with significant emphasis on the importance of peace. This change comes against the backdrop of an increasingly turbulent world marked by frequent regional conflicts and multiple humanitarian crises.

Additionally, in 2015, the statement “We must eradicate all forms of violence against women, including domestic violence“ specifically highlighted domestic violence. Just a year later, the Anti-Domestic Violence Law of the People’s Republic of China came into effect, signaling a rapid legislative response to the issue.

拓宽妇女参政议政渠道，支持妇女广泛参与国家和社会治理。共同营造尊重妇女的良好氛围，使性别平等真正内化为全社会的文明共识和行为准则。

We should broaden the channels for women to participate in and deliberate on political affairs, and support their extensive engagement in state and social governance. We should jointly nurture an environment that respects women, and morph gender equality into a common value and a code of conduct embraced by everyone in our society.

Reuters suggests in a report that the first sentence above, which calls for greater political participation for women, will “ensure” gender equality being “truly internalized” within society as noted in the second sentence.

BEIJING/HONG KONG, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday called for greater representation for women in politics and government at a global women’s summit in Beijing, a move he said would ensure that gender equality is “truly internalized” within society.

Reuters’ interpretation suggests a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the two. However, given the conventions of Chinese official speeches and documents, as well as the structure of this paragraph, the two sentences are more likely intended as separate points addressing different dimensions of gender equality — one concerning policy-level participation, and the other broader cultural and societal change. In this sense, Reuters’ report misrepresented the logical relationship between the two.

To further compare those two sentences with the statement made in 2015, the shift reflects a clear change in focus.

2015 version:

要增强妇女参与政治经济活动能力，提高妇女参与决策管理水平，使妇女成为政界、商界、学界的领军人物。

We must build up women’s capacity to play their part in society and economy, involve women in higher levels of decision-making, and support them in becoming leaders in political, business, and academic fields.

In 2015, the emphasis was on individual empowerment, focusing on enhancing women’s personal capabilities and providing opportunities for leadership roles across various sectors. The statement targeted personal development, encouraging women’s involvement in politics, business, and academia.

In contrast, the 2025 statement places greater emphasis on systemic support, particularly within political and governance structures. The focus is on creating broader channels for women’s participation and influence in decision-making processes, signaling a clear message to support women’s roles in governance.

The absence of specific references to business and academia in the 2025 statement likely reflects the progress women have already made in these areas. It reminds me of a recent podcast episode with Professor Yueping Song from the School of Population and Health at Renmin University of China, who noted that eight of her ten PhD students are women.

Ginger River Review

How far has China come on gender equality? - with Yueping Song

This week on Inside the China Room with Jiang Jiang, I’m joined by Professor Yueping Song from the School of Population and Health at Renmin University of China to explore the current landscape of gender equality in China…

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6 months ago · 1 like · Jiang Jiang and Yifei Shi

According to a white paper on China’s achievements in women’s well-rounded development, released by the State Council Information Office in September, points out that women now make up over 50 percent of internet entrepreneurs, indicating significant strides in these sectors.

今天，中国妇女在经济社会发展中真正发挥着“半边天”作用。中国全社会就业人员中女性占比超过四成，互联网领域创业者中女性超过一半，过去4届夏季奥运会奖牌获得者中女性占比超过60%。新时代的中国女性正在以前所未有的自信和活力参与国家和社会治理全过程，奋战在乡村振兴和共同富裕第一线，拼搏于科技创新和数字转型最前沿，书写着昂扬奋进的巾帼华章。中国式现代化新征程上，每一位妇女都是主角！

Today, women in China truly “hold up half the sky” in economic and social development. They make up more than 40 percent of the workforce, more than half of internet start-up founders, and more than 60 percent of all medalists in the past four Summer Olympic Games. In the new era, Chinese women, more confident and vibrant than ever before, are taking part in the whole process of state and social governance. They are fighting on the front lines for rural revitalization and common prosperity as well as scientific innovation and digital transition. They are writing a splendid history of the cause of women in China. On the new journey of Chinese modernization, every woman is a star.

Aligning with the idea of women as stars in Chinese modernization, the chair’s statement emphasizes “fully leveraging the principal role and transformative power of women in development, and empowering women to participate in and lead the pursuit of sustainable development and prosperity.”

It should be noted that the concept of “a Chinese path to modernization” holds significant weight in China’s political sphere. In his report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Xi emphasized that it is the central task of the Party leadership.

Compared to the corresponding section 2015 (below), this year’s address highlights more specifically Chinese women’s achievements in key areas of modernization, such as entrepreneurship, sports, tech innovation, and grassroots governance.

Two key stats: over 50 percent of internet entrepreneurs are women, and women account for more than 60 percent of medalists in the past four Summer Olympics.

2015 version:

在中国人民追求美好生活的过程中，每一位妇女都有人生出彩和梦想成真的机会。中国将更加积极贯彻男女平等基本国策，发挥妇女“半边天”作用，支持妇女建功立业、实现人生理想和梦想。中国妇女也将通过自身发展不断促进世界妇女运动发展，为全球男女平等事业作出更大贡献。

As the Chinese people pursue a happy life, every Chinese woman has the opportunities to excel in life and make their dream come true. China will do more to enhance gender equality as its basic state policy, give play to women’s important role as “half of the sky” and support them in realizing their own dreams and aspirations in both career and life. The Chinese women, through their own development, will also play a greater part in global women’s movement and make greater contribution to gender equality in the world.

The phrase “Women hold up half the sky,” first introduced in the 1950s in China to promote gender equality, has been widely used for over 70 years.

Compared to a decade ago, when the role of women as “half the sky” was mentioned, there is a clear tone shift, which reflects a subtle but strategic evolution in messaging.

The earlier statement, “China will give play to women’s important role as ‘half of the sky,’” was framed in terms of potential -- an aspirational goal indicating intention but not yet fully realized. It projected a need for action, implying women’s role was something to be nurtured.

In contrast, the current statement, “Today, women in China truly ‘hold up half the sky’ in economic and social development,” firmly establishes that this goal has been achieved. It’s no longer aspirational but declarative, positioning women’s contributions as not only integral but already embedded in the nation’s core development narrative.

Another big difference, compared with many Western countries, lies in China’s residential communities. Here, many people live in what’s called a xiaoqu “小区” — a cluster of apartment buildings grouped together within a gated compound, with multiple entrances for people and vehicles. Whether it’s a luxury development, a middle-class complex, or what locals half-jokingly call an old , shabby little community (lao po xiao “老破小”), one thing is consistent: there are usually security guards posted at the gates.

When I lived in the U.S., I rarely saw this. Some upscale apartment buildings might have a front desk on the first floor, but that’s quite different from the setup in China. And the guards you see at the entrances here—often middle-aged uncles in their forties or fifties—don’t exactly project overwhelming defensive power. Still, they’re part of the standard landscape of almost every community. Think about it: millions of Chinese people pass by their community’s guards every day on their way to work or errands, and in turn, these guards quietly watch over the daily comings and goings of one of the most populous countries on Earth.

But who are these guards, really? Beyond the official role of “keeping the community safe,” do they serve other functions? And how do Chinese residents view them?

Today’s newsletter is about China’s community security guards. Guangzhou-based Southern Weekly recently interviewed Dr. He Wapi, a cultural anthropology Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, who conducted fieldwork between 2017 and 2018 in Shanghai’s Dadi Community—an enormous residential compound of more than 100 high-rise buildings, once home to some 60,000 residents. I found the interview fascinating and wanted to share it with you.

Dr. He Wapi

Dr. He is also a novelist and the writer behind the WeChat blog Meiyao Garden, which explores criminal cases in China, with a special focus on unsolved mysteries and headline-making incidents.

Security guards, as the name implies, exist to protect safety. In a residential community, one might assume that when a sudden violent incident occurs, guards should be the first to respond. That was precisely what He Wapi thought at first.

For her doctoral dissertation, He Wapi chose to study security guards in Chinese residential communities. Between 2017 and 2018, she conducted fieldwork in Dadi Community, a Shanghai neighborhood with over 100 high-rise buildings and a population that once peaked at 60,000. Only then did she realize that reality was far from what she had imagined.

While having meals with the guards, she heard them discuss a 2016 homicide that occurred in the community. She casually remarked that if they had arrived earlier that day, they might have saved the victim.

“Are you kidding? How could we stop someone who’s gone mad? He had a knife, and we had nothing,” one guard said. “I wouldn’t even try.”

She asked the other guards what they would do if they faced a similar situation again.

“Run, of course!” one said. Another added that they would call the police before fleeing.

Of course, the likelihood of encountering such emergencies is low. After 2010, the SkyNet surveillance project expanded across cities in China. As a result, urban crime rates began to fall, yet the number of residential security guards continued to rise. Why does the guard presence keep growing even as the environment becomes safer? He Wapi sees it as a reflection of middle-class anxieties over social status and wealth.

1. Moving Stone Blocks, Clearing Trash, and Cracking Down on Illegal Group Rentals

Southern Weekly: What inspired you to study security guards?

He Wapi: I’ve always been interested in crime research and have paid close attention to public safety data. Compared to other developing countries and even some developed nations, urban crime rates in China are actually very low. According to official reports, China’s homicide rate in 2016 was 0.62 per 100,000 people—one of the lowest in the world. By contrast, the U.S. rate in 2015 was 4.88. Between 2012 and 2016, major violent crimes in China dropped by 43%.

Given how safe Chinese cities are, I wondered: why are there so many security guards in residential communities? How much does their daily work actually relate to public safety? In a global context, Chinese residential guards are quite unique.

Southern Weekly: What were communities like when you lived in the U.S.?

He Wapi: I initially lived in graduate dormitories, scattered along sloping hills with no walls. Any outsider could walk into the apartments. The only community I lived in with security measures had controlled access at each building entrance, but the overall area was open. I never saw community guards where I lived.

In the U.S., only a few gated, upscale communities can afford 24-hour guards. These guards usually receive training in restraint techniques, first aid, and emergency equipment. Even without firearms, they carry tools like batons, pepper spray, and handcuffs. China is different. Today, whether it’s a luxury development or an old neighborhood, guards are standard. I have relatives living in an old Shanghai lane — there’s no property management, but the local residents’ committee still hires guards for them.

Southern Weekly: Was your fieldwork in Dadi Community as you imagined?

He Wapi: I chose Dadi Community because of its reputation for chaos and danger. I thought I would witness many dangerous incidents and see guards actively perform their security duties. But reality was very different.

Within two days of arriving, the property management needed to move three large stone blocks that were blocking a road, so that an engineering vehicle could pass. Captain Ade and two guards arrived. Each block weighed 100-150 kilos, difficult for two people to lift. Guards spend most of their time handling such trivial tasks.

Southern Weekly: So what role do guards actually play during emergencies?

He Wapi: In Dadi Community, the security contract clearly instructs guards not to harm themselves or others, and not to let themselves be harmed. When danger arises, they are not encouraged to confront criminals directly—they are told to call the police.

Most guards have no combat training and are not allowed to carry weapons. In 2014, a Shanghai guard killed his team leader with a knife after being reprimanded in front of other guards. Following that, many security companies banned dangerous tools in monitoring rooms or dormitories. Today, when faced with danger, community guards simply dial 110 or 119. In some new communities, guards are now provided with shields and anti-riot forks.

Southern Weekly: Shields and forks are defensive—guards cannot actively attack.

He Wapi: Exactly. It reflects a lack of trust in guards. For security companies, any injury to a guard is costly. In Dadi, a company earns about 10,000 yuan per month—an accident could wipe out years of profit. Some companies now deduct 30 yuan from guards’ salaries monthly to buy accident insurance, so the insurance covers any injuries.

Southern Weekly: Besides moving stone blocks, what other “trivial tasks” do guards perform?

He Wapi: For example, after renovations, residents often leave building materials in stairwells. Since the cleaning staff are mostly elderly with limited strength, guards are asked to clear the trash. Another example: in 2017, shared bikes were popular. Despite signs forbidding them in the community, hundreds of bikes still entered daily. Two guards would search the entire community each night, load the bikes onto carts, and move them outside in batches.

Southern Weekly: These tasks don’t seem like they should be part of a guard’s duties. Why are they willing to do this work?

He Wapi: The thing is, in Dadi Community there’s a lot of manual labor in public areas that needs to be done every day. Who else could handle it besides the guards? The scope of a guard’s responsibilities is vague —there’s little clarity on which resident requests or emergencies they should respond to. Because of this ambiguity, security companies, residents, property management, and the local neighborhood committee often overstep boundaries, asking guards to handle chores beyond traditional security duties.

The most obvious example is “Cracking Down on Illegal Group Rentals.” In 2016, when the campaign to regulate illegal group rentals began (per capita living space below the legal standard, or occupancy exceeding the permitted number per room), the street office required the security team to send four or five guards to participate in routine apartment inspections. It was physically demanding work, requiring four half-days per week. The street office promised 50 yuan per guard per day, but the payment was never delivered. Although the guards were disappointed, no one asked the street office about it.

I asked a guard why he hadn’t followed up. His response was, “We didn’t really lose anything, we just spent the time.” They tend to underestimate the value of their time and labor, and property managers, residents, and street offices may share the same mindset: a guard’s time and effort aren’t considered valuable.

2. Male, Young, Strong

Southern Weekly: You mention in your book that in 2017 the Dadi Community guards underwent changes: instead of being directly hired from Shanghai locals, property management outsourced to security companies, which mostly employed guards from outside the city. What differences exist between local and non-local guards?

He Wapi: Dadi Community is divided into east and west sections. The east outsourced its guards in 2014, while the west followed in 2017. In that year, a local guard in his fifties suffered a fatal heart attack during a night shift. The property management compensated his family 700,000 yuan (about 98,000 U.S. dollars). After that, they outsourced the west section too, so that any future incidents would be the company’s responsibility, not theirs.

Local guards are usually over 55, sometimes over 60. Most live in Dadi or nearby neighborhoods, with socioeconomic backgrounds similar to the residents. The property management pays them only Shanghai’s minimum wage, 2,600 yuan every month (about 365 U.S. dollars), but provides social insurance. They are legally aware, largely undisciplined, and difficult to manage. They work 8-hour shifts, enjoy paid sick leave, and legal holidays.

I conducted fieldwork with Wenwu Security Company in the east section. There, outsourced guards work 12–13 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no holidays. If they take a day off for illness or personal matters, their pay is deducted.

Southern Weekly: How did local guards gradually get replaced by non-local ones?

He Wapi: China’s first security company was founded in December 1984 in Shekou, Shenzhen. It was a state-owned enterprise, established by a police officer, Zhang Zhongfang, who borrowed 100,000 yuan from the local government. Later, the government allowed property companies to hire guards from the market, but private capital was barred from entering the industry. Around 2000, policies stipulated that security service companies could only be fully state-owned, often led by mid-level police officers.

In 2010, the Regulations on the Administration of Security Services allowed private capital into the market. From then on, security companies became independent of the police. Newly established private companies competed for contracts, offering lower prices and better services. Property management, seeking profit maximization, easier oversight, and lower risk, increasingly outsourced guards.

Southern Weekly: You mention that guard age is a standard set by security companies.

He Wapi: At Wenwu, service standards are strictly age-based. Grade A guards are under 35, Grade B between 35 and 45, and Grade C between 45 and 55.

Wenwu Company implements Grade C standards at Dadi Community. Yet even so, not everyone meets the criteria. Out of 40 guards, many are over 55.

Captain Ade believes he advanced quickly in the industry due to his height—1.88 meters (6’2”)—and young, being in his twenties. He assigns older or smaller guards to night shifts, thinking the property manager and residents won’t notice their age at night.

Southern Weekly: Don’t personality or education matter?

He Wapi: When Ade interviews new guards, age and physique are his main concerns. Work experience, education, personality, mental resilience, and even criminal history are largely ignored.

In 2018, 25-year-old Xiao Liang was promoted to team leader. He spoke softly and had a slight stutter. Even without a commanding personality, a young, fit guard can be made team leader. In Dadi, although guards change frequently, most are over 45, while day and night shift leaders never exceed 30.

Southern Weekly: Why are age and physique so important?

He Wapi: Residents view this as the most visible sign of a community’s status. Young, tall, handsome guards signal that high property fees are needed to afford them—indicating a high-end neighborhood. Conversely, a community staffed with elderly guards lowers the perceived status and can affect property values. Whether residents truly believe younger guards provide better safety is secondary. Based on my field interviews, appearance and symbolism matter more.

At the start of the 20th century, Thorstein Veblen coined the term “conspicuous consumption,” describing how the leisure class uses spending to showcase power, wealth, and status. At its core, conspicuous consumption is about wasting time and resources. The demand for young, tall guards carries this same logic: in an aging society, among those willing to work as security guards, such labor is increasingly scarce—and therefore costly.

Southern Weekly: In China, security guards aren’t highly regarded socially. Why do young people choose this job?

He Wapi: Many have limited education, making other jobs hard to come by. Plus, long-term guard work gradually dulls reaction speed and focus. Once people settle into the routine, switching to jobs like food delivery becomes difficult—it requires constant attention, quick reflexes, and vigilance on the roads.

At the same time, young guards are more mobile. Dadi Community is near the train station, so some can move into the guard dorm the day they arrive, saving on hotels. They can work as guards while job hunting, then leave as soon as they find a better opportunity.

3. Expressing Fear as a Marker of Status

Southern Weekly: When you interviewed residents, many mentioned wanting more guards. What reasons did they give?

He Wapi: Most residents officially cite fear of crime. But when I asked dozens of them about the issues that actually bothered them, they almost always mentioned group rentals, aging facilities, poor maintenance, or lack of parking.

They want more guards and a fully gated community mainly to prevent outsiders from using community amenities, like the greenery or parking spaces.

Online complaints about Dadi often focus on property values. Residents paid a premium—between 5 million and 20 million yuan—but over time, the neighborhood became comparatively cheap. They blame property management for disorder and high group-rental rates, which hurt the community’s reputation. Guards are a key part of that management.

Southern Weekly: So residents’ demand for guards isn’t just about fear of crime?

He Wapi: Exactly. What residents seek in a gated community is not just physical safety but also protection of asset value and social status. In major cities, a family’s biggest investment is usually their home, often under a decades-long mortgage. Fluctuations in property value can directly affect their social and economic standing.

For example, wealthy buyers of large luxury apartments prefer communities made entirely of large units rather than mixed-size developments. Fewer residents and uniform socioeconomic status—the “purity” I describe in my book—are the goals. A visible, disciplined team of young, tall guards not only keeps outsiders out but also signals the residents’ wealth and status.

Southern Weekly: In your research, guards themselves often didn’t know how to respond when asked if they were afraid.

He Wapi: That’s right. People often focus on middle-class residents’ fears, but rarely ask guards, “Are you afraid on night shift?” If asked, guards may be uninterested—or amused. They usually say things like, “What’s there to be afraid of?” or “Shanghai is safe. Dadi is safe.”

Research shows that people living in safe communities often report more fear than those in dangerous ones. U.S. data indicate low-income residents are more likely to experience violent crime or burglary. For them, fear revolves around losing housing or income, not crime itself, so they rarely voice concerns about neighborhood safety.

Middle-class anxiety over social stability or food safety is common, while migrant workers worry about pensions and long separations from family. These are fundamental survival issues, real worries that aren’t expressed. Middle-class fear, however, is socially amplified, reinforced through communication and shared concern.

Southern Weekly: Why aren’t guards’ basic survival worries given more attention?

He Wapi: Many reasons. They may lack the skills or experience to express themselves. They may feel they’re at the bottom and unqualified to speak.

Meanwhile, middle-class residents rarely admit worry over status or wealth in public. Instead, they translate it into fear of crime. Fear of crime allows them to adopt a victim role, gain moral authority, justify more guards and stricter gates, and indirectly protect property values.

Low-income groups don’t have an alternative mode of expression, so they stay silent. In this context, expressing fear becomes a symbol of status, a marker of membership or class.

Southern Weekly: Can this situation change?

He Wapi: Anthropologist Caroline Humphrey argues that fear comes from knowing others have nothing and may act desperately. One way to reduce that fear is to acknowledge the “other’s” right to express all emotions, including fear, and empower them to avoid desperation.

When the fears of marginalized groups are recognized, and “the other” is accepted as part of “us,” anxiety can truly be eased. For the middle class, whose main worry is downward mobility, well-managed security personnel provide both safety and peace of mind.

Southern Weekly: Are you still in touch with the guards you interviewed? What are they doing now?

He Wapi: Some, yes. A few have returned home after sending their children to college, prioritizing family over income. Others have switched to delivery work. Captain Ade now works for a security company in another city as a regional manager, overseeing multiple communities.

Xiao Liang, who worried about finding a girlfriend, moved to a higher-end community as a team leader, earning over 8,000 yuan a month. He told me that even as a team leader, he’s still a guard—less desirable than a university graduate earning 3,000-yuan a month when it comes to dating in Shanghai. He faces a dilemma: in his thirties, he can’t find a girlfriend in Shanghai, and at home, he can’t find a job with comparable pay. Whenever I ask, he says he must return home soon—or it’s “over.” Yet he hasn’t left, because the job opportunities are here.

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Against the backdrop of economic headwinds and structural shifts, ride-hailing has become an important employment buffer in China. By 2024, the number of licensed ride-hailing drivers nationwide had reached 7.48 million — a figure roughly equal to the entire population of Hong Kong. Earlier this month, the China Research Center on New Forms of Employment (CNFE) released a comprehensive report on the country’s ride-hailing workforce. The study draws on 5,417 questionnaires collected from drivers across 13 provincial-level regions in July 2025, supplemented with big data analysis and in-depth interviews.

The findings paint a detailed picture of this rapidly growing labor group. According to the report, 62.8 percent of drivers are the sole breadwinners in their families, 77 percent entered the profession after losing a previous job, and 7.4 percent are recent graduates from 2024 onwards. The average driver is around 40 years old, and men make up the overwhelming majority. The report also compares ride-hailing drivers with other blue-collar occupations, including delivery workers, truck drivers, couriers, manufacturing production workers, and construction workers.

As China’s economy develops and transforms, a vast number of flexible jobs have emerged — and the profile of these workers deserves closer attention. This report, I believe, offers one of the most comprehensive looks to date. That’s why I’ve chosen to share its highlights here. The highlights are based in part on Caixin’s reporting and CNFE’s WeChat blog on this report. I have also uploaded the full Chinese text of the report to Google Drive, where you can download it.

About CNFE

The China Research Center on New Forms of Employment (CNFE) (中国新就业形态研究中心) was jointly launched by Capital University of Economics and Business and China Association of Employment Promotion (CAEP), with the aim of advancing both theoretical and empirical research on new employment patterns and providing evidence-based analysis for policymakers. The center is operated by Capital University of Economics and Business under the guidance of the CAEP, a nationwide nonprofit organization established in 1993 under the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

The report points out that China’s online ride-hailing sector has surged in the past decade, offering numerous low barrier to entry level employment opportunities to individuals experiencing unemployment or having to find another job. It has also served as an employment stabilizer in regions facing employment pressures. Compared to other blue-collar professions, online ride-hailing drivers enjoy certain advantages in terms of job autonomy, income, and satisfaction.

However, the report cautions that the sector faces development hurdles amid an economic slowdown. In 2024, the number of certified online ride-hailing drivers in China reached 7,483,000, a substantial increase of 159 percent from 2020. This surging supply contrasted with a mere 38.3 percent rise in the number of monthly average orders. These issues, alongside fiercer industry competition, demanding working hours, and insufficient social security benefits, continue to challenge the employment quality for this emerging blue-collar demographic.

The report reveals that online ride-hailing drivers are predominantly middle-aged. The average age of surveyed drivers is around 40, and males are the overwhelming majority. Citing data from the China mobile internet database, the report notes that in April 2025, “Didi Driver” was the top-ranked app for males aged 31-45, indicating that a significant number of middle-aged men depend on the Didi online ride-hailing platform for their livelihood.

Female online ride-hailing drivers represent less than 10 percent, but their proportion is growing annually. The “2025 Didi Digital Mobility Female Ecosystem Report” shows that in 2024, over 1.5 million women globally generated income through Didi. More than 1.05 million of these were in China, where 79 percent of them were the sole income providers for their households.

Another notable demographic trend is the growing presence of older individuals in online ride-hailing. The report’s survey data reveals that the average age of online ride-hailing drivers stands at 39.8 years, aligning closely with the average age of China’s workforce. While male drivers aged over 55 represent 2.4 percent, female drivers over 50 constitute a greater proportion at 10.2 percent.

Against the backdrop of a phased increase in the statutory retirement age, online ride-hailing is becoming a new avenue for some older individuals to achieve a “semi-retirement” or flexible work-life balance. The report notes that more than 20 cities, such as Hangzhou, Chengdu, Kunming, Shenzhen, Qingdao, and Weifang, have now raised the maximum registration age for online ride-hailing drivers to 65.

The report highlights that for middle-aged drivers, the backbone of the online ride-hailing sector, this job plays a unique role in meeting urgent employment needs and providing a “safety net” for families struggling to make ends meet.

More than half of the surveyed drivers, 62.8 percent, are the sole or primary contributors to household income, while 77 percent of them have transitioned into the sector after being displaced, meaning their families are under immense financial pressure.

Drivers come from a variety of previous professions. The report indicates that nearly 70 percent hailed from traditional blue-collar sectors like manufacturing, construction, and catering. Some others were individuals who had experienced entrepreneurial failure or had previously run their own businesses. They might have transitioned into the sector due to different reasons, such as layoffs, pay cuts, and entrepreneurial setbacks. Yet, a common thread unites them: the ride-hailing sector offers immediate payment, low entry requirements, and flexible working hours, providing a vital employment buffer that allows them to quickly resume earning and balance family responsibilities.

Despite the huge base of drivers, the report mentions, less than 30 percent are highly active — those who consistently log on and remain available for ride requests. This suggests that the remaining drivers function more as “part-time” workers, flexibly juggling their work with family responsibilities.

Notably, the surveyed sample included veterans at 13.2 percent and recent college graduates (from 2024 onwards) at 7.4 percent. Both groups, the report notes, commonly encounter frictional unemployment and are in need of a low-cost, low-barrier “transitional position” to ease their move to the next stage. This is precisely the kind of opportunity that becoming an online ride-hailing driver can offer.

In regions experiencing industrial relocation and upgrading or fluctuations in foreign trade, the online ride-hailing sector serves as an anchor, helping to stabilize employment. In the same vein, it serves to cover income shortfalls for workers affected by industry downturns or seasonal employment, filling the “off-season” income vacuum.

To illustrate, the report cites the efforts to cut overcapacity in the steel and coal sectors from 2014 to 2019. According to estimates by China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MOHRSS), roughly 1.8 million employees were part of this relocation and resettlement process, primarily male workers aged 40 to 50. Characteristically, they had a narrow range of skills that hindered inter-industry mobility and bore heavy family burdens.

According to Caixin, Zhang Chenggang, director of the research center for new forms of employment and an associate professor at the Capital University of Economics and Business, investigated the impact of new forms of employment on the reemployment of workers displaced by overcapacity reduction. His findings revealed that by June 2017, 352,000 steel and coal workers had transitioned to the Didi platform, making up 19.6 percent of the 1.8 million.

The report also compares online ride-hailing drivers with other typical blue-collar professions, including delivery workers, truck drivers, couriers, manufacturing production workers, and construction workers.

Data shows that online ride-hailing drivers earn an average monthly income of 7,623 yuan (about 1,072 U.S. dollars), trailing only truck drivers (8,424 yuan). This figure is markedly higher than that of delivery workers (7,496 yuan), couriers (6,124 yuan), as well as manufacturing production workers and construction workers (5,900 yuan). Geographically, highly active drivers in first-tier cities earn more: an average of over eight hours online daily (with 5.1 hours on average spent on actual deliveries) can yield a monthly income of 11,557 yuan, exceeding the monthly average disposable income (7,705 yuan) for Beijing’s urban residents in 2024.

Currently, online ride-hailing drivers report an income satisfaction rate of 81.4 percent, significantly higher than truck drivers (21.95 percent) and delivery workers (64 percent), placing them first among blue-collar workers. The report attributes this to three key factors: firstly, a relatively comfortable working environment that avoids exposure to extreme heat and cold; secondly, timely settlements leading to strong cash flow; and thirdly, a more equal labor relationship, where drivers have the right to refuse orders and appeal negative ratings, thereby safeguarding their professional dignity.

In terms of career development, online ride-hailing drivers have the highest safety training coverage at 95 percent and a retention intention of 75.7 percent, both the highest among blue-collar groups. In comparison, delivery workers’ retention intention stands at 68.4 percent, while for truck drivers and construction workers, it is less than half.

However, the report points out that the current online ride-hailing market is experiencing capacity saturation and slowing order growth. Although platforms like Didi are implementing measures such as “transparent billing,” reduced commissions, and diversified subsidies to help drivers maintain stable incomes, the overall industry imbalance between supply and demand, leading to price competition and declining earnings, still poses a core challenge to driver satisfaction.

Citing data from the MOHRSS, it notes that by 2024, there were 7,483,000 licensed drivers nationwide, a whopping 159 percent increase since 2020. The substantial increase in the supply of drivers contrasted with a mere 38.3 percent rise in the number of monthly average orders.

Simultaneously, multiple platforms engage in price wars, leading to a decrease in order prices. To achieve their target income, drivers are compelled to extend their working hours. The report’s survey indicates an average daily online time of 6.41 hours for drivers, with a peak distribution around 10 hours.

[Editor’s note: Since July, several local governments across China have rolled out policies to tighten regulation of ride-hailing trips with upfront pricing and curb cut-price competition.”

Platform commissions are also an important factor affecting drivers’ perception of their income. Survey samples show that the average monthly commission rate for drivers is 18.9 percent, with a median of 18.8 percent. While commissions show little fluctuation, driver perceptions vary considerably. The report analyzes that despite Didi's launch of “transparent billing,” allowing drivers to view commission rates in real-time, certain online communities and discussions have fostered an impression of “excessively high commissions.” Combined with the seasonal fluctuations in subsidies, this amplifies negative perceptions.

Furthermore, due to intense industry competition, some car rental companies have ceased operations, and smaller platforms have exited the market, resulting in financial losses for some drivers. Beyond internal competition, some cities have seen traditional taxis squeezing out ride-hailing services, with restrictions on operating zones, pricing, or apparent bias-based policing. Some drivers, facing insufficient order volumes, have transitioned to part-time work or even re-entered unstable employment cycles.

Insufficient social security coverage is another concern. The survey indicates that only 10.5 percent of online ride-hailing drivers contribute to basic old-age insurance and medical insurance for urban employees, remarkably lower than construction workers (41.2 percent) and truck drivers (32.24 percent). While the Didi platform offers supplementary insurance through programs like the “Didi Driver Protection Plan” and “Didi Guanhuaibao,” the overall participation rate remains inadequate, leaving long-term occupational safety without systematic support.

The report concludes that ride-hailing work excels in terms of income flexibility (a mix of fixed and variable remuneration), work-life flexibility, and growth and career opportunities, though the formalization of social security benefits remains an area for improvement. It states that a key policy challenge for the future is how to explore more inclusive and sustainable social security solutions, for example, promoting the integration of commercial insurance with basic social security, that do not stifle the vitality of flexible employment, thereby bridging the protection gap for flexible workers.

The student’s name is Tanikawa Hibiki. At the start of his journey, he set up what he called a “social experiment”: he would ask passing drivers if they were willing to give him a ride. If they said yes, he would then tell them he was Japanese—and observe whether they would still agree to take him. As he put it, the results of this “experiment” aren’t polling data or an official survey, but a reflection of the real, everyday human reactions he encountered across China.

After completing his journey earlier this year, his story was published on the WeChat blog of Bindian Weekly, run by China Youth Daily, and he was also interviewed by The Paper.

What I love about this story is its authenticity. Sure, it’s not an academic study—the number of drivers he encountered is a small sample size, and the randomness of the road plays a big role—but it still reveals a side of China that even I, as a native, may not always be fully aware of.

I’ve always felt that compared to cities like Beijing and Shanghai, China’s grassroots society remains far more unfamiliar—and complex—for overseas readers. In fact, even for someone like me, who lives and works mainly in urban areas, these stories are endlessly fascinating. I often find myself learning a great deal from them—not because they offer a clear-cut picture of something “positive” or “negative,” but because they convey a certain raw, textured sense of reality. The complexity of grassroots China is also one of its most compelling qualities. As Tanikawa himself put it: “What I experienced wasn't just a hitchhiking trip, but a journey through the very fabric of a nation.”

Below is the detailed account of this Japanese student’s “social experiment” in China, as published by BingDian Weekly.

Author | Tanikawa Hibiki

I'm Japanese, born and raised in Japan, with a thorough understanding of my homeland. In contrast, I knew almost nothing about the world "overseas." I believed that going abroad was the perfect opportunity to experience a completely new life. And in a country as vast as China, there must be "worlds" I've never seen. It was this thought that brought me to Chinese soil.

I'm a master's student at the School of Journalism and Communication at Nanjing University. During the 2025 winter vacation, when I could finally speak decent Chinese, I decided to embark on a journey—hitchhiking from Nanjing to Xinjiang within 30 days.

Why choose hitchhiking? The reasons were simple: first, no money; second, culture resides in people.

Departure

To prepare for this journey, I started my homework two weeks in advance.

First was the "route": Nanjing, Jiangsu → Wuhan, Hubei → Chongqing → Sichuan → Guizhou → Lanzhou, Gansu → Dunhuang, Gansu → Hami, Xinjiang → Turpan, Xinjiang → Urumqi, Xinjiang. Of course, this was the ideal route; the actual hitchhiking journey would have changes.

Second was "equipment." The average temperature in Nanjing in mid-to-late January is 1°C, while the destination Urumqi is about -20°C. I prepared a tent, sleeping bag, thick down jacket, gloves, emergency food, filming equipment, ground mat, map of China, laptop, and a travel fund of 1,000 yuan. I ultimately decided to use a suitcase to carry these items. This proved to be the right decision.

Third was "testing the sleeping environment." Due to limited funds, I bought a 239-yuan tent, 55-yuan ground mat, and 250-yuan sleeping bag online. Two days before departure, I specifically tested sleeping on the school's football field lawn for one night at 1°C. The actual feeling was—cold, really cold. So I decided to bring a few more winter clothes.

On January 21st, the 22nd day of the twelfth lunar month, I departed from the south gate of Nanjing University. After just two hours of trying to hitch a ride at a gas station outside campus, a young man working at the gas station was willing to take me onto the highway.

This was my first real hitchhiking experience in life. He was an enthusiastic young man from Nanjing who had been working at the gas station since graduating high school. He loved cars and had once dreamed of driving around China. "I used to have dreams like yours, but I never took that step. Seeing you, something stirred in my heart," he told me.

We drove for about an hour and arrived at Baguazhou Service Area on the outskirts of Nanjing. This was my first time entering a Chinese highway service area. What surprised me was not only how clean and spacious it was, but that you could actually walk between the upbound and downbound lanes. After a simple dinner, I continued trying to hitchhike around 8 PM. But I didn't find a suitable ride that day. I told myself this would be a long battle and I needed to maintain a good rhythm—I set up my tent and went to sleep. Thus, I ended the first day with a smooth start.

Tanikawa Hibiki taking a commemorative photo with the first driver who gave him a ride.

Celebrating Spring Festival

I woke up refreshed at noon the next day. However, no matter how I waved or tried, I couldn't find anyone willing to give me a ride. It wasn't until evening that I met people willing to pick me up—three Chinese men around 30 years old. On the road, they talked with me about the similarities between today's Chinese youth and the previous generation.

"We started working at 19. Today's young people study desperately to get into university. Every generation is struggling."—This sentence particularly impressed me. Through these three drivers' conversation, I heard the real voices of ordinary young Chinese people in reality.

The journey progressed fairly smoothly. That evening, another group of three picked me up. They were friends returning home for Spring Festival, with constant laughter in the car and a relaxed, pleasant atmosphere.

Sitting in the passenger seat, I listened to the driver lament: "The cultural atmosphere of Chinese Spring Festival has become much weaker compared to before."

I had learned Chinese through the Chinese sitcom "Home with Kids," so I had always looked forward to experiencing that lively and warm Spring Festival atmosphere, but reality might be very different from imagination, which made me feel somewhat melancholy.

During the journey, the driver kept holding his stomach, seemingly unwell. Several hours later, I arrived at Sanjiaoyuan Service Area.

On the morning of the fourth day, it was drizzling. I suddenly had diarrhea and fever, and what was more troublesome was that the service area hardly sold any medicine.

On the fifth day, I finally couldn't hold on and decided to rest at a nearby hotel. This small town called "Taihe," located in Fuyang City, Anhui Province, unexpectedly became the first city I truly set foot in during this journey.

Although not fully recovered, I could barely get up and move around. I walked out of the hotel and was stopped by a local. He swayed drunkenly while talking to me enthusiastically. Although it was only around noon, he was already red-faced from drinking. He had brought his child back to his Taihe hometown for the New Year and seemed unable to find his way home.

Watching him stumble forward being pulled by his child, for the first time, I felt the warmth of the two words "Spring Festival."

Around 1 AM that night, I continued hitchhiking at the service area. Just when I thought I would be disappointed again, a white-haired man around 60 appeared. He said his destination was Xi'an, and I happened to be going to Luoyang along the way. He told me he had driven all the way from Fujian. When he departed from Fuzhou, he was still wearing short sleeves and shorts, but when he met me, he had already changed into a thick down jacket.

The closer we got to Luoyang, the more the scenery outside became covered in silver. He suddenly brought up his son. "My son went to study in Japan and is now looking for work there."

I was taken aback. I could sense that this father might have complex feelings about Japan. I had never carefully considered what Chinese parents actually feel about their children studying in Japan. Considering how much Chinese people value family, and considering his generation's impressions of Japan, I began to slowly understand his feelings.

Lost in thoughts, I arrived at the second city of my journey—Luoyang. Since I couldn't hail a taxi directly on the highway, I left the service area through the employee passage, walked for nearly 30 minutes, finally entered the city, hailed a taxi, and rushed to meet my friend at our agreed location.

Looking at Luoyang's streetscape from the taxi, I suddenly felt this city had some similarities to my hometown Kyoto. Sure enough, Kyoto was historically modeled after Luoyang.

In my friend's bed, I slept until I naturally woke up. The long-missed bed completely released my fatigue. After waking, I went with my friend to Luoyang's famous World Heritage Site—Longmen Grottoes.

This is one of the precious marks left after Buddhism entered Central China via the Silk Road. Standing before the giant stone Buddha, I couldn't help but hold my breath. That sacred, solemn figure, still standing after thousands of years of wind and frost, seemed to be telling something. Having attended a Buddhist boys' high school, I felt an indescribable "karmic connection" here.

After touring the grottoes and returning to my friend's home, I experienced my first real "Chinese New Year's Eve." The dinner wasn't as lively as I had imagined from "Home with Kids," but it had the warmth of family reunion. Although there weren't firecrackers everywhere or drums beating loudly, everyone sitting around one table, that atmosphere still moved me.

After the New Year's Eve dinner, we watched the Spring Festival Gala while listening to the endless sound of firecrackers outside. Later we also lit handheld fireworks to "drive away evil and welcome fortune," and I welcomed my first "New Year transition" in China.

Early on New Year's Day, my friend's father gave me a red envelope—this was my first time officially receiving a "hongbao," both exciting and novel.

I told him I wanted to personally experience the Chinese New Year atmosphere, and without hesitation, he took me along to "visit relatives."

In one relative's home after another, I saw countless friends and family sitting together, eating and chatting lively, children chasing and playing in the house, adults holding tea cups and exchanging pleasantries. At that moment, it felt like I had truly entered the world of "Home with Kids."

This traditional culture of "visiting relatives during Spring Festival" cannot be felt through words alone; only through personal experience can one understand the profound meaning of "family." Compared to Japanese New Year, the "cohesion of family and kinship" displayed by Chinese people during the New Year is deeply moving.

We also specifically went to Luoyang's famous White Horse Temple. This is known as one of the birthplaces of Chinese Buddhism, and the "Pure Land True School" to which my Buddhist high school belonged was born here. The temple has Buddhist architecture from four countries and has become a gathering place for Chinese and foreign tourists. Since it was New Year's Day, there were crowds of visitors, and many places required queuing for nearly an hour. Every corner showed families coming to pray with their whole families, and groups of tourists filled the square.

Standing in the sea of people, I personally felt that for Chinese people, Spring Festival is not just a holiday, but a continuation of faith and culture.

Tanikawa Hibiki at Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang.

A Chinese Person Who Doesn't Like Japanese People Gave Me a Ride

After lunch, I continued my hitchhiking journey. During Spring Festival, traffic at service areas was unusually sparse. But after waiting just 30 minutes, a man was willing to give me a ride. At dawn, I arrived at a service area in Xi'an's suburbs. This was the third city I reached on this trip.

I rushed to the famous attraction "Terracotta Warriors." The scenic area was flooded with tourists, requiring a two-hour queue to enter. I suddenly remembered news I saw years ago: "Nowadays more and more Chinese people choose not to return to their hometowns during Spring Festival, but to travel instead." This scene made me deeply agree.

That evening, I didn't return to the city service area but chose to camp at Qinhan New City Weihe Wetland Park, falling asleep to the sound of wind.

Around 11:30 AM, I was awakened by birdsong. That day, a Xi'an fan who followed me on Xiaohongshu said they were willing to treat me to a meal.

He took me to the "Site of Han Chang'an City," which was the third World Heritage Site I visited after Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang. These were palace ruins from the Western Han period, so vast they couldn't be seen at a glance. Even riding an electric tour car, it took an hour and a half to barely finish touring.

After touring, I returned to Hancheng Service Area. There were still 635 kilometers to the next stop, Lanzhou. Anxious and not wanting to waste time, I continued trying to hitchhike without rest. But no matter how hard I tried, no cars appeared. Until 6 AM, exhausted to the bone, I finally couldn't hold on and set up my tent in front of the service area's main building, sleeping in my clothes.

Around 8 AM, I was awakened by firecrackers. In a daze, I checked my watch—only two hours had passed. What surprised me was that the firecrackers weren't for celebration, but a method used by service area staff to drive away my tent. They poked the tent with brooms, saying: "You can't set up here!"

After negotiation, they allowed me to move my tent to a corner in front of the building, and I barely got some sleep.

At 2 PM, sunlight shone directly on my face and I was awakened by the heat. I discovered my skin had become abnormal—the routine of waking only at noon for days had me baking in the tent for hours daily, and the skin on my face had started peeling.

Plus, not having bathed for days, my body gave off a noticeable odor, and the tent was filled with my own body smell. Although nothing earth-shattering happened, this period was a "subtle but real torment" for me.

Still no cars willing to take me. Night came, and I helplessly set up my tent again and went to sleep.

I was still awakened by the sun at noon. I had gotten used to simply wiping my body with wet tissues, then starting a new round of hitchhiking attempts. Frankly, I was somewhat disheartened at that time. But just when I was about to give up, several familiar service area employees smiled and handed me a string of firecrackers, encouraging me: "Keep going!"

I lit the firecrackers. In an instant, emotions surged, I revived my spirits and started flagging down cars. Sure enough, a car stopped. The driver was a man around 30. His words completely overturned my world.

He said: "I hate Japan."

At first, I thought I had heard wrong. He even added: "I don't like Japanese people."

The atmosphere in the car immediately became heavy. My heart was full of doubts, and I finally couldn't help but ask: "Since you hate Japanese people, why are you still willing to give me a ride?"

He calmly answered: "Helping others has become my habit. No matter who it is, as long as I see someone in difficulty, I will definitely help. This is just a habit formed since childhood. I really don't like Japanese people, that hasn't changed. But who this person in front of me who needs help is doesn't matter to me at all."

I was stunned. These words, seemingly simple, struck my heart heavily. The two words "helping others" are easy to say but hard to do. It means sacrificing your own time and energy without seeking reward. Many people hesitate between "helping others" and "whether it's worth it." But this driver had made "helping others" a habit since childhood, regardless of who the person was.

I feel that perhaps this belief will plant an indelible seed in my future life. He not only gave me a ride but made me reconsider what "kindness" really is. I thank him from the bottom of my heart. I hope to see this man again someday, and I will definitely thank him in person.

The morning after Tanikawa Hibiki camped at Weihe Wetland Park during his journey.

Continuing Westward

Actually, from the beginning of my journey, I had been conducting a social experiment in my own way that could "truly touch people's hearts."

The method was very simple: I would hold up a sign at highway service areas to hitchhike, asking if they were willing to give me a ride. If they said "yes," I would tell them: "Actually, I'm Japanese." Then I would observe their reaction to see if they would refuse me because of this identity.

I compiled these reactions to calculate "the proportion of Chinese people who actually show rejection behavior toward Japanese people in real civilian scenarios."

Early in the journey, at Lindong Peninsula Service Area in Anhui Province, I met someone who directly said "no." He was the only person so far who explicitly refused my hitchhiking request after learning I was Japanese.

However, when I recalled the man who later admitted he "hated Japan" but still let me in his car, I couldn't help but have another thought: "Perhaps from now on, no one will say 'no' again."

On the 14th day, I arrived at Meixian Service Area. There was still quite a long way to Lanzhou. Without time to think much, I immediately continued hitchhiking. As if arranged by fate, after just one minute, a car stopped. Inside was an international couple—a Chinese man and a foreign woman. The woman had graduated from Tsinghua University, and I had briefly been an exchange student at Peking University, so in a way, she could be called my "senior." They also said similar words: "We had such dreams when we were young, but never realized them. Seeing you has rekindled our courage."

After arriving at Baoji West Service Area, I was surprised to find that more than half the vehicles in the parking lot were SUVs. Although there were many "Gan" (Gansu) license plates in the parking lot, not one was willing to give me a ride. The reason was realistic: there were no big cities here, most car owners were on long-distance drives requiring multiple drivers to take turns, their cars were already full, and possibly the long journey fatigue made them unable to take on more burden.

As darkness fell and the service area temperature dropped to -2°C, I had actually been trying to flag down cars in the cold night for an entire evening.

The sun rose, bringing a new day. Eating sunflower seeds given to me by the third driver earlier, I changed strategy, sitting in front of the restroom waving to drivers. At the same time, I patrolled the parking lot every 30 minutes. An elderly couple in their 60s stopped their car. They were from Min County, Gansu, a pair of migrant workers. When I asked why they were willing to give me a ride, they laughed and said: "The seat's empty anyway, it's the same whether you're there or not."

They lived simply, spoke directly, without concerns. This was my first real deep contact with ordinary people from rural backgrounds in China. The biggest impression was—they were really straightforward.

We went together to Yuanyang Service Area. Only 198 kilometers remained to Lanzhou. As soon as I got out, I was pulled into a car by a brother two years older than me. He worked in Lanzhou and was returning to his workplace. He said: "When I was young, I also wanted to take a spontaneous journey like this." These familiar words made me smile knowingly.

Three full days after leaving Xi'an, I finally arrived in Lanzhou. By this time, I was exhausted and decided not to camp outside anymore, instead choosing a nearby internet café. The overnight price at this internet café was only 20 yuan—it was heaven. I curled up in a swivel chair in the heated room and fell into a satisfied deep sleep.

Lanzhou, the fourth major city on my journey, had four must-complete goals: see the Lanzhou waterwheels, see the Yellow River and Zhongshan Bridge, climb White Pagoda Mountain, and eat authentic Lanzhou beef noodles.

What amazed me was that behind this city stood continuous snow-capped mountains, as if in some western plateau city, completely overturning my stereotypical impression of "northern Chinese cities."

I first took a bus to Lanzhou Waterwheel Park. Unfortunately, as a foreigner, I couldn't use Alipay to activate a bus card. I stood dumbly on the bus when a woman, without saying anything, paid my fare. This stranger's kindness warmed my heart again. After getting off, I finally saw the huge waterwheel complex by the Yellow River—the visual impact was stunning.

Next I went to Zhongshan Bridge. It was a century-old iron bridge jointly built by Germany, America, and China. Below the bridge was the rushing Yellow River, above it was a sea of people—this "First Bridge of the Yellow River" truly lived up to its name.

After crossing the bridge was the third stop—White Pagoda Mountain. The white ancient pagoda sat on the mountaintop. I stored my luggage at a small stall at the foot of the mountain and began climbing.

About half an hour later, I stood on the mountainside looking out—below was the Yellow River, beside me was the ancient pagoda, ahead was a skyline where dense high-rises coexisted with snow-capped mountains. At that moment, it felt like being in a "Yellow River Manhattan."

As the sun set, I went down the mountain to retrieve my luggage, only to find the stall had closed and the proprietress was nowhere to be seen. Seeing it was getting late, I was anxiously pacing in front of the shop when a passerby called out to me. "You're here to get your luggage, right? The proprietress took your things to the police station. There's a note on the door saying 'Your things are at the duty room'!" She pointed to a bag on the door—it was a reminder note left by the shop owner. This made me feel that the further west I went, the more enthusiastic Chinese people seemed to be.

When Tanikawa Hibiki was touring Lanzhou, he stored his luggage at a small shop in the scenic area. When the shop owner closed up, she took his luggage to the police station and left a note.

After retrieving my luggage, I ate the "signature Lanzhou beef noodles." Around midnight, I returned to Lanzhou North Service Area.

That day I had homework to finish, my hands were numb with cold, typing was extremely difficult. A young driver told me: "The 'Drivers' Home' room here has no beds, but has sofas and heating. You can go in at night to warm up." This was like a godsend for me. I took off my down jacket and three layers of cotton pants—not having undressed for so long, this brought a feeling of release. Sitting at a table after so long, I finally had that feeling of "body in a room, heart also warm."

In the morning, I slowly opened my eyes on the warm room's sofa. Today's goal was Dunhuang, 934 kilometers away. This was an extremely long journey. Many drivers said, "Very few cars here go toward Dunhuang, and the vast majority don't pass through this service area."

That day, I greeted and talked to almost everyone I met, but until nightfall, no suitable car came. But this day wasn't hard to endure. Because this service area had heating and sofas. I peacefully spent a leisurely evening and fell asleep contentedly in the warm room.

Finally, I found a ride. Perhaps because I had stayed at the service area too long, several employees specifically came out to see me off, shouting: "Have a safe journey!" The male driver who gave me a ride was two years younger than me and was returning to work in Xinjiang.

We drove northwest, and after about two hours, he dropped me off at Anmen Service Area. Initially hearing this name, I had no concept of it, but as soon as I got out, I understood—this place was completely different. The architecture here had strong Tibetan style, with carved doors and windows, bright colors, even the service area signs had Tibetan script. This was a service area at 3,500-4,000 meters elevation, belonging to a Tibetan autonomous county.

I felt a strong cultural shock here—the architecture, clothing, and language were all quite different from Central China. I felt incredibly fortunate to briefly stop at such a unique place. But my good luck seemed to run out there—that night, I didn't get another ride.

At 3 AM, the temperature dropped to -17°C. I put several plastic chairs together as a bed, crawled into my sleeping bag, curled up in a corner of the service area, trying to sleep. Outside were cold winds, starry sky, and the silent plateau.

Having not bathed for a week, the first thing I did after waking was pay 10 yuan and enter the service area's shower room. The moment hot water flowed over my body, I almost cried with emotion. But after washing, my skin actually got worse—perhaps washing away the thick protective oil layer, facing the dry, bone-chilling air, my skin immediately began cracking and peeling.

I walked out of the shower room and saw Mayashan Mountain facing me. A snow-capped mountain reaching 4,447 meters, standing before me like a deity. This was my first time witnessing peaks and mountain ranges higher than Mount Fuji. Sunlight shone on the summit, the snow glare was blinding, I stood in place unable to move my gaze for a long time. At that moment, language could no longer describe the shock in my heart.

On the Beijing-Xinjiang Highway, Tanikawa Hibiki said this was a snow mountain scenery he would never forget in his lifetime.

The Destination

Just as I was struggling to wait for a car while holding a sign saying "Please take me to Urumqi," an SUV stopped in front of me. The driver was a Han man from Gansu. He had spent New Year with his family in his hometown and was now returning to his workplace in Xinjiang. I curiously asked: "Why don't you go develop in big cities like Shanghai or Shenzhen?" He said: "Because I like Xinjiang." When he said this, his eyes were frank, his tone certain: "It's like falling for a girl—I just like it here, so I stay."

I smiled. The most moving reasons in this world never need explanation.

That night, the lowest temperature reached an astonishing -20°C. Before dawn, I was awakened by the cold. Shivering in my sleeping bag, I couldn't suppress my inner excitement—I had already completed two-thirds of the journey. Although my body was exhausted, my nerves were quietly excited. This journey was really approaching its end. Wrapped in clothes, I walked around the service area to warm up. The entire parking lot was bustling early in the morning—it turned out that many car engines had frozen due to the extreme cold. People gathered around car fronts, pouring hot water on engines, waiting for the sun to rise and thaw them.

I stood at the restroom entrance as usual seeking a ride, but what stopped in front of me was a top-tier SUV worth several million yuan.

"We're traveling around the world, our current destination is France," a man said cheerfully. Two SUVs, a team of brothers, they enthusiastically invited me to ride along.

The driver seemed to have studied abroad in an English-speaking country, revealing a broad perspective in his conversation. This was my first time riding in a top-tier SUV—just the stability and capability galloping across the Gobi Desert was unforgettable. What surprised me more was that their car actually had two license plates. They explained that one plate marked "rescue" was a special license for "rescuing others" in no-man's land. They didn't just drive for themselves but also carried the responsibility of saving people in the desert.

I secretly set a goal in my heart: "One day in the future, I too will own my own off-road vehicle."

Due to route directions, I got off at Guazhou County before Dunhuang. Here, as far as the eye could see was endless Gobi Desert, and in the center of this desolate land stood a lonely and solemn sculpture—"Son of the Earth." This sculpture was created by a professor from the Sculpture Department of Tsinghua University's Academy of Arts & Design. The statue seemed to grow from underground, head held high, posture steady, very much like an incarnation of this land itself.

On the Gobi Desert around the statue grew a plant called camel thorn. I reached out and gently pinched it—"snap," it crumbled. That dry, fragile texture, as if it wasn't a plant but stone, made me truly realize I was in desert territory.

I held up my sign seeking a ride, and an enthusiastic uncle living nearby stopped his car, willing to take me to the next service area. Thus, I smoothly arrived at Bulongji Service Area. From here to Urumqi, only 1,038 kilometers remained. But that night was really too cold, the cold wind cut like knives, and I had no desire to flag down cars. So I told myself: "The remaining journey, continue tomorrow." I wrapped myself tightly in my sleeping bag, lay on chairs inside the service area, and slowly fell asleep in the bone-chilling cold and quiet silence.

In the morning, the temperature was still a bone-chilling -16°C. I opened my eyes on the chair and tugged at my frost-covered sleeping bag. A thought suddenly emerged in my mind: this might very well be the last car. So I began doing something I hadn't done in a while.

I walked among the people in the service area and began asking one by one: "Do you think I can successfully hitchhike from Nanjing to Urumqi?" Everyone answered without hesitation: "Yes, definitely!" Simple affirmations, yet they warmed my heart. At this moment, a service area employee I had become familiar with silently handed me a bowl of breakfast. Eating the steaming hot porridge, an unprecedented firmness rose in my heart. So I stood up once again, raised my sign, and began looking for the "last car" of this journey.

About two hours later, a car stopped in front of me. The driver was a young man in his 20s from Gansu, currently working as an art teacher at a middle school in Xinjiang. We headed north and arrived at Hami Service Area, which was as lively as a market, not at all like being on a highway. People in ethnic clothing moved among the crowds. The service area had large chunks of mutton, bone-in barbecue, baked buns, pilaf, as well as naan bread, yogurt, and milk tea—rich and fragrant.

After the meal, we continued on the road. As the elevation rose and temperature dropped sharply, a huge snow mountain rainbow suddenly appeared among the mountains. This was my first time seeing a "snow rainbow"—not after rain but in snow. I felt as if I had crossed into a fairy tale world.

It was already 7:30 PM, but the sky was still bright as day. Calling friends in Nanjing, I learned—Xinjiang has a two-hour time difference from the east. What I felt wasn't the time difference, but the vastness of this country.

At 12:57 AM on February 11th, I arrived at Urumqi Sanping Service Area. I had thought I would cry, even fantasized about falling to my knees and sobbing the moment I got out. But at that moment, my heart was incredibly calm.

This journey made me experience: the bitter cold of winter snow nights in a tent, the extreme pain of diarrhea and fever, the panic and gratitude after losing belongings, the real faces of kind "ordinary Chinese people" that shocked me one after another, and countless first-time life experiences.

I didn't just complete a hitchhiking trip—I traversed the real texture of a nation.

At 2 AM, one of my ethnic minority friends came to welcome me. I would stay at his home for three days, beginning a real "Xinjiang life."

Finally, I embarked on my return journey. My way back was by green train. Departing from Urumqi, it took a full 56 hours to finally return to Nanjing. I bought a "standing ticket." Outside the window, scenery slowly flowed by. The cities I had passed through were like a movie replay, also like settling memories.

On the 29th day, at 1 AM, I returned to the south gate of Nanjing University's Xianlin Campus—the starting point of my journey.

At the south gate of Nanjing University's Xianlin Campus, Tanikawa Hibiki at the starting point of his journey.

At the beginning of my journey, I set up a "social experiment": asking if they were willing to give me a ride—if they said "yes," I would tell them "I'm Japanese"—observing whether they would change their minds because of this.

In the end, among 17 drivers, only 1 refused me after learning I was Japanese. That is to say, 94.1% of those "willing to give me a ride," even knowing I was Japanese, still chose kindness and help. This isn't some poll data or official questionnaire, but real person-to-person reactions in civilian life. For me, it's more precious than any statistics. Because this is the China I walked out with my feet, saw with my eyes, and felt with my heart.

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From my own experience, those with some familiarity with China might already know that Chinese parents tend to play a more active role in their children’s marriage decisions compared to families in Western countries—a reflection of deep-rooted cultural norms. Those who understand China a bit more intimately might also be aware of the tradition of “bride price” or “caili”—a customary payment from the groom’s family to the bride’s, still practiced in some parts of the country.

You may have also heard about the growing reluctance among younger generations in China to get married or have children, a trend noted in a Xinhua News Agency report last June titled “Young Chinese not eager to walk into marriage.”

Beyond these broad strokes, I hope today’s newsletter can offer a more nuanced and grounded perspective on how young people in China are thinking about relationships and marriage—something that, for many, remains a deeply personal and defining part of life.

Today’s piece draws from an interview by 人物 People magazine with Liu Wenrong, a research fellow at Institute of Sociology, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (SASS), whose reflections shed light on the shifting landscape of love and commitment among China’s younger generation. It covers:

1. How young people increasingly don't believe in love as a basis for marriage

2. Rising parental involvement in children's marriage decisions

3. The concept of "unlimited responsibility" in Chinese families

4. Comparison between Chinese and Western family models

5. The challenges of modern relationships and "relationship poverty"

About Liu Wenrong and her project

Dr. LIU Wenrong is a sociologist specializing in family studies. She serves on the governing boards of the Chinese Sociological Association, China Marriage and Family Research Association, and the Family Sociology Committee of the Chinese Sociological Association, according to the official website of SASS.

Her research examines family cohesion and intergenerational solidarity amid China's social transformation, with particular focus on:
• The modern manifestations of familism in everyday life
• The evolving relationship between family systems and societal development
• The interplay between family institutions and public policy

Dr. Liu was a visiting scholar at the Department of Child, Youth and Family Studies (University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Feb-Jul 2014). Her work bridges theoretical frameworks with empirical studies of Chinese family dynamics in contemporary society.

In the 1990s, Chinese youth essentially achieved autonomy in love and marriage. Pursuing love and establishing deep emotional relationships of their own choosing became symbols of youth rebellion and agency in popular culture. But today, data shows that Chinese parents' involvement in their children's marriages seems to be increasing again. This time, it's the result of young people's "rational choice."

In 2023, Dr. Liu conducted a survey of 2,400 non-student youth aged 21-40 in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou to understand contemporary young people's views on love and marriage. The survey data shows that more and more young people no longer believe in love within marriage. Whether parents and friends support the match and whether objective conditions align play increasingly important roles in young people's marriage decisions. They seem more willing to believe that "parental arrangements and matchmaker's words" can truly bring them a better marriage.

For the past decade, Dr. Liu has focused on intergenerational relationships between Chinese youth and their parents within families. Contrary to academic expectations from the 1990s, urbanization and modernization have not diluted China's deeply rooted family culture but have instead deepened the economic and emotional bonds between parents and children. This family model of deep intergenerational binding and unlimited responsibility once helped many people find their footing during China's rapid social transformation, but for today's youth making marriage and childbearing decisions, it creates tremendous pressure.

Although Chinese parents' pressure to marry and have children has become a hot topic for online complaints, in Liu Wenrong's view, it's precisely parents and the family of origin that provide emotional support for single youth, allowing them to extend their time as "children" in a family. However, this extension is inevitably unsustainable. Liu Wenrong believes that one day, young people will step forward to create new scripts for marriage and family belonging to their generation.

The following is Dr. Liu Wenrong's account:

If someone meets all your criteria for a spouse but you haven't fallen in love with them, would you marry them?

At the end of 2023, I conducted a sample survey of 2,400 non-student youth aged 21 to 40 in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou to understand young people's views on choosing spouses and marriage, their family and personal circumstances, and their behavior in the marriage process.

The question mentioned at the beginning was from the survey. Shanghai data shows that the proportion choosing "yes" reached 25% for men and 23.6% for women. This means over 20% of respondents believe that in marriage, compared to economic conditions, family background, appearance, and other spouse selection criteria, whether I love them isn't that important. In 2001, these figures were only 11.6% for men and 8% for women. The trend is significantly upward. Those firmly choosing "no" account for only about 30%. Around 40% feel it's "hard to say."

When I was young, many people believed you needed love to get married. Although you didn't really know what love was, at least you were pursuing that ideal. Today's young people are very clearly telling us they think dating is dating, marriage is marriage—two different things. In 2001, only about 6% of unmarried Shanghai youth "strongly agreed" that "dating and marriage are two different things," but by 2023, the proportion "strongly agreeing" had risen to over 40%, with women reaching 46.5%.

We all know that declining marriage and fertility rates among Chinese youth have become topics of social concern in recent years. Since 2010, the average age at first marriage for Chinese youth has risen by nearly 4 years. In this Beijing-Shanghai-Guangzhou survey, we also found that nearly 70% of young people agree that "marriage is a personal choice, it's fine whether you marry or not," especially unmarried young women, over 80% of whom endorse this view.

But one rather surprising finding is that young people's emphasis on parents' and friends' attitudes in marriage decisions is increasing. Regarding the statement "Even if my parents and friends oppose the person I love, I don't care," half of unmarried young women in Shanghai expressed disagreement. Some even actively propose the concept of "new arranged marriages." Accepting parental introductions or arrangements and choosing "well-matched" marriages has become a rational choice. This caught my attention. We generally believe that China basically achieved youth autonomy in love and marriage in the 1990s, but today, parental involvement in children's marriages seems to be increasing again.

One young man told me very frankly: I've been in love, I've experienced that state, now I'm getting married according to my parents' wishes. He said, if I don't follow my parents' opinion in marriage, and they don't buy me a wedding home or help with childcare, what would I do? This is the result of his rational choice.

To some extent, I can understand young people's sense of powerlessness when trying to establish themselves in first-tier cities, facing issues of buying homes, getting married, and raising children. 2010 was a turning point for the rise in first marriage age among Chinese youth, coinciding with the takeoff in urban housing prices. Before that, when post-70s and post-80s urban youth got married, they might not have relied much on parents, perhaps only informing them when getting the marriage certificate. Parents had little say in their children's marriage choices, and "naked marriage" was once a hot topic. But in the past decade or so, as housing prices have risen and family wealth has mainly accumulated in the parental generation, children's marriage and childbearing can't be separated from parental support, so parents' influence has naturally increased.

From another perspective, as long as a child remains in their original family, they remain a child forever. Although parents pressure their children to marry, the existence of parents and the original family can also hold young people back. As long as parents are there, your sense of danger and loneliness isn't that intense, you don't feel the urgency to change yourself.

In recent years, in the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai region, the phenomenon of "two-headed marriage" has emerged. Neither the man "takes a wife" nor the woman "marries out"—although they marry, they still mainly form support and mutual aid networks with their original families, have two children, and each cares for their own parents.

From some perspectives, it has positive effects—for instance, it promotes gender equality in Chinese families, changing the cultural tradition where only sons inherit family names and property, and enhancing women's socioeconomic status. But from other perspectives, such families actually have significant internal conflicts. Some young couples in two-headed marriages, lacking something to manage together and conditions that force compromise when conflicts arise, find their relationships difficult to handle. What keeps them together without divorcing might just be the authority of both sets of parents. After experiencing such marriages, some young people remain very immature—although following parental arrangements, they lack the ability and willingness to manage relationships, leaving the couple in torment with their relationship in shambles.

So today's young people, especially those in top-tier cities, choose to listen to their parents in marriage decisions partly because the economic costs of establishing a marriage and family and the demands of childcare are high—reality dictates they can't do without parental support. But on the other hand, it's also because these young people have been overprotected since childhood, lack independent and mature plans for their marriage and life, and are unwilling to leave their parents' safe harbor to endure hardship. It seems young people today particularly "oppose unnecessary suffering," but personal maturity definitely requires experiencing pain.

Unlimited Family Responsibility Makes Marriage a Risk

One case is particularly interesting. After a young woman got married, her father kept pressuring her to have children, which she deeply resented. Once the daughter was provoked because her father even bypassed her to discuss this with her husband. She had a huge fight with her father, saying: "You live your life, I'll live mine, can't we each live our own lives? Why must you arrange my life?"

As a result, her father announced to his daughter that he wanted to divorce her mother.

This bewildered the daughter. What does whether I have children have to do with whether you divorce my mother? Later she understood that her father had actually been incompatible with her mother all along, unable to communicate. The only motivation that kept the father wanting to stay in this family was this daughter. Throughout her life, this father had given his daughter lots of love, and the daughter had always excelled academically and professionally, making him proud. So he felt his daughter was the only meaning in maintaining this family. When the daughter wanted to cut ties with him, he felt there was no need to maintain his marriage anymore.

I've been wondering why Chinese parents are so dedicated to pressuring marriage and childbearing. Why do parents suffer so much when their children don't marry or have children? Later I realized that perhaps for some Chinese parents, who don't have great careers or spiritual lives, their life's most important enterprise is family and children. In developing the family, they find their life's value and purpose. But when their child grows up and decides not to marry or have children, for parents this fundamentally negates their life's value choices. The years they struggled through, the family values they worked to maintain, are suddenly deconstructed as meaningless. This blow is enormous for elderly people.

In modern discourse, this suffering is unspeakable. Because we think such values are backward, even superstitious, not fit for the "modern" table. But in my research, this is a deeply rooted part of many Chinese parents' self-identity. Why do we say Chinese society is familistic? When family becomes an "-ism," it's equivalent to a faith, part of spiritual life. Countless parents have confided in me, telling me their children think parents are selfish. Children say "I'll pay you back later," and parents think, "Did I raise them their whole life just so they could pay me back?" What parents actually think is: my child has no partner, no children—when we're gone, they'll be all alone in this world. How will they live? This is enormous fear and sadness for parents.

Chinese culture views parent and child as one unit. This is very different from Western individualism. Fei Xiaotong once proposed that the West follows a relay model: each generation in Western society only raises their own children, who when grown relay the task by raising their own children, without needing to care for the elderly upward. China follows a feedback model: parents raise children, who when grown must feed back to parents, caring for them in old age while also raising their own children downward.

In the 1990s, academia expected that with urbanization and modernization, China would also transition from the "feedback model" to the "relay model," with our families gradually centering on the husband-wife relationship rather than intergenerational relationships, like in the West. But several census surveys show that over the past 20 years, the proportion of Chinese stem families (three generations living under one roof) has remained around 20% without declining, while the proportion of nuclear families (a couple and their minor children) has actually decreased. This shows China's intergenerational support and mutual aid model is quite stable. Even after market deepening in the 21st century, the closeness of intergenerational mutual aid in Chinese families continues to strengthen.

China's modernization is a highly condensed process, completing massive social transformation in just decades. From the planned economy era to reform and opening up, the layoff waves of the 1990s, the dramatic impact of market economic reforms, and so on. But we haven't seen large-scale youth unemployment or youth poverty as serious social problems. When social public services were still inadequate, many social contradictions were absorbed by families, absorbed by parents for their children. We find that in such massive social change, Chinese families' intergenerational relationships have shown very strong resilience. Generations remain interdependent economically and non-economically, with resources remaining complementary and reciprocal.

Against this backdrop, what are Chinese children's attitudes toward their parents? I remember when I was doing my PhD in 2008, there was a loud social voice criticizing young people's "declining filial piety," feeling young people were unwilling to give back to parents, morally corrupt, and so on. I felt this contradicted my intuition. The "filial piety" they spoke of seemed to me as a young person then like old Confucian learning, as if only treating parents as supreme authorities counted as "filial." But my feeling was that the post-70s and post-80s around me were all good to their parents—we just valued emotions highly. Our relationships with parents were based on emotion, not authority.

Later research validated my thoughts. From 2008 to 2012, during my doctoral dissertation, I conducted research on intergenerational family relationships using Shanghai and Lanzhou as samples. In terms of differences, urban Shanghai parents provided more economic support to children, while rural Lanzhou children helped parents more—it's about who has the capacity to give. But overall, they still followed the pattern of parents nurturing children and children feeding back to parents when grown. Children not only remained willing to support parents economically, but many survey subjects told us that young people's emotional relationships with parents were better and closer compared to the previous generation. Economic development and increased population mobility have eased some very rigid and intense family conflicts—for instance, extreme mother-in-law/daughter-in-law conflicts in rural areas have eased as women go out to work. This actually allows natural emotions between generations to flow, enabling parent-child affection to develop from genuine interpersonal love.

This nurture-feedback model creates unlimited responsibility between Chinese family generations. Parents give their all to raise children, and children feel they should give their all to feed back to parents in the future. This affects young people's marriage and childbearing decisions. This unlimited responsibility, combined with today's enormous cost-of-living pressures, makes children feel marriage is an extremely high-risk endeavor.

This unlimited joint responsibility also shapes our self-perception. When young people don't want children now, many tell me: "I can't even live well myself, I don't want to bring a child into this world to suffer. If I can't give them good educational resources and living conditions, I'd be letting them down—why bring them into the world?" They bind the responsibility for a child's entire life development to themselves. In a society with intense competition, if my future child can't get into a good school or "succeed" in competition, I myself would feel so painful. This series of bundled pressures all become sources of risk for future unhappiness.

Korean scholar Chang Kyung-sup proposed a concept called "individualization without individualism." Our East Asian culture is familistic, not individualistic, but we're experiencing individualization—some of our youth no longer marry, "de-familializing" themselves. This is their "risk-averse individualization." In unlimited-responsibility families, marriage and childbearing become sources of risk that young people want to avoid.

Family Scripts, No Perfect Choice

Sometimes online, we see today's young people yearning for the childcare environment of the collective economy period. Back then, work units had unified nurseries and kindergartens, making child-rearing less difficult. During that period, our social system attempted to explore communal child-rearing and public elderly care—from cradle to grave, all borne by the state, with childcare labor viewed as part of social labor. We experienced such exploratory practice.

I was born in 1978 and grew up in such a "work unit compound." After graduating from university, my parents were assigned to work in a geological team far from their hometown and applied for housing in the unit's family quarters. The unit was basically an acquaintance society with nurseries and kindergartens. The affiliated schools weren't competitive at all—everyone lived similar lives, there was no pressure about how one must study. I played with same-age friends every day without much worry about the future. Compared to today's children, it was indeed more relaxed.

But my experience as a child wasn't as good as people imagine. In the work unit compounds then, people generally couldn't bring their parents—my grandparents' generation—to live together. Before age 6, I was left with my grandparents in my hometown—essentially a left-behind child. When I was about to start school, my parents brought me over, and I went through a very harsh adjustment period. My father was a geologist who often worked in the field, basically away from home for half the year. At home were my mother, an older brother, and an older sister. My mother worked at the unit every day and had to care for three children at home—her sense of time pressure was extremely strong. For instance, if we didn't do our assigned chores well, didn't sweep the floor clean, or broke something, she would suddenly become extremely angry, attacking us with vicious language that escalated to personal attacks. In the compound, every household beat their children harshly. Later when I chatted with peers, many had such traumatic childhood experiences.

Until I went to university, I kept having nightmares about being abandoned by my parents. I experienced all the confusion, pain, and meaninglessness of being a young person. Back then, I had deep conflicts with my mother and often ran away from home. So I deeply understand the harm Chinese families can do to children. If I hadn't done sociology research later, I might have grown up to join the "Parents Are Harmful" group too. But later, when I began doing family and women's research, I started to realize our family situation was actually related to the "nuclear family" lacking support. I began to understand why my mother treated us so harshly. As a woman shouldering everything inside and outside the home with no domestic support, her anxiety and pain were vented on us.

Back then, women's liberation and entry into work actually harmed some children's interests. For instance, when my mother went to work, she could only lock my brother at home, and he would cry continuously. Later I saw many materials discussing such childhood trauma cases—mothers having to return to work after maternity leave, families lacking external support, very young children having to be sent to nurseries or simply locked at home. But there was no choice—the overall living standards and economic levels were limited then. This was the situation for many families.

This is also one reason I later entered the field of family sociology. I wanted to explore how more people, more youth were living, wanted to solve my own repressed problems with no outlet. Back then, we had no internet, nowhere to express ourselves, couldn't "huddle together for warmth" like today's young people. So I could only try hard to see and understand how others were, why I was this way. But now I think this might not have been a bad thing. Today people can easily find others with similar feelings and build their own emotional echo chambers, becoming unable to understand those different from themselves, losing the space to understand others.

The nuclear family's dilemma isn't unique to China's collective economy era. In the West, taking America as an example, their classic 1960s nuclear family model was based on men working outside, women staying home, not working, wholeheartedly caring for children. Women then were shaped into "happy housewives," but in their individual experiences, the "nameless pain and repression" from lacking social value was very strong—these "happy housewives" were actually "desperate housewives." This led to the West's second wave feminism, with women breaking out of the home, participating in employment, achieving independence. But even now, American women still find it difficult to have both full-time work and children. They can purchase childcare services from the market, but the cost is high—not all couples can afford it, or it's simply not worthwhile.

In 2014, I visited America and investigated their family relationships. Previously, we understood their nuclear families as centered on the husband-wife relationship, with elderly people not depending on children for support. Many people at advanced ages were still constantly marrying and divorcing, seeking suitable marital relationships. I then understood this as a kind of individualistic cultural romance. But when I really carefully investigated and visited their families, I found this was also a kind of helplessness. Because the boundaries between them and their children are very strong—without an invitation from children, they can't visit uninvited. Even if they miss them terribly, they must restrain themselves. After children become adults, elderly people's support networks mainly come from marriage. If the marriage axis breaks—through divorce or death of a spouse—they must establish a new marriage axis.

I remember an elderly man in his 80s, a very spirited old conservative—what Shanghainese would call an "old classic" type. He had remarried several times in his life, and his current wife was a Japanese-American woman. When we proposed visiting his home, he repeatedly emphasized that we must praise her and express gratitude when we met her. We didn't quite understand at the time, thinking he was being too careful around his wife. Later I realized it was because he was now over 80 and desperately needed this marriage—if she became unhappy and proposed divorce, his life alone would become very difficult. We also interviewed a middle-aged man who said he didn't even visit when his mother died. Because she had remarried in her 60s to another state where she had no friends, so when she died, not a single relative or friend visited her, not even this son. I thought then, if it were a Chinese elderly woman, would she move far from her hometown and children in her 60s for remarriage? A Chinese elderly woman would probably prefer to move in with her son. In fact, if a Chinese elderly woman wanted to remarry, her son likely wouldn't agree. Of course, this interference is a restriction on the elderly, but it's also a kind of protection. This is cultural difference.

People under every culture have their difficulties. American individualistic culture requires you not to express the warmth of wanting to connect with family—you can only complete human connection through romantic relationships. This is their difficulty. For us, it's the overly deep binding between parents and children, sometimes becoming a kind of imprisonment.

Now, Chinese young people's childcare pressure is largely transferred to grandparents. Young couples both work outside, and elderly people sacrifice their retirement lives, even becoming "elderly drifters," with many resulting conflicts and discussions. No family model can satisfy everyone. How family systems should be designed ultimately becomes a question of interest negotiation between men and women, between generations, between different groups.

I think this is an open question. We still need to explore what kind of family script, marriage script, cultural script we need to make everyone as happy as possible. But I think sometimes we need to look further. Establishing intimate relationships and families isn't just interest negotiation—it's also a person's life process. If you feel this is important to you and you have psychological expectations for your own contributions, it can be a willing choice.

"Relationship Poverty"

My real reconciliation with my mother happened after I had my own daughter. Before having a child, I thought I must make my child especially happy, I must be especially good to her, and I really did my best. But later I discovered my child still had trauma.

Many things I thought were right at the time—like separate beds when young, like not picking up a crying child immediately—these "scientific" parenting methods I read about in books actually harmed my daughter. Because my child was highly sensitive with high needs, I only learned later that with such children, you must satisfy them first. I remember once she told me: "Mom, since I can remember, my world has been gray." I discovered she had completely replicated my childhood experience of the world.

At that moment I suddenly realized that my childhood sadness wasn't necessarily brought about by my mother's malice.

Later, I also adjusted how I raised my daughter. I could see her smiles gradually increasing, her confidence gradually strengthening, and I felt very good too. I once really hated when people told me "If you don't marry and have children, you'll never grow up"—I hated that saying. Looking back now, marriage is more complex than I imagined, parenting more difficult than I thought, but precisely because of this, I don't regret entering marriage at all. It brought me out of that childhood fragility, made me more composed, more confident, and better understanding of myself. I very clearly felt my own growth. I think a good relationship is one that brings self-growth. If I had never experienced this adjustment process, I might never have reconciled, I would have been stuck in place unable to move forward.

Many young people I interview tell me marriage is "too troublesome." Marriage requires adjusting to someone, establishing this deep connection is too difficult. Now the single economy is very developed—if you have a job in a first-tier city, you can live very well alone. Delivery, takeout, cleaning services—machines and the labor market can solve your various problems. Our emotional needs also have various emotional consumption substitutes, like binge-watching shows, shipping fictional couples, keeping pets, even purchasing chat services or virtual romance. Many people feel they don't really need a "companion" to live with anymore. Even in friendships, people maintain more distance than we used to. When we were young, the trend was "Young and Dangerous" brotherhood—I'd take a knife for you. Now the trend is "activity partner socializing"—if I want entertainment, to watch a movie or play murder mystery games, I just find an activity partner. I don't want to trouble others or be troubled by them.

Logically speaking, today's young people's parents, compared to the previous generation—my parents' generation—have improved both in their attitudes toward children and parenting investment. But 2023 survey data from Shanghai shows youth satisfaction with parent relationships has significantly declined compared to 2001. People's expectations of parents have become very high, and they attribute many problems to their family of origin. I think this is because they have too few social relationships—the only place to invest emotional needs is their family of origin, only their parents. This also reflects a narrowing of youth's social networks and social development space. Young people are now facing severe "relationship poverty."

Many young people today were only children growing up in a highly competitive environment with very singular experiences—school, work, making money—already exhausting. For people from this growth environment, wanting deep communication and emotional connection with others has especially high psychological costs. My daughter often worries whether others dislike her. When I take her to play with same-age friends, the children's interactions are especially polite—I feel they're very constrained, find it hard to be happy, lacking the casualness we had as children.

Actually in our surveys, what young people most want from intimate relationships is still psychological feedback and growth, but they don't know how to achieve it. Because these things heavily depend on experience and are hard to grasp, when choosing partners they use very practical but superficial value standards to judge people: appearance, education, income, family background, etc. But they can't judge whether someone is suitable based on the values needed for two people to genuinely overcome life's difficulties and cope with life together. To a large extent, it's because lacking life experience, they not only lack a sense of reality about life but also lack insight into self, human nature, and relationships.

I think this is a piece of life education we're currently missing. No matter what stage people ultimately reach, they still need stable interpersonal connections to generate a fundamental sense of security. This is inescapable regardless of what views on love or friendship you adopt. It ultimately points to the question of "who am I"—who knows my past, participates in my present, anticipates my future. If you can't establish your own deep interpersonal relationships, then this role might only be filled by parents, but what happens after parents are gone?

The most important question is whether our society can ease up from its highly competitive atmosphere, allowing our young people to regain a sense of relaxation, enabling them to experience life. Let friendship, romance, marriage, and parenting—establishing deep connections between people—no longer be the result of strategic games but rather a process of life experience.

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According to the China Discipline Inspection and Supervision Newspaper, the campaign has been a critical task personally identified and directed by Xi Jinping. If you have been following China closely in recent years, you would be aware that after the 20th National Congress of the CPC, the party has launched education campaigns focused on studying and implementing Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era in 2023 and studying CPC discipline in 2024.

Those familiar with China's last decade will recall that the eight-point rules were issued by the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in December 2012 shortly after Xi Jinping first became the general secretary of the CPC Central Committee. The rules aim to reduce bureaucracy, extravagance and undesirable work practices of Party members. With clauses focusing on various forms of corruption and unauthorized use of government cars, the rules have played a significant role in the country's anti-corruption campaign.

"The eight-point rules" translated by Beijing Scroll:

1.All members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee must enhance their investigative and research efforts. During grassroots fact-finding missions, they should develop a deep understanding of real conditions, summarize experiences, analyze issues, resolve difficulties, and provide guidance. They must learn from the people and from practice, engage in more discussions with the public and officials, conduct thorough deliberations, analyze typical cases in depth, and visit areas facing significant challenges and public concerns. Perfunctory efforts and formalism must be avoided. They should travel with a small entourage and keep receptions simple. There should be no posters or banners, no public welcoming or farewell ceremonies, no red carpets, no floral displays, and no banquet arrangements.

2.Meetings and events must be streamlined, and the organization of meeting should be improved. National-level conferences and major events held in the name of the Party Central Committee should be strictly controlled. Meetings that serve only to issue general work arrangements or broad directives should not be convened. Without approval from the central Party leadership, the officials must not attend ribbon-cutting ceremonies, groundbreaking events, celebrations, commemorations, award ceremonies, expos, seminars, or forums. Meetings should be more efficient, with shorter durations and concise speeches, while eliminating empty rhetoric and clichés.

3.It is vital to winnow documents and briefings and improve their writing style. Documents and briefings that lack substantial content or are not essential should not be issued.

4.Official overseas visits should be regulated and planned according to diplomatic priorities. The entourage size must be tightly controlled, and transportation should comply with regulations. Generally, there’s no need to arrange for representatives from Chinese-funded institutions, overseas Chinese communities, or Chinese students abroad to greet or send off delegations at airports.

5.Security measures should be improved to help foster close ties with the public. Traffic restrictions should be reduced, and roads generally should not be closed, nor should venues be cleared or shut down.

6.Improvements need to be made to news reporting. Coverage of meetings and activities involving members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee should be determined based on their work relevance, news value, and social impact. The number, length, and duration of reports should be further trimmed.

7.The publication of writings must be strictly regulated. Unless arranged by the central Party leadership, individuals may not publicly publish books or standalone speeches, issue congratulatory letters or messages, or write inscriptions.

8.It is essential to practice rigorous frugality, strictly observe regulations on clean government, and closely follow rules regarding housing, vehicle allocation, and other work and living benefits.

If one were to list the most successful achievements under Xi's leadership so far, the anti-corruption initiatives, epitomized by the eight-point rules, would undoubtedly feature prominently.

An article published on March 31 on the website of Qiushi Journal, the flagship magazine of the CPC Central Committee, titled "How the eight-point rules changed China," noted that despite significant achievements following the reform and opening up, the Party is acutely aware that some Party members and cadres face a serious crisis of political conviction. Extravagant dining and wining among certain leading cadres have provoked strong public discontent, severely tarnishing the Party’s image and credibility while undermining relations between officials and the people. The article emphasized that the eight-point rules are not a short-term measure but a long-term, rigorous set of rules.

Looking forward to 2025, continuing to implement the spirit of the eight-point rules as a central theme in party education holds profound importance. The article from the China Discipline Inspection and Supervision Newspaper explained that this year's focus on the eight-point rules comes at a time when changes unseen in a century are unfolding across the world at a faster pace and an increasingly complex and severe external environment may exert a greater impact on China. The CPC's decision to promote this education reaffirms its commitment to ongoing improvement in conduct, indicating a resolve to persistently address the challenges.

The government's work report released in March suggests that a severe external environment may exert a greater impact on China in areas such as trade, science, and technology. This is undoubtedly linked to the intensifying strategic competition between China and the United States. The annual Central Economic Work Conference last December also noted that China's economy still faces many difficulties and challenges.

Those familiar with the history of the CPC know that the more severe the situation, the more the Party will strengthen internal discipline and construction to enhance cohesion and ideological awareness within the Party, better addressing both internal and external challenges and overcoming difficulties.

On March 29, the country's top anti-graft body released its monthly summary of the investigations into violations of the eight-point rules for February 2025, as the screenshot shows above. During that month, a total of 11,459 cases were investigated nationwide for breaches of the rules, with 15,209 individuals criticized, educated, or disciplined, including 9,292 who received Party or governmental disciplinary actions. This marks the 138th consecutive month that monthly data has been published. For more detailed data, you can visit the website of the Communist Party of China Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and the National Commission of Supervision.

For more information on the history of the eight-point rules initiative in China and specific comments by Xi Jinping, see an article published by Xinhua News Agency on March 28 titled "Xi Focus: How Xi's crackdown on excess reshapes China." Although lengthy, the article is not dry and offers detailed insights for those interested in delving deeper. You can find the full article below.

Xi Focus: How Xi's crackdown on excess reshapes China

BEIJING, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The Communist Party of China (CPC) has launched a four-month campaign to urge its around 100 million members to bolster compliance with a code of conduct that has strengthened the Party over the past 12 years.

This education campaign on the eight-point rules was planned by none other than China's top leader Xi Jinping. During his inspection tour to southwest China last week, Xi urged Party organs at all levels to meticulously organize and implement the campaign.

He called for fighting misconduct and corruption as a whole, and making relentless efforts to root out the underlying conditions for corruption.

Exercising full and rigorous Party self-governance has been a signature and cornerstone of Xi's leadership. In his first press appearance as the newly elected general secretary of the CPC Central Committee in November 2012, he candidly acknowledged that the Party faced "numerous severe challenges," with corruption being a primary concern.

He immediately started addressing the issue by tackling the deteriorating conduct of officials -- some had indulged in extravagance, grown content with empty formalities, or put on an air of bureaucracy.

"The Party's conduct is crucial to winning the people's support and is a matter concerning the Party's survival or demise," Xi said.

In less than 20 days, the eight-point rules were introduced by the CPC central leadership. Spelled out in just over 600 words, the eight-point rules established regulations for Party leaders regarding research tours, meetings, documentation, and other official duties, cracking down on lavish banquets, red carpet events, pomp, entourages, unnecessary meetings, and luxury perks that had once been regarded by some as typical symbols of power.

According to the eight-point rules, when conducting grassroots field studies, officials should learn from the people on the ground. Ceremonial formalities such as banners and floral arrangements are not allowed. Official meetings and events must be streamlined. Security protocols such as traffic controls and road or venue closures should be minimized.

The code of conduct started off with a bang, yielding immediate and remarkable results.

"Few anticipated that the persistent issues of official extravagance plaguing China's political circles would undergo such a striking transformation," Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao newspaper observed.

Over the past decade, the eight-point rules have kept evolving and today remain a defining hallmark of Xi and the CPC's efforts to ensure good and clean governance.

A LONG-HELD TRADITION

Son of revolutionary leader Xi Zhongxun, Xi Jinping learned from his father's rigorous and disciplined approach to life and work from a young age.

Four children of the family studied at a boarding school, and every weekend, they took the bus home. The elder Xi had never picked them up with his official car.

He taught his children to live frugally and always maintain a humble and modest attitude.

Over the years, a frugal lifestyle, strict self-discipline, and strong ties with the masses remained with Xi Jinping.

In the late 1980s, when he served as the Party chief of Ningde, a poor prefecture in Fujian Province, Xi Jinping refused to take a new imported car as his vehicle for official use, and insisted on using an old one left by his predecessor.

"We are in a poverty-stricken area, and we should not flaunt wealth or indulge in extravagance," Xi told his staff.

As he once explained, issues of official misconduct often stemmed from the improper handling of private and public interests, along with the abuse of power.

In 1989, Ningde introduced a set of 12 rules promoting clean governance and self-discipline among officials. These straightforward guidelines prohibited misconduct such as excessive wining and dining during inspection tours and the use of official vehicles for personal purposes.

"The power of us Communists, regardless of its extent, is granted by the people and is mandated solely to work for their benefit," Xi said.

In the early 2000s, after Xi was appointed as Zhejiang's provincial Party chief, Sun Guangming served on his staff, overseeing the planning of Xi's inspections.

He recalled that during these inspections, Xi consistently demanded corrections whenever local officials arranged lavish receptions featuring expensive dishes, fine liquor, or gifts of local specialties.

Sun said that based on Xi's instructions, the general office of the provincial Party committee imposed strict standards for official receptions, giving a heads-up along with Xi's itinerary to local authorities before each inspection tour. These requirements, typically consisting of seven or eight points, resembled the eight-point rules now in effect.

Sun believes the rules, adopted at the Political Bureau meeting chaired by Xi on Dec. 4, 2012, signify that Xi has ushered in a new era of the Party's full and rigorous self-governance.

LEADING BY EXAMPLE

When the eight-point rules were established, some questioned whether the campaign was merely a passing fad or a political show. Xi knew enforcement was crucial.

"Promises made must be kept. In the Political Bureau, it (enforcement) starts with me," he said.

Three days after the rules were issued, Xi visited Guangdong Province. He declined the option of staying in a presidential suite, choosing instead to stay in a standard suite at a hotel.

"He told us not to upgrade anything in the room -- no new purchases, no extra additions," recalled a manager of the hotel, surnamed Qu.

At the hotel, Xi opted for a simple buffet and finished his meal in less than 20 minutes. This surprised a catering manager surnamed Yang, who noted that the restaurant typically served more dishes even for standard corporate events.

That afternoon, Xi traveled in an unassuming convoy that blended into regular traffic, traveling alongside taxis and buses, following traffic lights. Everything proceeded as usual -- no cleared paths, roadblocks, banners, or trailing entourage.

The next day, no red carpets were laid out when Xi attended an event at Lianhuashan Park either.

It was a tone-setting trip that defined the simple style of Xi's over 100 domestic inspections in the following decade. He has consistently eschewed special arrangements, instead opting to follow local customs and minimize disruption to residents.

In rural Shaanxi, he dined with locals on Loess Plateau staples like buckwheat noodles and fried dough. In Gansu, he had five meals on the train to ease the reception burden on local authorities.

As the top commander of the armed forces, Xi once queued up with sailors at a lunch buffet onboard a warship and ate with them.

During his recent inspection trip to Guizhou Province last week, Xi sat on a bench at a drum tower, chatting with folk song singers, batik artists, and college graduates in a mountainous village.

Netizens compared the scene to a series of similar encounters, noting that it reflected Xi's natural and comfortable way of connecting with the public, reinforcing his image as a man of the people -- something that has remained unchanged since his teenage years working in the countryside and throughout his political career.

"I often remind myself that all fellow members within the Party have entrusted me to serve as general secretary, so I must hold myself to even stricter standards, leading by example in upholding the Party Constitution and adhering to Party discipline and rules," Xi said.

He is strict with his family members, too. Xi said anyone who claims to be his friend or relative to seek favors should be firmly rejected and reported without delay.

"Communists don't play by the rules of favoritism in which someone gains power, and people connected to them receive special privileges," he has repeatedly said.

"Don't assume that being a cadre's child makes one immune to consequences. Anyone who violates Party discipline or state laws must be held accountable, and they must be dealt with even more strictly to set an example for the people," Xi said.

He demanded that the implementation of the eight-point rules begin with the 20-plus-member Political Bureau. For years, it has been a standard practice for Political Bureau members to report on their adherence to these rules during the annual criticism and self-criticism session.

STARTING SMALL TO CRACK HARD NUTS

Fighting corruption is no easy task. By starting with officials' indulgence in lavish banquets -- a visible symbol of excess and privilege -- Xi made a strategic first strike that addresses public discontent.

Even mooncakes were put in the spotlight. A traditional treat during the Mid-Autumn Festival, mooncakes had, at the height of the bribe-giving culture, morphed into a convenient cover for bribery.

Xi applauded the graft-busters' attention to mooncakes. "Targeting mooncakes may seem trivial, but it's actually about tackling the corruption hidden behind such practices," he said.

Observers describe Xi's strategy as tackling issues one by one, making steady progress. By targeting seemingly small matters such as the misuse of public funds for mooncakes, greeting cards, fireworks and so on, the effort moved from simple to complex, gradually making breakthroughs.

To add more weight to the eight-point rules, the Party's top disciplinary watchdog regularly names and shames violators and announces the punishments they receive to deter others.

Such measures serve not only as punishment but also as a wake-up call, pulling offenders back before minor infractions spiral into more serious wrongdoing or even criminal acts.

In a decade, about 1.1 million people were reminded, reprimanded, or punished for violating the rules.

Xi's decision to target misconduct was a well-thought-out move. With misconduct and corruption stemming from the same root, the rules represented a decisive first blow at the heart of the problem.

After assuming the top position, Xi launched an unprecedented anti-corruption storm that has swept every corner of public office, netting both high-flying "tigers" and lower-level "flies." Some of the most senior officials -- including former members of the Political Bureau and its Standing Committee, top military brass, and retirees who left their leading positions years ago -- have been brought to justice.

Fully aware that corruption is an issue the people resent most, Xi said: "If we don't offend a few thousand corrupt officials, we'll fail 1.4 billion Chinese people."

An overwhelming victory had been achieved, but Xi warned that the fight against corruption and misconduct would never end.

Indeed, new forms of practices dodging the eight-point rules have continuously emerged. Some officials tried to bypass hotels and restaurants to indulge in luxury in private villas and secluded rural retreats. A few even sought extravagance abroad.

Xi used a metaphor to emphasize the long-term nature of improving conduct: "Just as a room needs regular cleaning, the dust in our minds must be cleared away regularly."

At times, he was more direct, saying that "if 10 years aren't enough, then 20 years; if 20 years aren't enough, then 30 years."

PROFOUND TRANSFORMATIONS

The ban on extravagant official receptions, along with restrictions on expenses for official overseas visits and vehicle use, eased long-standing public frustration. Once-symbolic perks of officialdom -- lavish banquets, wasteful junkets and personal use of official vehicles -- have largely faded.

With the eight-point rules firmly in place, transparency has improved as government departments and agencies continue to upgrade their practices for regularly disclosing expenses. The focus of the public has also shifted, from outrage over excess to scrutinizing how the money saved from curbing extravagance is being reinvested.

Wang Jixia, a former official overseeing vegetable cultivation in Laoling, Shandong Province, was all too familiar with the health problems commonly afflicting government officials: fatty liver, high blood pressure, and soaring cholesterol -- all consequences of endless rounds of lavish banquets. "Social drinking twice a day seemed part of the job," he recalled.

But things are different now. The crackdown on extravagant receptions allowed Wang to refocus on his real work. He had more time to visit farmers to assess vegetable production. His health also improved.

Xi also noted such lifestyle changes among officials. "Instead of attending lavish events and downing drinks, many officials now feel a renewed sense of relief," he once said at a meeting.

The impact of the eight-point rules goes beyond that. As civil servants enhanced their awareness to serve the populace, their push to streamline administration picked up pace, saving time and trouble for businesses and the public.

This transformation has reshaped social norms as well. Simplicity is now valued over extravagance. Restaurants have shifted to offering smaller portions, with diners readily packing up leftovers. Foods that were once overpriced have become affordable again.

Even weddings and funerals are reducing extravagant banquets, choosing simpler and more budget-friendly arrangements instead. Likewise, agencies and institutions now favor modest venues over luxury hotels or tourist resorts for conferences.

The eight-point rules have helped restore public trust. A recent poll revealed that 94.9 percent of respondents approved of the rules.

"We must show that we are not only capable of delivering results but also doing so with genuine dedication," Xi said. "Only then can we truly earn the trust of the people."

HAMMERING NAILS

Xi has transformed the Party and the country through the eight-point rules. Yet, he remains keenly aware that the mission is far from accomplished.

"Certain areas have grown lax, some blind spots remain unaddressed, and unhealthy practices have begun to resurge," Xi noted last week during his inspection tour.

One high-profile case in December 2022 underscored the persistence of misconduct.

Six senior officials in northwest China's Qinghai Province held a drinking spree in the dormitory of the provincial Party School, in a blatant violation of rules.

The hours-long drinking session led to severe consequences the next day. One of the officials was hospitalized due to a heart attack, while another died from alcohol intoxication.

Investigations revealed that these officials had formed a clique over the years of socializing, leveraging their positions to exchange favors. They all received severe punishments.

Following the 20th CPC National Congress in late 2022, China's disciplinary agencies have handled 768,000 cases of malpractice and corruption at the grassroots level, imposing penalties on 628,000 officials.

In January this year alone, disciplinary agencies nationwide investigated and addressed 16,430 cases of violations of the eight-point rules.

"Conduct issues are recurrent and deeply entrenched; they cannot be resolved overnight or eradicated through a single decisive campaign. We must avoid superficial, short-lived efforts that fade like a passing gust of wind," Xi has warned.

At a top-level anti-corruption meeting in January, Xi identified the deeply intertwined nature of misconduct and corruption as a "prominent problem" and called for an integrated crackdown.

The latest education campaign marks Xi's renewed push to tackle the issue. During talks with local officials last week, he cautioned against mere surface-level compliance, stressing that such an approach runs counter to the eight-point rules themselves.

"Like hammering a nail, we must strike it a few more times," he said, "until the change becomes deeply ingrained in people's behavior and way of thinking." Enditem

(by Xinhua writers Zhou Xiaozheng, Xu Lingui, Wang Di, Cheng Zhuo, Yu Xiaohua, Cao Peixian, and Zhang Bowen)

I think it was back when I was in middle school, roughly 20 years ago, that my grandfather completed a personal memoir after some time spent writing. It wasn’t particularly lengthy, but I remember being struck by how unusual it seemed at the time. In my impression back then, memoirs were something only famous people wrote. For someone like my grandfather—a so-called “ordinary person”—to pen his own memoir felt quite rare.

As I grew older, I began to realize that history is, in fact, made up of countless stories from ordinary people, each one unique in its own way. Recently, a friend of mine shared a thought-provoking line: “Once you accept your ordinary life, your extraordinary journey begins.” It’s a sentiment I’m still mulling over, but it resonates with my belief that everyone’s life is worth documenting. This idea aligns perfectly with a growing trend in China—the rise of a niche industry dedicated to writing memoirs for elderly people, especially as the country’s aging population accelerates.

Perhaps one day I’ll hire someone to help write my own memoir. By then, though, the question might be whether that person will be human or AI. In today’s newsletter, I want to introduce you to the world of China’s burgeoning memoir-writing service market for senior citizens. The original article, titled 为老人代写回忆录，年入6位数？Writing Memoirs for Seniors in China: Making Tens of Thousands a Year?, was first posted on the WeChat blog of China Newsweek, a Chinese weekly magazine published by China News Service.

Writing Memoirs for Seniors in China: Making Tens of Thousands a Year?

When 97-year-old Liu Dianqing received his memoir, he donned his military uniform and gave a heartfelt salute to the delivery person.

The red cover featured a profile of Liu in uniform, with the bold title “The Revolutionary Road: A Century of Trials and Triumphs.” This unofficial publication without an ISBN or price tag moved Liu to tears. His daughter, Liu Youzhen, remembered him sitting in the courtyard, cradling the book and flipping through its pages over and over.

“It feels amazing to see my life written down like this -- I’m so happy I cried,” Liu said loudly, his hearing now fading.

Born into an era of poverty and hardship, Liu, a native of central China's Henan Province, enlisted in the military twice and spent the latter part of his life in a remote county in Ganzi Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province. While his story wasn’t one of battlefield heroics, Liu Youzhen was deeply curious about the life her father had led -- treasuring the details hidden in his stories and the dialect he still spoke.

This year, posts about ghostwriting memoirs for seniors have gone viral on social media and lifestyle platforms like Xiaohongshu and Douyin, with eye-catching headlines such as "Custom Memoirs for Seniors: Earn 60,000 Yuan Per Book” and “Make Six Figures Ghostwriting for Seniors."

Depending on the client’s budget, these memoirs vary in length but typically exceed 30,000 words. At rates of 5,000–6,000 yuan per 10,000 words, the cost of a memoir generally falls between 10,000 and 80,000 yuan.

This emerging market has attracted a variety of service providers, from small but growing companies and boutique studios with fewer than 10 employees to part-time writers and freelancers looking for extra income or a steady side gig.

By the end of 2023, China’s population aged 60 and above had reached 296 million, accounting for 21.1% of the total population. In this rapidly growing “silver economy,” could ghostwriting memoirs be the next big opportunity?

Preserving Memories

It’s often only after grandparents or parents pass away that people realize how little they truly knew about them -- and regret not capturing their life stories. Nearly every professional interviewed by China Newsweek shared this sense of remorse.

For many, this regret marks the start of their journey into the field. When an elderly family member falls gravely ill and their time begins to run out, families scramble to preserve their memories. They look for someone with writing skills to document these stories -- not necessarily a great wordsmith, just someone who can craft clear and coherent sentences. Often, the go-to choice is a friend who enjoys writing.

This is exactly how 36-year-old Ding Man got his start. In 2015, fresh out of grad school and searching for a business opportunity, he came across a U.S. platform specializing in ghostwritten memoirs. The platform connected clients with writers at different skill levels, with projects typically priced at around 30,000 yuan.

But it wasn’t until 2021 that Ding saw the demand in China take off. Over the next two years, he witnessed families rushing to preserve memories after an elderly loved one passed unexpectedly, finally compelled to act under the weight of urgency.

Interestingly, most clients aren’t younger relatives -- they are the seniors themselves. Han Meng, a writer active on the social media platform Douyin, discovered this while working on an assignment. During a National Day holiday, Han Meng was assigned by her institution to interview a retired official. Her task was to learn about his contributions to the institution, but the elderly man instead wanted to begin with the seeds of his story, planted in his youth and even childhood.

That’s when Han realized something profound: the elderly have lived through eras of immense change, and their stories are deeply interconnected. When someone is willing to listen, they’re eager to reflect and weave their lives into a meaningful narrative -- perhaps as much for themselves as for future generations.

“Work experiences need to be understood in the context of a person’s life story.” This perspective comes from Professor Chen Xin, a public history researcher and distinguished professor at the History Department of Shanghai Normal University. Professor Chen encountered a similar situation during his time at Zhejiang University’s Public History Research Center.

The university tasked him with urgently documenting the stories of professors aged 85 and above to fill gaps in the institution’s historical records. However, Professor Chen quickly realized that focusing solely on their professional ties to the university made it difficult to gain their trust. Ultimately, the research team interviewed dozens of senior professors and compiled an oral history for each one.

Ding also took a thoughtful approach, categorizing his elderly clients into different groups. Some are nearing retirement and want a memoir as part of their legacy at work, often inspired by an upcoming farewell ceremony. Others commission memoirs to help their children and grandchildren better understand them.

For instance, Ding once worked with his landlords in Beijing, a retired couple who had been professors at a local university. Their grandchildren, born and raised abroad, had little connection with them. To bridge this gap, the couple asked Ding to write a 200,000-word memoir of their life stories so their grandchildren could truly understand who their grandparents were.

In fact, most elderly clients who actively seek memoir services share similar motivations. These are often individuals with rich life experiences and a profound understanding of how societal changes intertwine with personal journeys. As they enter a slower-paced phase of life, they feel an increasing desire to reflect on their family roots and document their stories—leaving a legacy for future generations.

A Timeless Need

The idea of seniors documenting their life stories -- or hiring someone to do it for them -- is not new. Professor Chen considers this practice a form of personal history writing, placing it within the broader scope of public history.

Chen notes that as early as a decade ago, Chinese scholars and research institutions were already promoting personal history projects, including memoirs for the elderly, often on a nonprofit basis.

He also points out that writing histories for renowned academics or political figures has never fallen out of practice. These individuals, having participated in historic events or pivotal moments, have shaped the lives of countless people, naturally drawing a wide audience.

What’s new, however, is the growing awareness and ability of everyday people to reflect on and record their own histories.

“With the rise of the internet and new media, the cost of recording and sharing personal stories has dropped significantly, creating a surge in personal history writing,” Chen explains. “If someone can’t write, they can record audio. If they have the means, they can hire a writer.”

According to Chen, the biggest motivation for seniors commissioning memoirs isn’t societal recognition -- it's the desire to share their stories with loved ones.

“Whether it’s about legacy or inspiration, these memoirs focus on the individual and their family. They’re meant to strengthen family ties and bridge generational gaps. This is where their real value lies. For individuals and their families, these ‘small histories’ can often mean more than grand historical narratives,” Chen said.

The rise of the memoir-writing market is closely tied to the aging population. Zhu Ziyi, the founder of a mid-sized ghostwriting agency, initially entered the senior-focused industry by betting on online ventures rather than labor-intensive projects like memoir writing.

Zhu began with a niche project centered on elderly cheongsam (qipao) fashion shows. However, when in-person events abruptly halted in 2020, he pivoted to memoir ghostwriting. To his surprise, the new venture turned a profit in its very first year.

In recent years, young people looking for new career opportunities have become another driving force behind the growth of this industry. According to Han Xiner, a co-founder of a ghostwriting agency, many bloggers who reached out to her in the past two years are former professionals from the education and training industry who transitioned to online content creation but struggled to find success. After several attempts, they eventually turned to memoir ghostwriting.

China Newsweek reports that while top writers focus on biographies of celebrities and entrepreneurs, the market for elderly memoirs is still fragmented.

Most of the practitioners are young people who have been in the industry for less than three years, often working part-time. As a result, their client base and output remain limited. For example, after three years of part-time ghostwriting, Ding Man has written just six memoirs.

Han Meng said that there are no set standards for producing memoirs. Practitioners have a wide range of skills and aesthetic tastes, and the quality of the memoirs’ packaging varies greatly. The hardest part to control, however, is the writing itself.

Comparing memoirs from different ghostwriters, China Newsweek found that some were overly sentimental, turning the subject’s life into a legend, while others were more focused on fact-checking, cross-referencing the subject's oral history with archives and public records to create a more authentic, reliable, and accurate narrative.

“The market has already split into different segments. Some teams are targeting high-end clients, who view the memoir as a family history document and value authenticity, legacy, and readability. Other teams are focusing on the lower-end market, where the emphasis is more on packaging and the writing quality is less important. Different clients have different expectations when it comes to emotional value and ceremonial significance,” one practitioner explained to China Newsweek.

“Personal history should first meet the individual’s needs. Then, on a family level, the goal is for the children to read it and gain a deeper understanding or appreciation of their family history or the individual. Only then does it matter how it resonates on a larger societal scale,” Chen explained to China Newsweek.

The Challenges of Specialization

Industry insiders were quicker to recognize the rise of this new trend than the media or the public. Han Xiner explained that as early as 2022, various parties had already targeted this emerging business. Her agency has been receiving a steady stream of visitors looking for collaboration.

“People from all walks of life -- media professionals and content creators seeking a career shift, funeral photography companies, Chinese culture enthusiasts, family offices within insurance companies or law firms, and even AI companies,” Han Xiner listed, describing the types of people approaching her.

Everyone wants to enter the new market but with different approaches. Beyond traditional revenue streams like channels and content, AI companies are the newest players. On one hand, AI tools help improve production efficiency; on the other, these companies hope to use the memoir-writing industry to enter homes and create “digital avatars” of elderly or deceased individuals.

As this still-developing market draws attention and resources, practitioners remain both optimistic and cautious. Social media influencers, for example, want to use the content to promote themselves and generate traffic, and Han Xiner doesn’t mind, saying, “We see great potential in this market.” At this early stage, rather than worrying about competition, it’s better to focus on growing the industry.

That said, the commercialization of the memoir-writing market still faces significant hurdles, with the biggest challenge being customer acquisition. “Whether it’s the elderly or their children, they tend to invest with an eye toward the future, prioritizing spending on the next generation,” several interviewees explained. Much like senior care institutions in China, the high cost of the service -- ranging from tens of thousands of yuan -- makes both the elderly and their children hesitant to pay.

After six years in the business, Zhao Yuxi has lowered his pricing from 30,000–100,000 yuan to 10,000–30,000 yuan. Meanwhile, Zhu Ziyi has kept his minimum price at 28,000 yuan to stay close to the cost-line and cater to average families.

Ding's Douyin account regularly receives inquiries from elderly people across the country, but he admitted that he's yet to perfect converting these inquiries into actual clients.

In the early stages of his business, Zhu Ziyi tried giving speeches at senior care facilities, associations, and events, but the elderly weren’t interested. “Older people often have a low sense of self-worth. They don’t think their lives are worth writing about, and they’re reluctant to spend the money,” he explained. Eventually, he changed his strategy and started targeting the children of the elderly to place orders instead.

With market segmentation, the approach to memoir production also began to diverge. Higher-end clients, who tend to be more educated, have a greater willingness to pay and higher expectations for professionalism. Teams serving this clientele invest considerable resources to make the memoirs as polished as commercially published books.

“Authenticity and readability are the core requirements. It’s simple: this is a legacy for future generations, so there’s no need to lie or embellish. It needs to be something future generations will actually want to read, or it loses its value as a legacy,” Zhu Ziyi explained.

As memoir-writing becomes a business, the question of how to professionalize the industry arises. “For example, your writing should be supported by more research, similar to the technical expertise in history. You need to know how to find the right sources. Or, if the subject’s memory is unclear and they can’t tell their story effectively, how should the writer handle it to balance authenticity with readability?” said Chen Xin.

Chen Xin had once envisioned a scenario where ordinary people could write their memoirs with scholars providing guidance on methodology and standards. However, now he believes that training should come from the market, with professionals who have more experience in writing biographies leading the way.

“Abroad, there’s a certification for oral historians, issued by private companies rather than government agencies. This helps establish a professional framework for the field. Since this is a service to society, the service needs to be thorough, which requires comprehensive technical training,” Chen Xin explained. He believes the future of the ghostwriting industry will need training in social psychology, digital humanities, media editing, and more.

“Because what you’re doing may not just be writing a text -- you could also make a documentary. This could lead to a rich cultural market,” Chen Xin said.

Is memoir writing truly the new frontier of the “silver economy”? Zhao Yuxi once described the future of the industry in an interview: “Writing a memoir after retirement is as natural as taking wedding photos when you get married.”

After the market gained momentum, Han Xiner’s agency quickly found itself overwhelmed with requests. In her view, no matter how much the process is optimized or efficiency improved, memoir writing’s standardization will never be on par with fast-moving consumer goods. Moreover, since personal experiences and memories are inherently unique, it’s fair to say that this industry is, in a way, anti-scale.

Despite the promising outlook, Ding is conflicted, saying “Even though the market still needs development, considering China’s large population, I’m motivated. But the reality is that customer acquisition is very difficult.”

“If I want to raise my prices and target high-end clients, it’s not just about the channels — they have expectations about your knowledge and educational background. For regular customers, charging 3,000 yuan for 10,000 words offers a very low return on investment compared to my main business. I’ll have to wait and see.” Ding added.

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As life expectancy rises and birth rates decline, China is witnessing an accelerated pace of aging and experiencing a significant demographic shift that is reshaping its labor markets and social structures.

Qiushi, a flagship magazine of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, recently published an article by Xi Jinping on the decline of China's population. The article is part of Xi's speech on May 5, 2023, at the first meeting of the commission for financial and economic affairs under the 20th CPC Central Committee.

Patrick Zhang, a Salzburg Global Fellow and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), introduced the article in his Geopolitechs newsletter.

China's population development has also entered a new phase. Comprehensive analysis shows that with economic and social development and changes in the age structure of the population, our country has generally shifted from a stage of population growth to one of population reduction. Population development exhibits clear trending characteristics such as low birth rates, aging, and regional population increases and decreases.

Xi noted in the article that while population decline may bring certain challenges, it also has positive effects, such as reducing pressure on resources and the environment and fostering a shift in economic development from extensive expansion to intensive growth.

At the same time, we must recognize that our country's low birth rates and aging are occurring before modernization is completed, which will bring new difficulties and challenges that we must actively address.

The article also outlines several key tasks to support Chinese modernization with high-quality population development, including implementing a national strategy to address population aging.

We must promote the construction of a basic elderly care service system. Improve the basic elderly care service catalog system, and establish an elderly care service system that coordinates home, community, and institutions, integrating medical care with health and elderly care.

We must vigorously develop the "silver economy." Support the elderly care industry to develop in scale, standardization, clustering, and branding, and cultivate high-tech products and high-quality service models.

We must enhance the sustainability of the social insurance system. Accelerate the development of a multi-level, multi-pillar pension insurance system, strengthen the second and third pillars of pension insurance, and improve the financing and benefit adjustment mechanisms of basic medical insurance.

"银发经济 Silver economy" has become a popular term in Chinese media and forums in recent years.

"People from my parents' generation were reluctant to spend money; they always saved whatever they could. But now, when I look at retirees from the 1960s generation, it’s a different story. They are traveling, networking, and many are enrolled in senior universities after retirement," said Yang Guowu, founder of 居家通 Jujialink, a Beijing-based data-driven startup specializing in elderly care, during a forum on gerontology and geriatrics held in Beijing last month.

This Monday, Ren Zeping, chief economist at Zhongyuan Bank, published "中国银发经济报告2024 China Silver Economy Report 2024" on the WeChat blog "泽平宏观 Zeping Macro." Ren has previously worked as an economist for 国务院发展研究中心 Development Research Center of the State Council. He also has a large following on Chinese social media.

The report is structured into three key sections: the current aging situation in China, international experiences from developed countries in the silver economy, and the emerging opportunities within this sector. For the readers of this newsletter, the first and third sections may be of particular interest, so today's newsletter will focus on these two parts.

Highlights:

According to the report, China's aging population is growing rapidly and significantly reshaping the demographic landscape. A large and growing portion of this population, particularly those in their 60s, are not simply aging in place but are vibrant and active—ushering in a new era where the elderly are no longer seen as frail or passive, but as engaged and full of life.

Over time, the elderly in China have experienced remarkable improvements in education, health, and life expectancy. Today, more elderly individuals are living independently than ever before, with over half of them now residing alone—an increasing trend that gives rise to the phenomenon of "empty-nest seniors." Furthermore, the generation born in the 1960s, having spent their lives accumulating wealth, is entering its later years with higher economic aspirations, seeking not only a comfortable retirement but a lifestyle that reflects the desires and expectations of a more affluent, modern society.

As China enters this aging era, the silver economy presents immense potential, driven by the growing demand for products and services catering to the elderly. The report said by 2050, it’s projected that the elderly population's consumption will account for 21% of China’s GDP.

Based on observations and analyses, Ren and his team put forward that new opportunities are emerging in six major aspects, including clothing, food, housing, travel, healthcare, and financial services tailored to the elderly, which are expected to experience significant growth as the silver economy continues to expand.

More details:

The silver economy encompasses a range of economic activities aimed at providing products and services for the elderly, as well as preparing for the aging stage of life. It includes both efforts to "serve the elderly" and to "prepare for aging." The concept of the silver economy originated in Japan and was later adopted by Europe, North America, and other Asian countries.

China officially introduced the concept of the silver economy in 2019, and in 2020, it called for its development. In January 2024, the State Council issued the "《关于发展银发经济增进老年人福祉的意见》Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Developing the Silver Economy and Improving the Well-being of the Elderly," the first policy document specifically named after the silver economy. This document provides a clear definition, describing the silver economy as the total economic activities related to providing products and services to the elderly, as well as preparing for the aging stage of life.

The development of China's silver economy is driven by the deepening aging trend and the country’s position as home to the largest elderly population in the world. This offers vast potential for the silver economy, which not only helps improve the quality of life for individuals but also contributes to economic growth and stimulates domestic demand. According to estimates from 中国老龄科学研究中心 the China Research Center on Aging, the current scale of China's silver economy is approximately 7 trillion yuan, accounting for around 6% of GDP. It is projected that by 2035, the scale of the silver economy will reach 30 trillion yuan (about 4.18 trillion U.S. dollars), offering tremendous growth potential.

The key to the development of the silver economy lies in unlocking the demand of the elderly population, with the core focus on meeting their diverse needs for products and services.

1. By category, there is a shift from addressing the functional needs of the elderly to fulfilling their emotional and spiritual needs. It’s not just about ensuring the elderly are cared for, but also providing opportunities for them to enjoy life and continue contributing, allowing them to remain engaged and purposeful in their later years.

2. By age group, younger seniors (aged 65-74) tend to focus on consumption, socializing, and entertainment, while older seniors (aged 75-89) require more caregiving services, and those in the longevity age group (aged 90 and above) are increasingly concerned with changes in physical health. Traditionally, the elderly population is categorized as those aged 60 and above, or 65 and above. However, if we consider the "pre-elderly" group, the silver population can be expanded to include individuals aged 50 and above. Based on age, the silver population can be divided into four groups: 准老人 pre-elderly (50-64), 低龄老人 younger elderly (65-74), 高龄老人 older elderly (75-89), and 长寿老人 the longevity elderly (90 and above).

New characteristics of the elderly population: large scale, improved overall quality, greater independence, and increased wealth

Currently, the elderly population exhibits the following four key characteristics:

1. Large scale and continuous growth: The elderly population is large and continues to grow, with those in the younger elderly age group (60-69) accounting for more than 50%, and this proportion is steadily increasing. It is projected that by around 2032, the number of elderly people in this group will reach 220 million.

In 2023, China’s population aged 60 and above was nearly 300 million, accounting for 21.1% of the total population. The population aged 65 and above was approximately 220 million, or 15.4% of the total population, representing about a quarter of the world’s elderly population. In other words, for every four elderly individuals worldwide, one is Chinese.

According to the China Population Forecast Report 2023 by the Beijing-based YuWa Population Research Institute, under the “Medium Scenario,” by around 2033, the number of people aged 60 and above in China will surpass 400 million, making up around 30% of the total population. The population aged 65 and above is projected to reach 290 million, accounting for more than 20% of the total population.

In terms of age distribution, in 2020, there were 150 million people aged 60-69, accounting for 55.8% of the elderly population aged 60 and above. According to Yuwa Population’s projections, the number of people aged 60-69 will continue to rise over the next decade, peaking at around 220 million by 2032.

2. Significant improvement in the comprehensive quality of the elderly: This improvement is evident in the areas of education, health, and life expectancy.

In terms of education, from 2010 to 2020, the proportion of people aged 60 and above with at least a high school education increased from 9.1% to 13.9%. As the overall education level of the population rises, the future elderly population will have higher educational attainment, which will contribute to an overall improvement in the educational quality of the elderly group.

In terms of health, from 2010 to 2020, the proportion of people aged 60 and above who considered themselves in good health increased from 43.8% to 54.6%. Meanwhile, the proportion of those in "fair health" decreased from 39.3% to 32.6%, and the proportion of those who were "unhealthy" dropped from 16.8% to 12.3%.

Regarding life expectancy, China’s average life expectancy currently stands at 78.6 years, significantly higher than the global average of 73.3 years and the 77.8 years of upper-middle-income economies. It is approaching the level of high-income economies, which is 81.4 years. With continuous improvements in the healthcare system, there is still room for further increases in life expectancy, and the number of elderly individuals living at an advanced age is expected to rise.

3. Living independently with financial independence: Over 50% of elderly people now live independently, with an increasing proportion of "empty-nest seniors." From 2010 to 2020, the proportion of elderly individuals relying on family support decreased from 40.7% to 32.7%.

As traditional values evolve, combined with shrinking family sizes, fewer children, and increased population mobility, more elderly individuals are choosing not to live with their adult children. According to data from the Seventh National Census, 39.7% of elderly people live with their children, while 55.7% live only with their spouse or independently.

When looking at urban versus rural areas, the proportion of elderly living alone is 52.2% in cities, 53% in towns, and 59.4% in rural areas. In rural regions, where many young people have migrated for work or to more developed areas, a growing number of elderly individuals live alone.

Furthermore, with the gradual improvement of the social security system, more elderly people are relying on pensions and retirement benefits for financial support, leading to greater financial independence. According to census data, from 2010 to 2020, the proportion of people aged 60 and above relying on pensions increased from 24.1% to 34.7%, while those relying on family members' support decreased from 40.7% to 32.7%.

4. Increased wealth: The generation born after the 1960s, which became wealthier over time, is now entering old age. With generational changes and evolving living conditions, the overall consumption willingness of the elderly population is on the rise.

According to sociological theory, individual values are shaped by the social environment. As China's economy and society have developed, elderly people from different eras have been influenced by distinct backgrounds, which in turn have shaped their values and consumer mindsets. The generations born in the 1940s and 1950s were the ones who "stood up" after the founding of New China, growing up in an era of material scarcity and developing habits of hard work, endurance, and frugality. The generations born in the 1960s and 1970s, on the other hand, grew up during the period of economic reform and opening up, when social security systems began to improve, income levels increased, and wealth began to accumulate, while their health status also remained relatively strong. The generations born in the 1980s and 1990s grew up during a time of rapid economic growth, with the widespread use of the internet and the rise of 5G technologies, enjoying relatively more material wealth.

Data shows that between 1978 and 2023, China's Engel coefficient for urban residents decreased from 57.5% to 28.8%, while for rural residents, it dropped from 67.7% to 32.4%. According to the 2023 National Report on the Development of Aging Affairs released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the National Working Commission on Aging, the per capita wealth of individuals aged 60 and above in 2023 was approximately 264,000 yuan.

Opportunities:

As China enters the era of population aging, the demand from middle-aged and elderly individuals for products and services in areas like clothing, food, housing, transportation, and healthcare presents huge potential for the silver economy. By 2050, it is expected that elderly consumption will account for 21% of China’s GDP. The new generation of seniors, generally better educated, is placing more value on quality of life and social activities after retirement. They are increasingly willing to spend time on their passions and hobbies, laying a strong foundation for the rapid growth of the silver economy.

According to data from iMedia Research and the China National Institute of Gerontology, between 2018 and 2023, China’s senior care market grew at an annual compound rate of 12.7%. By 2050, the total consumption of the elderly population is projected to reach between 40 and 69 trillion yuan, accounting for 20.7% of the national GDP.

With the dual driving forces of policy support and the rising demand for the elderly's mental and emotional well-being, the core areas of growth in the silver economy are expected to be in the following sectors:

1. Clothing: Apparel for the elderly;

2. Food: Elderly-friendly food products and health supplements;

3. Housing: Home-based care, community services, institutional care, end-of-life care, and senior living real estate;

4. Travel: Silver tourism;

5. Healthcare: Medical aesthetics and healthcare devices;

6. Financial Services: Elderly-focused financial products and services.

Ren's report reminds me that in a recent episode of 十三邀 Thirteen Talks, a highly acclaimed Chinese interview series featuring thought-provoking conversations with a diverse array of heavyweight guests, 许知远 Xu Zhiyuan, host and producer of the show, conversed with 陈东升 Chen Dongsheng, founder and chairman of Taikang Insurance Group as well as its subsidiary 泰康人寿 Taikang Life Insurance, one of China's largest insurers in health and elderly care.

In the episode, Chen Dongsheng, a widely considered pioneer in China's community elderly care industry, shared his views on China's elderly care industry as well as his experiences and insights gained from achieving success in this field.

Chen reflected on his thoughts about the industry's future development 17 years ago and the insights he gained from researching the elderly care sector in the United States In 2008. He recalled that when he decided to focus on investing in the community elderly care sector, many were skeptical due to the industry's heavy reliance on assets, large investments, and low returns on investment. At that time, he purchased a 400,000 square meter plot of land in the suburbs of Beijing for several thousand yuan per square meter -- now the site of Taikang Life's flagship community elderly care project, "燕园 Yan Garden."

Chen shared that the then Party Secretary of Changping District in Beijing had told him, "Everyone comes to me under the guise of elderly care to engage in real estate, but only you, the 'fool,' bought the land at residential land prices to develop the elderly care industry."

According to Chen, although the land's price later soared to tens of thousands of yuan per square meter due to the boom in China's real estate industry, he did not sell it. Instead, he continued to develop the elderly care community, a commitment and foresight that have led to his success in the industry today.

As of June 30, Taikang managed 890 billion yuan in pension funds, making it one of the largest corporate pension investors and managers in the Chinese market.

"I didn’t sell at that time because I wanted people to see that the elderly care sector was a long-term opportunity, a major trend for the future," Chen said.

"Later, we combined elderly care with insurance, creating an innovative model that could be regarded as a global breakthrough—merging virtual insurance with real-world healthcare and senior care, and forming a new business model centered on health and longevity," said Chen during the 20th Summer Annual Conference of Yabuli China Entrepreneurship Forum this August.

I believe Chen Dongsheng's example is a vivid illustration of a "long-termist" seizing opportunities and achieving success through persistence. I recommend this episode and highly suggest watching other in-depth interviews on the "十三邀 Thirteen Talks" series, which is my favorite program for deep conversations in China.

Reflecting on that time now, I realize it was a natural transition from student life into the professional world. As a member of society, one inevitably encounters a broader array of concerns compared to the relatively pressure-free and exploratory environment of university, where it was easy to find like-minded peers passionate about societal issues due to the curriculum's strong focus on such topics.

Today's newsletter discusses a popular trend emerging in several Chinese cities: academic lectures in bars. According to the individuals featured in this story, the relaxed atmosphere of bars partially offsets the seriousness of academic lectures, perfectly aligning with the current needs of many young people in China. This setting allows them to learn and unwind simultaneously, effectively combining two activities in one. Moreover, attending these science bar events evokes a sense of returning to campus life and participating in reading groups.

While still a trend, with most bars continuing their traditional operations, I find this phenomenon quite intriguing and worthy of attention. The article was first published on the WeChat blog of 每日人物 (Daily People), which focuses on individual stories amidst hot social topics. The original title of the article is 不唱歌、不蹦迪，年轻人沉迷在酒吧听课 Young People Swap Singing and Dancing for Classroom Sessions in Bars.

In the dim light, two large screens display PowerPoint slides as a teacher stands between them, microphone in hand, delivering a detailed lecture on the spiritual undertones and cultural symbols of Journey to the West, one of China's most beloved classics.

This scene may be common on a university lecture hall or a bookstore. But surprisingly, it's happening in a bar—and not as a one-off event, but as part of an ongoing series.

These bars, known online as "science bars," invite industry elites or university professors to lecture on their area of research, followed by a discussion with the audience. While this concept has long been popular abroad, it began to catch on in China in June 2024. Now they are emerging as the latest leisure trend among young people in first-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.

Typically, there is an inherent conflict between the realm of science, which demands rigor and clarity, and the bar scene, which is often associated with carefree intoxication. Nonetheless, the blend of these two creates an inexplicable harmony.

Back at the bar, where the lecture on Journey to the West is underway, all the booths are occupied, with some even crowding into the spaces and lining the aisles, standing to listen.

A science bar hosting a lecture on Journey to the West (Photo by Meiri Renwu)

A girl exudes a fashionable vibe, her makeup delicate and her eyes sparkling with glitter. She is dressed in a spaghetti strap top paired with thigh-high boots, looking ready to hit the dance floor at any moment. Yet here she is, sitting upright at the bar, craning her neck through the crowd to lock eyes with the teacher.

Many have goblets on the table, sipping occasionally, but their focus remains sharp. They stay attentive, eyes fixed intently on the screen, even nodding along with the teacher's points.

It's not a formal lesson, though for those sitting in the front rows, playing with their phones seems like something they shouldn't do. If they do check their phones, they discreetly slide their phones under the table, hunch over, and take a quick look. Before looking up, they scan the room, and if they catch someone's eye, a flicker of embarrassment crosses their face, as if they've been caught in the act.

Sometimes, this "stealthy" act seems to bring an indescribable feeling of pleasure. In the second row, right across from the teacher, sits a PhD student from Peking University. She found out about the science bar event online and came with a friend to check it out. Whenever she's tempted to chat with her friend, she engages in an internal struggle, either covering her mouth or lowering her head. Her friend picks up on the cue and leans in, and they chat quietly, just like students passing notes in class.

The two, perhaps feeling that the experience of "sneakily" chatting in a bar is really funny, burst into laughter, but they must retain it. Their suppressed laughter turns into silent giggles, with air escaping through their noses in little "hmphs." As soon as their eyes meet, this clandestine suppression of laughter triggers another round of chuckles between them.

Before the lecture started, every attendee is given a piece of paper to take notes. Li Wanying (a pseudonym; same below) made full use of hers, writing down intriguing ideas. She also snapped pictures of the teacher's PowerPoint slides on her phone.

Notepaper handed out at a science bar event (Photo provided by the interviewee)

Li Wanying also stumbled upon the science bar event online while preparing to study abroad. She is applying for a master's degree in communication, noticing that the lecture topic is related to humanities and social sciences, decided to attend together with her friend.

At each class, there are always attentive students, but there are also those who get distracted—like me. To be honest, I'm not particularly interested in Journey to the West, and despite my best efforts to stay focused, I find myself drifting off. The flat tone of the teacher's voice, combined with the complexity of the technical terms, just serves as a distraction. Before I even notice, I've already yawned a few times.

Sitting by the bar counter, I appear to be at the intersection of two worlds. On one side, the teacher's lecture transports me back to my university days, while on the other side, the bartender's constant shaking of the cocktail shaker reminds me that I'm very much in a bar.

Class on one side and bar counter on the other (Photo provided by the interviewee)

In this setting, the things that are usually common in a bar instead bring a sense of shame. A couple sitting in the front-row booth illustrates this shift. After some hesitations, the boy tentatively placed his arm around the girl's waist, only for her to brush him off, saying, "Pay attention to the lecture." Embarrassed and flustered, he stroked the back of his head.

Each lecture usually includes a Q&A section, but time is limited, and not everyone gets a chance to ask a question. This leads to a queue of people waiting to add the teacher on WeChat or request a copy of the presentation slides. Well, it's hard to tell who is genuinely seeking advice from the teacher and who is simply going along with the crowd. I noticed one boy about to leave when his friend urged him to stay and join the line. Without thinking, he asked, "What are we doing this for?" but soon, as if fearing he'd miss out, he quietly lined up behind his friend, saying, "Might as well."

Zhao Yuancheng works on algorithms at an internet giant. In his free time, he also hung out with friends at bars, albeit without paying attention to the people around him. In his eyes, they were a blur.

But during bar lectures, he finds himself unconsciously observing others with great detail. His perception of these people becomes more distinct. For instance, someone carrying a Peking University tote bag is likely a student, whereas someone dressed in a T-shirt paired with leather shoes could be a financial professional.

Each lecture typically lasts about two hours. After it's over, the bar goes back to its usual state. As soft dance music begins to play, a couple tucks into the seats by the window. Once again, the air appears to have taken on a hazy quality, and the edges of reality begin to blur softly.

Science saves bars?

Jianing hosts a science bar in Beijing. He got the idea after noticing the buzz surrounding similar events in Shanghai on social media and thought, "This is something I should be doing." After finishing his postgraduate studies last year, he initially planned to pursue a PhD, but since all the supervisors he wanted to work with already had full rosters, he decided to take a gap year while waiting for his turn.

During his postgraduate years, Jianing frequently participated in reading sessions at school. Each time the event concluded, he and his classmates would continue their discussions in bars, energized by the conversation. To him, science bars are just the "social version" of those academic gatherings.

He seeks partnerships with bars, where they provide the venue and he takes charge of planning the lecture topics and inviting speakers. One of his partners is Liu Yuzhou, who runs a bar near Beijing's Wudaokou area, a hotspot for many top universities.

Liu Yuzhou works as a game script planner. A few years ago, he toyed with the idea of starting a brick-and-mortar business in the Wudaokou area since his friend has a storefront there, but he couldn't settle on what kind of business to open. Initially, he considered opening a bookstore, but the idea didn't seem promising after seeing established shops like Sanlian and Cenci bookstores relocate from the area. After much consideration, Liu Yuzhou decided to run a hybrid establishment: a coffee bar by day and a wine bar by night.

Last year, the bar officially opened. When he's not occupied with his day job, he checks in on the bar himself. He's noticed a trend where customers are spending less, with few receipts topping 100 yuan (about 14.17 U.S. dollars). Most people now order drinks in the tens of yuan range, with preferences leaning toward affordable options that still offer decent quality and can last for a while.

And there has been a shift in the bar's clientele. Last year, it was predominantly young couples. This year, however, the tables are often occupied by individuals who sit studying with their laptops or piles of books.

People studying at Liu Yuzhou's bar (Photo provided by the interviewee)

Liu Yuzhou envisioned his bar as a hub for cultural events, a concept he factored into store renovation. Anyone, including strangers, is welcome to come in, take a seat, and enjoy the facilities and music at their leisure.

Later, Liu Yuzhou partnered with Jianing to host several academic lectures. These lectures proved to be highly popular, with the aisles packed with attendees. The lectures are free to attend, and those who come pay for their own wine. Liu Yuzhou estimated that these events boosted his bar's revenue by about 30 percent.

At the same time, Jianing's social media presence also started gaining traction. Before each event, he would post updates, and the first post caught the attention of several hundred people. Soon, his follower count soared to thousands. Within three months, his account had amassed over 5,000 followers.

And as their events continue, more attendees are joining to their WeChat groups with each event. So far, they have set up seven WeChat groups, each of which has reached the maximum capacity.

Similarly, Xiangqian in Xi'an has also sniffed out business opportunities from the popularity of science bars in Shanghai. His friend runs a successful science bar in Shanghai, regularly hosting science-themed events that attract like-minded individuals. On its opening day, the bar packed to capacity. Convinced of the concept's potential, Xiangqian believed the idea must be viable in Xi'an too.

In June 2024, Xiangqian opened his own bar. From the start, he prioritized academic lectures. He had assumed that attendees would mainly come to unwind and not pay close attention to the lectures. To his astonishment, nearly 80 percent of them listened attentively, and a surprising 20 percent even took notes. He dubbed this unique learning method "tipsy studying."

Judging by the outcomes to date, the idea of science bars has indeed proven successful. Xiangqian has situated his bar near a stadium, far from the bustling bar districts. The slightly out-of-the-way location usually doesn't attract visitors. But once the academic events were introduced, the place was packed for nearly every session, often exceeding its capacity.

An academic lecture held at Xiangqian's bar (Photo provided by the interviewee)

Unlike in Beijing, Xiangqian charges a 68-yuan entry fee for its lectures, which includes a drink. Science bars have become so popular that his bar has been hosting more events in the past two months, with nearly one session on each weekday. This translates into a monthly turnover of between 100,000 yuan and 130,000 yuan.

For Xiangqian, the cost of running these academic lectures is minimal. Apart from the first event, where he invited a friend as the keynote speaker, all subsequent events have cost him nothing as scholars volunteer to speak. In fact, there are so many willing speakers now that some have to wait for available slots.

The busiest bar on the bar street stays open until 4 or 5 a.m. but only brings in 200,000 yuan or so a month. In contrast, Xiangqian's bar closes at 11 p.m. almost every day, yet its turnover is on track to match or surpass that figure.

Opening a science bar was a choice Xiangqian made after careful consideration. In February 2024, he had the idea of running a coffee bar by day and a wine bar by night. Then he spent three months visiting 107 coffee shops, where he chatted with each owner about their business over the past two years. In the end, he concluded that almost all physical coffeehouses and bars are struggling.

One coffee shop in a shopping mall had nearly rent-free conditions thanks to promotional incentives, yet it still only managed modest profits. The owner told Xiangqian that selling 70,000 cups of coffee a year yields a profit of just 100,000 yuan, and that figure would be even lower if rent were factored in. Moreover, the shop is the most profitable one in that business district.

Another coffeehouse is located in a scenic area, while benefiting from stable foot traffic, still only cleared just over 100,000 yuan annually, indicating that business wasn't booming even in such prime locations.

Despite their popularity, sustaining the success of science bars is no easy task.

A 2023 report on the consumption trends of online alcoholic drinks in China suggests that young people aged 18 to 35 prefer drinking at home or with meals, at rates of 60.2 percent and 45.2 percent, respectively. Given this, why would anyone need to go to a bar?

In China, 95 percent of bars are independently operated, rather than being part of a chain, which makes it difficult to find a universally applicable business model among them. In 2021, Helens International Holding, China’s largest pub chain, went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, becoming the first pub chain to do so. This listing buoyed the optimism of some investors about the development of pubs. However, three years later, Helen's expansion has slowed, and its performance has declined.

Over the past several years, the most well-known bar chain brand is Tiaohai Village. Founded in 2019, Tiaohai Pub has expanded to more than 20 locations nationwide. With a wealth of events throughout the year and a community-focused approach, the pub has become a sanctuary for young city workers. For them, pubs are first and foremost a place for empathy and emotional value, and alcohol takes a backseat.

The interior of Tiaohai Pub (Photo courtesy of Tiaohai Pub)

In science bars, however, the emotional value comes not from the bar itself but from the events it hosts, including the topic and the keynote speaker. This means that to sustain a steady stream of patrons, science bars must continuously attract the right speakers.

For Jianing, selecting a good topic is the biggest challenge. The topic should be appropriate for the bar setting, innovative, and appealing to the public. Most importantly, he must identify the right scholar to present it.

Before each event, Jianing first chooses a broad category, like literature or philosophy, then narrows it down. In literature, for example, the event could focus on the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature (Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, Dream of the Red Chamber and Journey to the West). If these have been over-discussed, "Jin Ping Mei,"(The Plum in the Golden Vase) one of the greatest realist novels in Chinese literature, could be chosen instead. In philosophy, and more specifically in metaphysics, the ancient classic "Zhou Yi"(The Book of Changes) is a topic worth exploring.

The sense of gain in bars

To decide on lecture topics, Xiangqian often posts polls in his customer WeChat group, splitting the choices into categories such as psychology, literature, or career development. Each category offers several topics, yet psychology-related topics tend to win the vote almost every time.

In the daytime, Xiangqian is busy with his work at university. It is only at night that he can retreat behind the bar counter, where he mixes cocktails and brews coffee while enjoying some quiet time. He also overhears customers talking but doesn't retain much of their conversations. Still, the phrases he hears most frequently are along the lines of "I'm so exhausted; there is too much juan." (a term used to describe the relentless, often senseless competition many face in both work and life. Juan has become a ubiquitous term in everyday conversation, as a verb, a noun and an adjective)

Bars are meant to be places of relaxation, yet many customers come seeking knowledge, hoping to cope with the changes and uncertainties in their work and life.

Zhou Yufei's first job after graduating was at a publishing house in Shanghai. Amid a wave of layoff news, Zhou Yufei, who was assigned very simple tasks, often worried about being replaced by artificial intelligence (AI). In an attempt to avoid being laid off, she started taking on extra work, but her efforts were in vain. She ended up leaving after two weeks. The manager remarked that her mind was "too active" for the role.

Two months earlier, Zhou Yufei found a new job. The previous layoff experience has cast a shadow over her, making her especially grateful for the new job opportunity due to a lingering sense of insecurity. As a result, she tries to incorporate learning into almost all of her leisure activities after work.

That includes watching an opera directed by famous contemporary Chinese theatrical director Meng Jinghui, managing her own social media accounts, and attending several science bar events. "I really love the feeling of learning new things," she says. "It gives me a sense of stability and peace, as if the more I learn, the more secure I feel."

Relax and study at a bar (Photo provided by the interviewee)

Why are science bars popular with the young generation? The relaxing atmosphere at a bar offers a respite from the intense environment of academic lectures. This perfectly caters to the mindset of today's young people in China: I have no energy to juan, but I can't afford to lie flat (opting out of the rat race and doing the bare minimum in order to survive).

For a very long period of time, juan has been blended into the life of Zhao Yuancheng. From school to work, he has been conditioned to strive for upward mobility, albeit in different guises. At university, he attended lectures and participated in competitions for better grades; in the workplace, he enrolls in online courses to master the rules for career promotion and to improve his team communication skills.

Two years ago, Zhao Yuancheng suddenly felt lost, much like a spring that had been overstretched. He found himself pondering, "If we juan for a better life in the future, then at what point does the future begin?"

The external environment is changing, too, as the internet bubble is beginning to burst. The news is rife with stories of layoffs and plummeting stock prices. In the office, it appeared that resignation was an almost daily occurrence, with some returning to their hometowns and others leaving to take civil service exams for job security.

Zhao Yuancheng decided to put the brakes on his fast-paced lifestyle, yet he understood he couldn't stop learning altogether. Every employee in the tech industry is facing the "Crisis of 35" — the belief that white-collar workers confront unavoidable job insecurity after they hit that age. However, in reality, this anxiety is creeping down to younger ages, with concerns affecting those in their 30s and even late 20s. The only way to break free is to keep learning.

So for Zhao Yuancheng, a science bar is a perfect solution, allowing him to both learn and relax: "One event serves two purposes."

In a bookstore or café, he might feel like he's still "passively learning," but in the bar's more relaxed environment, he enjoys the freedom to "opt out of listening." The lecture transforms into a casual exchange where a stranger shares an interesting topic, shifting passive learning to an active experience.

It's also relaxing because no one is there to delve into complex academic theories, as evidenced by the range of topics in various science bars. At Xiangqian's bar, discussions span from financial investments to childhood traumas. They also keep up with the times. Following the release of the Chinese video game "Black Myth: Wukong" in August 2024, they introduced a session titled "An Informal Discussion on the Scenic Spots and Ancient Art of 'Black Myth: Wukong'."

More significantly, science bars enable attendees to gather together to discuss shared interests, thanks to the strong social atmosphere that bars naturally provide. Furthermore, the process of discussing academic topics, which raises the bar communication, helps people to connect with like-minded individuals in higher-quality conversations.

Young people communicating at a science bar (Photo provided by the interviewee)

After starting her career, Li Wanying found it difficult to have someone to talk about social issues or public affairs, let alone engage in deep, thought-provoking conversations on any given topic. Attending science bar events often brings her back to school, reminiscent of being part of a book club. She remembered a lecture on The Golden Lotus where both the speaker and the audience freely exchanged views on sex and love. It was then that she realized, "People can discuss sex without any judgment or discomfort."

Zhao Yuancheng has also become increasingly aware of his desire for intellectual stimulation. His job is demanding, with long hours, and the vast majority of his social interactions are work-related. He yearns for a clash of ideas to break away from routines.

Attending science bar events fulfills his purpose. He is selective about events, only participating in those that spark his interest, so everyone has a shared interest and has given the topic some thought beforehand.

These events provide Zhao Yuancheng with a sense of fulfillment amidst his hectic work schedule. "This intellectual harmony is like a recharge for my spirit." However, this form of social connection is delicate; once the event ends and everyone goes their separate ways, after that brief period of rejuvenation, Zhao Yuancheng inevitably returns to the demands of his job.

Chinese stocks post best week since 2008 after stimulus blitz -- Financial Times

Chinese equities have surged to their best week since 2008 after Beijing launched an economic stimulus package including a $114bn war chest to boost the stock market.

The CSI 300 index of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed companies is up 15.7 per cent for the week in its best performance since November 2008, when China announced a similar stimulus package in response to the global financial crisis.

The rally, which has also helped buoy European markets and industrial metals, comes as China’s leadership rushes to support the country’s capital markets, stabilise a property sector crisis and boost domestic consumption in order to meet its economic growth target of 5 per cent for the year.

I anticipate that China observers on platforms such as Substack will soon share their insights on the logic behind the recent performance of China's stock market. Yang Liu (founder of Beijing Channel), Robert Wu (founder of China Translated) and me had a discussion on the recent policies and the market performance in the latest episode of Got China on YouTube.

Investors are saying buy "everything" China, Why? -- Got China

Meanwhile, I have been exploring related articles on WeChat blogs. One particularly intriguing piece I came across, but have yet to finish, is titled “深度｜一个10万亿经济刺激计划, 是否符合中国当下的需求？In-Depth | A 10 Trillion Yuan Economic Stimulus Plan: Is It What China Needs Now?” published on Sept. 28 on the WeChat blog of "文化纵横 Wenhua Zongheng - Quarterly Journal of Chinese Thought" under the Association for promotion of West China Research and Development (中国西部研究与发展促进会).

The article features insights from 刘世锦, Liu Shijin, former vice president (vice minister) and research fellow of the Development Research Center (DRC) 国务院发展研究中心原副主任, a comprehensive policy research and consulting institution directly under the State Council, and prominent economists from China's top universities, 滕泰 Teng Tai and 李稻葵 Li Daokui discussing the advisability of adopting an economic stimulus strategy similar to that of 2008, involving a proposed 10 trillion yuan package. Opinions among these top experts vary significantly.

Recognizing that many of our newsletter readers prefer direct information that can guide investment decisions, I understand that such nuanced debates, especially on macroeconomic strategies, might not yield the clear conclusions you seek. However, to gauge interest, I will conduct a poll: if at least 30 subscribers express interest, I will translate the full article after the National Day holidays.

Today’s newsletter aims to resonate with the ceremonial spirit of the 75th anniversary. Traditionally, in China, every fifth anniversary is marked with a modest celebration, while every tenth is a major event. In this sense, today’s piece revisits some of China’s significant achievements over the past 75 years—a journey marked by notable successes and challenges.

We focus on three pivotal areas: climate change, transportation infrastructure, and poverty alleviation—topics of global relevance, though the solutions China pursues may not be 100% universally applicable as the principle of adapting strategies to local conditions remains a universally relevant approach.

1.Climate change response

Addressing climate change and transitioning to cleaner energy are common challenges facing the world today. However, the challenges faced by developed and developing countries are not exactly the same. Developed countries must shift their already mature industrial, manufacturing, and consumption systems toward a low-carbon future. Developing countries must ensure rapid growth and solve underdevelopment issues while simultaneously undergoing a green transition.

This remind me of 谢振华 Xie Zhenhua, a key official in China’s response to climate change. Those familiar with China’s climate negotiations at global conferences might remember Xie's 2011 speech in South Africa, where he addressed the responsibilities of developed countries.

Climate veteran Xie Zhenhua, known for his toughness and eloquence, returns as special envoy -- Global Times

For some Chinese netizens, Xie appears to be an outspoken Chinese official who reflects the courage of engaging with his foreign counterparts on climate change issues. A video from nine years ago shows Xie, as the head of Chinese delegation, harshly criticizing developed Western countries, which went viral on Chinese social media recently.

"Are you qualified to reason with me? We are a developing country, we need to develop and eliminate poverty, we need to protect the environment. We've done all we could do, but you [Western countries] could not do it," Xie angrily told some Western countries at the Durban Climate Change Conference in 2011.

Yet, China has also been actively encouraging developing nations to take action on climate change and is widely regarded as a leader in this area.

Climate talks: China calls on developing countries to 'step up' -- Guardian

But Xie believes that China's proposal offers a new way forward, by stipulating that developing countries must also play their part, though within a different framework from the rich world.

He called on all emerging economies to bring forward plans that would demonstrate their willingness to curb the growth of their emissions. These national plans would not necessarily have the same legal status as commitments under a new version of the Kyoto protocol – for instance, they could be tied to economic conditions, or be binding at a purely national level - but Xie believes that these plans should be enough to persuade rich countries of the earnestness of developing countries´intentions.

Many developing countries look to Beijing for leadership on this issue, so Xie's ideas are likely to be influential. Xie, who played a prominent role in Copenhagen talks in 2009, is a major figure in the negotiations, and presented his proposal as a way to break the current deadlock.

China's chief climate change official, Xie Zhenhua, called on emerging economies to bring forward plans that would demonstrate their willingness to curb the growth of emissions. Photograph: AP

That was 13 years ago, and since then, China’s commitment to climate action has only deepened. China has made significant strides in environmental protection, with notable improvements in air, water, and overall ecological quality.

According to Minister of Ecology and Environment Huang Runqiu, the public's satisfaction with the environment rose from less than 80% in 2017 to over 91% in 2023. Nationwide, the average PM2.5 concentration in key cities dropped by 54% over the past decade, while good air quality days have reached over 86% for four consecutive years. Water quality has also improved, with 89.4% of surface water bodies achieving excellent status in 2023. Additionally, China's forest coverage has reached 24.02%, contributing to 25% of global reforestation since the beginning of the century. In reducing pollution and carbon emissions, China has eliminated outdated coal and steel capacity and now operates the world’s largest clean power and steel production systems.

China has historically advocated the Scientific Outlook on Development, with sustainable development as a core component. Presently, Chinese policymakers are advancing the Chinese-style modernization, one of whose five key features is the harmonious coexistence of humans and nature. Over the past two decades, despite changes in leadership, China's commitment to ecological civilization, green growth, and sustainable development has remained steadfast. This persistent policy direction has been crucial in enabling China to make measured strides toward a low-carbon transition.

China’s comprehensive approach to green development in recent years, from top-level planning to addressing ecological and environmental pollution across various regions, and its rapid transition to new energy vehicles all reflect how it has emerged as a leader in climate response, ahead of many other nations.

At the 2022 COP15 summit in Montreal, China, as the chair, successfully facilitated the adoption of the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework after nearly a decade of negotiations. The agreement was met with widespread recognition for China’s leadership in global biodiversity protection. China has also been instrumental in global climate change efforts, playing a key role in the Paris Agreement and pledging to peak carbon emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

Additionally, China has stopped building new overseas coal projects, provided renewable energy support to developing nations, and signed climate cooperation agreements with over 40 countries. Over the past decade, China’s technological advancements in renewable energy have driven global wind and solar power costs down by over 60% and 80%, respectively, cementing its status as a leader in global environmental governance.

Of course, China's journey towards low-carbon development has not always been without challenges. Due to the national priority placed on green development, some regions have overly emphasized low-carbon initiatives to the detriment of other developmental sectors. To address these issues, the Chinese government promptly enacted relevant policies to correct the imbalances.

China to rectify "campaign-style" carbon reduction: NDRC -- Xinhua

China will rectify deviations in its effort to cut carbon emissions while resolutely curbing the pell-mell development of high-energy intensity and highly pollutive projects, the country's top economic planner said Tuesday.

In the process of cutting carbon emissions, some regions have set overly ambitious and unrealistic goals or simply chanted slogans without taking actions, while some industries failed to make solid energy-saving efforts in the hope that certain technology would solve the problem once and for all, said Meng Wei, spokesperson for the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), adding that these issues must be addressed.

Meng also pointed out problems such as a "one-size-fits-all" approach in shutting down energy-intensive projects and a sudden cut-off in loans to coal-fired power projects.

"These phenomena run counter to the original intention and requirements of peaking carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality and must be resolutely corrected," Meng said.

The statement echoed an announcement made at a recent meeting attended by the country's top decision-makers, which urged putting an end to "campaign-style" carbon reduction and resolutely curbing high energy-consuming and high-emission projects.

As is widely recognized, China currently faces some economic challenges, but I believe that the Chinese government will remain steadfast in its commitment to addressing climate change.

2.Nationwide efficient transportation system

"To get rich, build roads first." The popular Chinese proverb manifests people's emphasis on the relationship between the development of transportation and their well-being. Building an efficient transportation system can not only drive economic growth through increasing connectivity, but also promote social fairness by ensuring people's access to more opportunities across wider areas at lower costs.

However, the rapid construction of traffic system is definitely no easy feat. Many countries, even the developed ones, find it difficult to complete their transportation programs as scheduled.

Take the United States for example. With a robust network of highways and aviation, the country is still beset by its lack of momentum in the development of high-speed railway (HSR) systems. Donald Trump expressed his dissatisfaction with the status quo during his recent online conversation with Elon Musk on X, formerly known as Twitter:

Donald Trump Wants Bullet Trains in America: 'Doesn't Make Sense' -- Newsweek

Speaking about bullet trains, Trump said: "They [China's HSR] go unbelievably fast, unbelievably comfortable with no problems, and we don't have anything like that in this country. Not even close. And it doesn't make sense that we don't, doesn't make sense."

Despite all the praises for bullet trains from the former president, some pointed out that it is the Trump administration who cancelled nearly a 1 billion U.S. dollars grant to California's HSR project in 2019, which had long been plagued with extensive delays and cost overruns. Although the Biden administration restored funding for the construction in 2021, the shifting policies from the federal government are bound to inject uncertainty over its progress.

The development of large-scale transportation systems cannot sustain without strong and stable financial support from central authorities. In an interview with Fortune, Stephen Gardner, Amtrak CEO, attributed the shortage of HSR in the United States to the reluctance of politicians to fund it.

Why can’t America have high-speed rail? Because our investment is a ‘rounding error’ compared with Europe’s, says Amtrak’s CEO -- Fortune

There’s not a technical barrier to building high-speed rail. But what you need is political and financial alignment to make the investment.

What lies behind the disagreement among those policymakers can be quite intricate, involving factors such as different views on the priority of allocating funds for transportation, lobbying from stakeholders whose vested interests would be impaired by the projects, restrictions on international cooperation in sectors related to federally funded infrastructure, among others.

Similar disputes may arise in many developed countries and hinder their commitment to improving transportation systems efficiently, let alone those underdeveloped countries running short of money, technology, and personnel.

Compared to other countries, China faces unique challenges due to its vast population and extensive land area, which features a wide range of geographical terrains. This diversity leads to uneven development, with some regions—particularly in the central and western parts—having less developed transportation infrastructure than the eastern coastal areas. As a result, these less developed areas lag economically, lacking the resources and capabilities to improve their transportation systems, which perpetuates a vicious cycle of underdevelopment.

However, the Chinese policymakers did not surrender to the hurdles in its pursuit of traffic modernization and have always attached great importance to the development of transportation for a country as large as China.

China's development of railway systems showcases the country's swift advancements in the transportation sector. When the PRC was established in 1949, the nation had only 21,800 kilometers of railway tracks, nearly half of which were inoperative, placing it significantly behind in railway transportation. Over the past 75 years, through relentless efforts, China has expanded its operational railway network to over 160,000 kilometers—four times the Earth's circumference.

The development speed of HSR in China is even more impressive. It is worth noting that before the 21st century, there was no HSR across the whole country, but up to date, the operating mileage of China's HSR has reached 46,000 kilometers, ranking first in the world and exceeding the combined total of all other countries' HSR networks. In addition, the country's HSR also takes the lead in the following aspects:

• Rapidity: China boasts the fastest commercial HSR service in the world, as the only country to achieve commercial operation of HSR trains at the speed of 350 kilometers per hour.

• Safety: China has the safest HSR service worldwide. During the 2008-2020 period, the average accident rate per hundred kilometers of HSR in China was 82 percent lower than that of foreign HSR.

• Availability: China's HSR currently serves 96 percent of cities with more than 500,000 residents, and offers a variety of online services including buying tickets, choosing seats, and ordering meals, based on the world's largest internet railway ticketing system.

• Affordabiltity: The average ticket price of HSR trains in China is approximately one-third to one-fourth of that in other countries, enabling the passengers to enjoy high-quality HSR services at lower costs.

What is the secret of the country's achievements in developing its railway systems in such an efficient and effective manner? A report titled China's High-Speed Rail Development published by the World Bank in 2019 attempted to offer an answer to this question.

Among the listed potential lessons and replicable practices, the following item is highlighted:

A well-analyzed Long-Term Plan, supported by government, with minimal changes once approved

In 2004, China issued a medium- and long-term plan for the development of railway network, including the construction of an HSR network. The deliberately-analyzed document, updated twice in 2008 and 2016, has provided a clear and consistent framework for action in the past two decades, and will continue to play its guiding role in the near future.

Such a milestone plan cannot be formulated overnight. Before the introduction of the scheme, China had also been engaged in years-long discussions on topics like whether to build HSR and how to develop the massive project from scratch, and gradually kicked off its own explorations with different technical routes while learning from other countries. During this tough process, the country made its resolution to develop HSR considering its urgent demands and favorable conditions and follow the path of combining indigenous innovation with technological introduction.

With clear goals ahead, the central government would mobilize nationwide resources to push for the implementation of the plan, and all entities involved would focus on their own duties based on their firm belief that the authorities would provide consistent support for the cause, just as they did all the time. The following description from the World Bank report shows the coordination between different parties in the HSR development:

The lines have been constructed from the start through special-purpose asset construction and management companies. These companies are normally joint ventures between the central and provincial governments. This structure secures the active participation of local government in planning and financing the projects. Cooperation among rail manufacturers, universities, research institutions, laboratories, and engineering centers enables capacity development, rapid technological advancement, and localization of technology.

Rather than embroiling itself in endless disputes, China has leveraged the role of various sectors and facilitated the government-industry-academy cooperation to implement its grand program from financial investment to technological breakthrough.

China's remarkable achievements in other areas of transportation share simliar logic of success in HSR development, featuring mechanisms for mobilizing national support. Thanks to comprehensive planning, consistent investment, and effective coordination, the country has topped globally in multiple transportation indicators, including the mileage of expressways, navigable inland waterways, and urban rail transit, and has ensured access to hardened roads, bus services, and postal services in all townships and administrative villages with feasible conditions, connecting those in remote areas to the broader world.

With its rich experience in transportation development and a sense of responsibility as a major country in today's world, China has been assisting other developing countries in building their own transportation system through infrastructure and connectivity programs like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

For example, Chinese companies have been involved in the construction and renovation of over 10,000 kilometers of railways and nearly 100,000 kilometers of highways in various African countries, according to a recently-released report on the achievements of China-Africa cooperation under the BRI. Through these efforts, China has been sharing its advanced technology, management experience, and professional personnel with other countries to help them gain internal strength for long-term growth.

3.Poverty eradication

In a world with increasing interconnectedness, poverty eradication remains a formidable challenge for every country around the world, and its consequences extend far beyond individual hardships; they impact economic stability, social cohesion, public health, sustainable development, human rights, and global security.

Despite ongoing efforts, many countries continue to struggle with systemic issues like inadequate education, limited access to healthcare, and insufficient job opportunities, which perpetuate the cycle of poverty.

As of April 2024, per data from the World Bank Group, around 700 million people live on less than 2.15 U.S. dollars per day, the extreme poverty line. Extreme poverty remains concentrated in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, fragile and conflict-affected areas, and rural areas.

The United Nations has recognized the urgency of addressing poverty through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly Goal 1, which aims to end poverty in all its forms everywhere by 2030.

Since 2012, China has fought a strenuous eight-year-long battle against poverty that is unprecedented both in scale and intensity. At the end of 2020, China achieved the goal of eliminating extreme poverty. The 98.99 million people in rural areas who were living below the current poverty threshold all shook off poverty. All the 128,000 impoverished villages and 832 designated poor counties got rid of poverty.

Standards for poverty alleviation in China have always been formulated according to its then social and economic development and the basic living needs of its poor populations. As the situation evolved and developed, specific standards were correspondingly adjusted to better reflect the latest realities and facilitate poverty identification and alleviation.

In the final stage of fighting extreme poverty from 2012, the impoverished people in China were registered and deregistered by household, and the standards are as follows:

主要衡量标准是“一收入”“两不愁三保障”。“一收入”就是该户年人均纯收入稳定超过现行国家扶贫标准，“两不愁三保障”就是稳定实现不愁吃、不愁穿和义务教育、基本医疗、住房安全有保障。

The criteria are personal incomes, and the household's situation with reference to the Two Assurances and Three Guarantees. The former requires that the annual average per capita income for a household remains steady above China's current poverty line. The latter refers to guarantees of adequate food and clothing, and access to compulsory education, basic medical services, and safe housing for impoverished rural residents.

China's standards for deregistering those who have emerged from poverty are comprehensive, including income, and the extent to which they are assured the rights to subsistence and development.

During the press conference for the 20th Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress in October 2022, spokesperson 孙业礼 Sun Yeli answered this question, saying that the results have exceeded initial expectations set during the reform and opening-up and met the goals set in the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012.

By 2020, China’s GDP has reached 101.6 trillion yuan, with a per capita GDP surpassing $10,000. Over 400 million people have entered the middle-income bracket, creating the largest and most dynamic middle-income population globally, while the Engel coefficients for urban and rural residents decreased to 29.2% and 32.7% respectively.

Pertaining to the fact that poverty eradication work in China covers a wide range of areas and is extremely complex, China has established a poverty eradication management network with the central government acting as coordinator, provincial governments taking overall responsibility, and city and county governments overseeing implementation.

The network covers all poor areas and officials are sent to villages to help every needy household. The first group of working teams was dispatched to poor villages in 2013. By the end of 2020, 255,000 resident teams and more than 3 million officials had been dispatched to poor villages, alongside nearly 2 million township officials and millions of village officials.

To prevent and address any corruption and misconduct along the way, China conducted the strictest-ever evaluations and supervision, as well as specialized inspection tours, in a bid to ensure solid and authentic outcomes that could survive the test of time and practice.

Media also plays an important supervisory role in China's poverty alleviation process. On April 23, 2021, China Media Group reported that villagers in Lingkou County in northwest China's Shaanxi Province had been living in destitution with no access to drinking water after the county had claimed to have improved living conditions and withdrawn from the poverty-stricken list a year ago.

The Shaanxi provincial government immediately dispatched investigation panels to the villages in question to carry out an all-around investigation that evening, and after a three-day examination, it announced the results to the public, recognizing that although the deregistration of the county fulfilled the criteria, there was still room for improvement regarding water safety and official conduct.

Home to nearly one-fifth of the world's population, China's complete eradication of extreme poverty – the first target of the 2030 UNSDGs – 10 years ahead of schedule, is a milestone in the history of the Chinese nation and the history of humankind. Over four decades of reform and opening up, 750 million people have been lifted out of poverty in China, accounting for over 70% of global poverty reduction.

While advancing its own poverty reduction, China has consistently provided assistance to global poverty alleviation efforts to the best of its capacity.

For example, China established the China-United Nations Peace and Development Trust Fund, and the South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund and has actively promoted cooperative projects under the Belt and Road Initiative. According to a World Bank study in 2019, the initiative will help 7.6 million people out of extreme poverty and 32 million out of moderate poverty in these countries.

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Authored by Xinhua Institute, a high-end think tank of Xinhua News Agency, the report is divided into four sections. It comprehensively explains the core concepts of Xi's important discourses on sports, reviews the achievements of Chinese sports under this guidance, and clarifies its contemporary significance and global influence.

Addressing the report launch ceremony, Fu Hua, president of Xinhua News Agency and chairman of the academic committee of Xinhua Institute, said that Chinese President Xi Jinping, from the strategic perspective of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, has made a series of important expositions on sports, providing fundamental guidelines for advancing the high-quality development of China's sports cause.

This think tank report "provides an innovative interpretation of the scientific theoretical framework that supports the development of China as a strong sporting nation," said Fu.

The core essence of Xi's important discourses on sports involves building a sports powerhouse to shape "complete personality" at the individual level, develop a 'creative society' at the social level, cultivate a 'confident nation' at the national level, promote 'Chinese wisdom' at the civilizational level, and construct a 'colorful world' at the international level, according to the report.

The report highlights the global impact of Xi's ideas on sports, suggesting that China's modernization and sports development model provides a reference for other countries and regions.

"While absorbing advanced global experiences, Chinese sports have combined local culture to form a development path with Chinese characteristics. The cross-cultural appeal of sports has brought hope to the world, and through sports, China promotes peace, development, and unity, actively contributing to the creation of a better world," reads the report.

Speakers who shared their insights at the launch event included Gao Zhidan, director of China's General Administration of Sport, and Yang Yang, China's first Winter Olympic gold medalist.

Gao noted that under President Xi's guidance, sports have become an important symbol and component of national prosperity, national rejuvenation, and people's well-being.

This report systematically reviews President Xi's important discourses on sports and deeply explores the strategies and pathways for transforming China into a global sports powerhouse in the new era, he said.

Xinhua Institute is the only media-based think tank among China's national high-end think tanks, focusing primarily on public policy and international policy research.

Hosted by Xinhua News Agency, the launch event was attended by around 100 representatives from the General Administration of Sport, Olympic champions, the sports community, experts, scholars, media, and think tank project team members.

Full text: The Road to Becoming a Sports Powerhouse -- The Value and Inspiration of Xi Jinping's Important Discourses on Sports

According to the draft revision, the requirement for "户口" (hukou) or permanent household residence, is now on the verge of being phased out from the required documents for marriage and divorce registrations.

The revised draft also lifts the restriction on the marriage registration locations. At present, couples are required to go to the marriage registration offices within the regions of their permanent residence to complete the procedure.

Screenshot of some segments from the revised draft, with notes and marks on the changes (in red), by Beijing Scroll

The requirement of a permanent household residence for marriage was officially implemented in 1986. Once the new draft plan are passed and implemented, they will directly abolish the connection between hukou system and marital registration that has been in place for 38 years.

Discussions regarding the marriage registration process have been ongoing for quite some time. As early as last year, there was an inquiry on the website of China's Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) questioning the necessity of this particular document for marriage registration.

The effectiveness of the hukou system has been questioned by some, who argue that it serves as a de facto identity card and imposes restrictions on the freedom to marry. As a result, there have been proposals for its removal.

For example, when I got married in 2021, I had to request my resident household registration book from the collective household residence system through the organization I work for, as I did not have my own apartment to register my permenant residence. The possession of a collective hukou is a common situation in major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai.

Resident household registration book

Many young individuals who work outside of the location where their hukou is registered often face the inconvenience of having to return to their hometown to obtain this document or rely on express or mail services for its delivery.

The reform of China's hukou system has been emphasized in a significant resolution adopted by the leadership of the Communist Party of China during its latest plenum held in mid-July.

Concerning improving the institutions and mechanisms for advancing new urbanization, the resolution stipulates that

推行由常住地登记户口提供基本公共服务制度，推动符合条件的农业转移人口社会保险、住房保障、随迁子女义务教育等享有同迁入地户籍人口同等权利，加快农业转移人口市民化。

We will implement the systems for allowing people to obtain household registration and access basic public services in their place of permanent residence. We will push to see that eligible people who have moved to cities from rural areas enjoy the same rights as registered local residents with regard to social insurance, housing support, and access to compulsory education for their children living with them.

On improving the employment-first policy, the resolution proposed that

统筹城乡就业政策体系，同步推进户籍、用人、档案等服务改革，优化创业促进就业政策环境，支持和规范发展新就业形态。

We will coordinate urban and rural employment policies, simultaneously advance service reforms related to household registration, human resources, and personnel records, improve the policy environment to boost employment by encouraging business startups, and support and regulate the development of new forms of employment.

And in terms of the social security system, it says that

健全灵活就业人员、农民工、新就业形态人员社保制度，扩大失业、工伤、生育保险覆盖面，全面取消在就业地参保户籍限制，完善社保关系转移接续政策。

We will build a sound social security system to serve people in flexible employment, rural migrant workers, and those in new forms of employment and expand the coverage of unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, and childbirth insurance programs. We will see to it that all restrictions preventing people from accessing social security in the places where they work but do not hold permanent residency are lifted and that policies for transferring social security accounts are improved.

These mean that social welfare benefits and employment policies will no longer be tied to permanent residency, breaking down the barriers between "urban" and "rural" identities. This not only meets the current situation of increased population mobility in Chinese society, but also promotes the urbanization of rural population, as well as the coordinated development of urban and rural areas.

Since 2012, China has been continuously promoting the reform of the household residency system, especially the establishment of a unified urban and rural household registration system, the comprehensive relaxation of household registration transfer policies, and the full implementation of the residence permit system, which has greatly promoted the process of new urbanization.

In parallel with the reform of the household registration system, the removal of the permanent residency document requirement in marital registration can be viewed as both a step towards establishing a modern household registration system and an effective measure to enhance convenience and benefits for the people.

Meanwhile, the declining marriage rate and the reluctance of the younger generation to get married and have children have become major concerns for the Chinese government. With a population of 1.4 billion, the country is experiencing a historically low marriage rate, posing significant challenges for the administration.

In the first half of 2024, the number of couples registering for marriage was only 3.43 million, which is less than 50% of the 6.94 million pairs reported during the same period in 2014.

In the meantime, the number of divorces in China reached a staggering 4.339 million couples in 2023, causing the divorce rate to surge to 3.09‰.

The introduction of a shorter material list and a more flexible process in marriage registration is expected to stimulate marriage and, ultimately, increase the birth rate.

Additionally, this reform is also anticipated to bring significant changes to the social and economic development in China.

1. Mitigating the issue of exorbitant bride price

The issue of sky-high bride prices has been a long-standing and persistent challenge for many years in China, posing challenges to China's marriage rate.

Numerous individuals have faced difficulties in getting married due to the exorbitant demands made by their prospective mother-in-law, who holds control over the hukou of the bride and insists that marriage is out of the question without substantial funds.

The practice of offering a bride price, which is a local custom in many areas, can reach staggering amounts, sometimes nearing 400,000 yuan (approximately 56,022 U.S. dollars). Incomplete statistics indicate that provinces such as Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangsu, and Liaoning are among those with the highest bride prices in the country.

In certain remote regions of China, the bride prices have not only pushed some families into poverty but have even risen to a corrupt system of bride price bribery.

In this system, the elder sister receives the bride price and directly hands it over to her younger brother, who then uses it to marry a bride, who in turn gives the money to her own younger brother. This cycle continues, resulting in a vicious circle where the bride price amount keeps increasing.

With the introduction of new policies, the couple can take some agency back in marriage. While this may not completely eradicate the issue of bride prices, it can serve as a form of check and balance.

2. Significantly stimulating the housing rental market

The notion of "marriage must be accompanied by homeownership" has deeply ingrained itself in the minds of many Chinese parents.

According to this belief, entering into marriage without owning a house is seen as lacking a solid foundation and destined for significant challenges. Renting a home, in their perspective, does not constitute a genuine family unit.

Without the requirement of hukou, getting married will receive less parental control, allowing young couples to have more autonomy in real estate purchasing decisions.

This coincides with the national strategy of leveraging supportive policies to drive the development of the housing rental industry and reduce the inventory of existing commercial properties.

Furthermore, the new draft of the marriage registration regulation stipulates that newlyweds are not obliged to submit their application in the place where they have permanent residency. Instead, they have the freedom to choose any registration office across the country.

In response to these developments, an official from the Ministry of Civil Affairs stated that the reform is based on the objective realities of population mobility. The establishment of a national marriage management information network provides the potential for the abolition of household registration in marital registration.

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Section XII of the resolution, titled "深化生态文明体制改革 Deepening Reform in Ecological Conservation," is divided into three parts detailing China's reform plans in this area. These include improving the basic systems for ecological conservation, improving environmental governance systems, and improving the mechanisms for green and low-carbon development:

(47) Improving the basic systems for ecological conservation

We will implement region-specific environmental management systems featuring differentiated, targeted regulation and improve the systems for environmental monitoring and assessment. We will establish sound, united, well-aligned systems for regulating the use of territorial space of all types across the country and for approving territorial space plans. To improve the property rights and management systems for natural resource assets, we will refine the mechanism for the delegation of ownership over public-owned natural resource assets and establish systems for assessing and supervising performance in terms of protecting the environment, protecting and utilizing natural resources, and ensuring that natural resource assets hold their value and appreciate. We will improve the coordination mechanism for ensuring national ecological security. An environmental code will be compiled.

(48) Improving environmental governance systems

We will develop responsibility, oversight, and market systems as well as laws, regulations, and policies to improve environmental governance. We will refine the institutions and mechanisms for ensuring that pollution control practices are targeted, grounded in science, and law-based, and implement an oversight system for stationary pollution sources centered on emissions permits. We will establish systems for the coordinated treatment of new pollutants and management of environmental risks and make a coordinated push to reduce the discharge of various pollutants. The reform to advance the law-based disclosure of environmental information will continue, and an environmental credibility oversight system will be put into place. We will develop systems for integrated upstream-downstream environmental governance in major river basins. Comprehensive efforts will be made to develop the national park-based system of protected areas.

We will implement the management system for ecological conservation redlines, improve the mechanisms for integrated protection and systematic governance of mountain, water, forest, farmland, grassland, and desert ecosystems, and develop multiple funding mechanisms for ecosystem protection and restoration. We will enforce the system of mandatory limits on the use of water resources and replace the water resource fee with a tax nationwide. The coordination mechanism for biodiversity protection will be enhanced, and the systems for developing and protecting marine resources will be improved. We will refine the mechanisms for realizing the market value of ecosystem goods and services. We will further reform the system of paid use for natural resources. We will advance comprehensive compensation for ecological conservation, improve the trans-regional compensation mechanism for ecological conservation, and take coordinated steps to promote compensation for environmental damage.

(49) Improving the mechanisms for green and low-carbon development

We will implement fiscal, tax, financial, investment, and pricing policies as well as standards to support green and low-carbon development, develop green and low-carbon industries, improve incentive mechanisms for eco-friendly consumer spending, and work toward an economy that facilitates green, low-carbon, and circular development. We will optimize policies on green government procurement and refine the green taxation system. We will improve the systems for total resource consumption control and comprehensive resource conservation, as well as the system for recycling waste and used materials. Mechanisms for ensuring clean and efficient use of coal will be refined. We will accelerate the planning and development of a new type of energy system and improve the policies and measures for promoting the absorption of electricity generated from new energy sources into power grids and for the regulation of such energy. Improvements will be made to the working systems for adapting to climate change. New mechanisms will be put in place to facilitate the transition from controlling the total amount and intensity of energy consumption to controlling the total amount and intensity of carbon emissions. We will establish a carbon emissions statistics and accounting system, a carbon labeling and certification system, as well as a carbon footprint management system. We will also improve the cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions and the trading system for voluntary greenhouse gas emissions reduction. On this basis, we will actively and prudently move toward reaching peak carbon emissions and carbon neutrality.

In an official guidebook published last month to help people better understand the resolution, 孙金龙 Sun Jinlong, Secretary of the Leading Party Members Group of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, outlined the significance of deepening reform in ecological conservation in the new era from four aspects in his article 深化生态文明体制改革 Deepening Reform in Ecological Conservation（Page 322-329).

（四）深化生态文明体制改革是以引领全球环境与气候治理构建地球生命共同体的迫切需要。习近平总书记强调：“面对生态环境挑战，人类是一荣俱荣、一损俱损的命运共同体”。当今世界百年未有之大变局加速演进，全球环境治理的复杂性、严峻性、不确定性上升，政治化趋势明显增强，我国参与全球环境与气候治理面临新任务新挑战。新时代新征程上，必须进一步深化生态文明体制改革，增强我国碳达峰碳中和工作、应对气候变化战略、生态环境战略、国际和外交战略协同性，坚决维扩我国发展利益，持续提升我国在全球环境与气候治理中的话语权和影响力，引领推动全球可持续发展，共建清洁美丽世界。

Fourth, deepening reform in ecological conservation answers the pressing needs for China to take a lead in improving global environmental and climate governance, and building a shared future for all life on Earth. "In the face of environmental challenges, all countries are in a community with destinies linked, and no country can stay immune," emphasized General Secretary Xi Jinping. Currently, the world is undergoing rapid and unprecedented change unseen in a century, featuring ever more complex, severe and politicized global environmental governance with rising uncertainty. China is confronted with emerging tasks and challenges as it participates in the global environmental and climate governance. In the new era, we need to further deepen its reform in ecological conservation and enhance the coordination of promoting the goal of peaking carbon emissions and reaching carbon neutrality, strategic response to climate change, ecological environment strategy and international and diplomatic strategy. We need to resolutely safeguard our development rights and interests, continue to strengthen China’s discourse power and influence in global environmental and climate governance, take the lead in promoting the global sustainable development, and collectively build a clean and beautiful world.

The last but not least aspect links "deepening reforms in the ecological conservation" with "taking a lead (引领)" in improving global environmental and climate governance." "Taking a lead (引领)" shows that China views assisting other countries in advancing global environmental and climate governance as its own responsibility at the top-level design. "Pressing needs 迫切需要" indicates that policymakers are aware that without reforming China's own system, China cannot achieve its goal of leading global climate initiatives.

Additionally, Sun highlighted the strategic importance of coordinating domestic ecological conservation reforms with China's global strategy. It's also important to note that Beijing places significant emphasis on its discourse power and influence in global environmental and climate governance. Looking ahead, we can anticipate continous discussions on climate change cooperation between major powers such as China, the United States, and EU. However, due to practical considerations, such cooperation is likely to be closely intertwined with the dynamics of major power competition.

It should be noted that the resolution typically serve as “纲领性文件” (framework document) for reform policies, with specific measures often reflected in detailed policies released subsequently. As Ying Xue, a Chinese think-tank researcher and the founder of the newsletter "China Ecological Civilization," explained in her tweet, this can be interpreted as “纲举目张 gāng jǔ mù zhāng” (Once a key link is grasped, everything falls into its place).

On Aug. 11, less than a month after the resolution was announced, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council unveiled a set of more detailed guidelines to ramp up green transition in all areas of economic and social development.

According to the guidelines, the main objectives include, by 2030, the scale of the energy conservation and environmental protection industry in the country will reach about 15 trillion yuan (about 2.1 trillion U.S. dollars), the proportion of non-fossil energy will increase to about 25 percent of energy consumption. The carbon emission intensity of commercial transport per unit of turnover will drop by about 9.5 percent compared with 2020, and the annual utilization of bulk solid waste will reach about 4.5 billion tonnes, with the output rate of main resources to increase by about 45 percent compared with 2020, according to the guidelines.

（十一）推广低碳交通运输工具。大力推广新能源汽车，推动城市公共服务车辆电动化替代。推动船舶、航空器、非道路移动机械等采用清洁动力。

Eleventh, promote low-carbon means of transportation. It is important to vigorously promote the use of new-energy vehicles, replace conventional urban public service vehicles with electric ones, and power vessels, aircraft and non-road mobile machinery with clean energy.

The guidelines also includes a specific section that emphasizes promoting low-carbon transportation, including aircraft with clean energy. Will we see more China's electric aircraft being exported overseas in the future, given that China is developing a low-altitude economy?

（三十）参与引领全球绿色转型进程。秉持人类命运共同体理念，积极参与应对气候变化、海洋污染治理、生物多样性保护、塑料污染治理等领域国际规则制定，推动构建公平合理、合作共赢的全球环境气候治理体系。推动落实全球发展倡议，加强南南合作以及同周边国家合作，在力所能及范围内为发展中国家提供支持。

Thirtieth, take the lead collectively in the global green transition. It is important to follow the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind, proactively participate in international rule-making in the areas of climate change, marine pollution control, biodiversity conservation, plastic pollution control, etc, and facilitate building a global environmental and climate governance system that is fair, rational, cooperative and beneficial to all. It is necessary to promote the implementation of the Global Development Initiative, bolster South-South cooperation and cooperation with neighboring countries, and provide support to other developing countries as its capacity allows.

The guideline clarifies that “take the lead collectively 参与引领” is the way China leads the global green transformation. China cannot guide this transformation globally alone; its approach is to collaborate with other capable countries to promote the green transition.

However, current challenges, including trade issues between China and Europe concerning new energy vehicles, pose challenges. Yet, from a policy perspective, China's stance on global cooperation is consistent and clear. Enditem

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Analyzing each of these policies requires considerable time, so I will be spending more time on analyzing the resolution this month. For China observers wondering why the Chinese government doesn't provide massive direct subsidies to citizens to stimulate consumption, a recent article by Nomura’s chief China economist Lu Ting is worth reading. Fred Gao has provided a timely translation of Lu Ting's insights.

Inside China

Lu Ting Argues Against Broad-Based Direct Subsidies for Resident

In the previous episode, I introduced the People's Bank of China's Monetary Policy Committee member Huang Yiping’s analysis of the Chinese economy and his reason for supporting the government to provide subsidies to citizens directly. To give my readers a more comprehensive and balanced picture of this argument, I bring the counterargument from Lu Ting…

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2 years ago · Fred Gao

I believe an important source of information that should not be overlooked is the two official guidebooks published last month to help people better understand the resolution -- Tutorial on the Resolution of the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee ( 《<中共中央关于进一步全面深化改革、推进中国式现代化的决定>辅导读本》) and Q&A Guidebook on the Resolution of the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee (《党的二十届三中全会<决定>学习辅导百问》) . According to the introduction of the two books, the drafting team comprises nearly 80 people, including Xi Jinping, three other members of the Standing Committee of Political Bureau of CPC Central Committee, as well as other senior officials and experts.

Both tutorials feature the full-text explanation of the resolution by Xi and 14 other important articles written by high-ranking Chinese officials such as Vice Premier He Lifeng and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, with each article focusing on a specific subject such as "new quality productive forces" and "fostering a favorable external environment."

In addition, a glossary is attached to the appendix of both tutorials, providing definition and explanation on terms such as debut economy (首发经济), silver economy (银发经济), etc. Zheng Xin and Rong Jiaojiao from Xinhua have written an Explainer introducing the appendix.

While both of the books serve as tutorial readings, there are some differences. Apart from the above-mentioned articles and glossary, the Tutorial on the Resolution consists of 30 more explanatory reports on specific reform tasks by senior officials and experts including Cai Fang, chief expert of the National Think Tank under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Tang Fangyu, deputy head of the CPC Central Committee Policy Research Office, etc. The Q&A Guidebook on the Resolution contains 112 Q&As that thoroughly scrutinized all the possible questions around the Resolution and provided clear answers to all of them.

In most cases, immediately after the Party's major events such as a key plenum of the CPC Central Committee or the Party’s National Congress, such tutorials will be published, as it is usually put, to help people learn and implement the guiding principles of the certain event.

For example, two guidebooks came out right after the Party’s 20th National Congress in 2022, and I have wrote several newsletters elaborating on them, such as: What will be China's priority in pursuing high-quality development over the next five years, and How will China fulfill the goals for the centenary of the People’s Liberation Army in 2027?.

Typically, major Chinese media platforms like People's Daily publish articles from the tutorial readings after their official release. Starting from July 27, People's Daily has been featuring these articles on its Page 6, releasing one article per day in the order listed in the catalog.

For instance, the piece on Aug. 8 was the 13th article: Implementing the overall national security concept and solidly promoting the modernization of the national security system and capabilities (推进国家安全体系和能力现代化) by Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong. Manoj Kewalramani introduced and interpreted this article in a newsletter of his Tracking People's Daily.

Tracking People's Daily

Chen Wenqing on the Third Plenum & Building Socialist Rule of Law System

Hi folks…

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2 years ago · 3 likes · Manoj Kewalramani

In today’s newsletter, I will lead you through three carefully picked articles from the tutorial readings, two from the Tutorial, and one from the Q&A Guidebook. The three articles I selected focus on three key themes: real estate, population development, and implementation of the reforms. These reflect the major short-term challenges facing China's economy, the significant issues impacting long-term development, and how China ensures the effective implementation of its reform policies—topics that I’ve observed are of particular interest and discussion among overseas China watchers.

To avoid lengthiness, I only selected 2-3 highly relevant paragraphs from each article, and provided interpretation and some notes on them.

In case you didn’t notice, I also wrote a piece of my Ten quick takeaways of the Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPC on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively to Advance Chinese Modernization. And I believe A practical guide to the 3rd Plenum’s Decision by Robert Wu is also worthy reading.

China Translated

A practical guide to the 3rd Plenum’s Decision

Hi folks, I didn’t expect my last article on the West’s “ideological monotony” to very quickly become the most popular one to date for this newsletter. I have added at least 200 new subscribers since the article, and the same article has been viewed on X…

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2 years ago · 17 likes · 2 comments · Robert Wu

1. Real estate sector

Subject: What does "foster a new development model for the real estate sector" mean? 如何理解加快构建房地产发展新模式

Source: The Q&A Guidebook (Page 176-178)

转变运营方式。改革房地产开发融资方式和商品房预售制度，有力有序推行商品房现房销售，加强预售资金监管、严格预售门槛。引导房地产企业逐步形成适度杠杆比例、合理负债水平和正常周转速度的发展机制。

Change the operation pattern. Reforms will be carried out to change the way real estate development is financed and to improve the advance purchase system for commodity housing. Existing home sales in commodity housing will be promoted vigorously in a orderly manner, and supervision and control of pre-sale funds will be strengthened with strict pre-sale threshold. It is important to guide real estate enterprises to gradually form a development mechanism with a moderate leverage ratio, reasonable liabilities level and sound capital turnover rate.

Li Daokui, Professor and Director of the Academy of Chinese Economic Thought and Practice (ACCEPT) at Tsinghua University, praised the real estate sector reform as one of the three key highlights of the resolution in his recent interview with China Daily.

When China's real estate market was fast developing, the pre-sale system played an important role in the early stage. However, due to the lack of strict supervision of pre-sale funds for commercial housing in some regions, home buyers bear a high risk of delayed delivery of houses. Policymakers must have also seen the impact of unfinished buildings under the pre-sale system on home buyers, as well as the numerous customer complaints about the quality of new houses in the past two years.

Observers say that a possible financing model, in future, is to rely on the real estate developers' own funds in the land acquisition stage, rely on development loans in the development stage, and rely on home buyers' own funds and personal loans in the sales process, thus returning to a simple and standardized financing system.

完善调控政策。完善城市规划、建设、治理体制机制。充分赋予各城市政府房地产市场调控自主权，因城施策，允许有关城市取消或调减住房限购政策、取消普通住宅和非普通住宅标准。

Improve the regulatory policies. Mechanisms related to urban panning, construction and governance will be further improved. Municipal governments will be given greater decision-making powers to regulate the real estate market, and based on local conditions, some cities will be permitted to abolish or reduce restrictions on housing purchases and to scrap relevant standards for ordinary and non-ordinary homes.

Since the beginning of 2024, most provinces and cities across the country have successively cancelled the housing purchase restriction policies that had been implemented for many years. According to statistics published by China Real Estate Business (CREB), as of July 2024, only Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hainan are still implementing the purchase restriction policy. Considering that China's real estate market is unlikely to return to its previous state, city-specific policies is very likely to be the long-term strategy in future.

2. Population development

Subject: Improving the systems for supporting population development and providing related services 健全人口发展支持和服务体系

Author: 蔡昉 Cai Fang, chief expert of the National Think Tank under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Source: Tutorial on the Resolution (Page 314-321)

第七次全国人口普查显示，2020年我国总和生育率降至1.3……根据人口统计规律，总和生育率为 2.1，是一个保证人口发展可持续的更替水平生育率。从世界各国先例来看，生育率在较低的水平上长期徘徊之后，通常难以再回升到更替水平。不过，促进总和生育率向这个方向尽可能靠近，或者在目前水平上有明显的提高，应该成为政策努力达到的目标，以此保持我国人口资源环境关系更加协调，超大规模市场优势更加巩固，综合国力进一步稳步提升。

China's total fertility rate fell to 1.3 in 2020, according to its seventh national population census. Demographically, a total fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman represents the replacement level that ensures a stable population. As evidenced by precedents across the world, it is difficult for a long-term low fertility rate to recover to the replacement level. Nonetheless, fertility policies that aim for the replacement level or significant improvement are necessary so as to further synergize China’s population, resources and environment, consolidate its advantage as a mega market and steadily enhance its national strength.

It is difficult for China to return to the replacement level of 2.1, a fact acknowledged by experts on Chinese demography, but it also remains by no means easy to get close to or significantly improve on the current level. Nevertheless, demographic structure could prove a hindrance to China's super-large-scale market advantages and comprehensive national strength, so in the foreseeable future, we will definitely see China take a series of measures to deal with this problem.

在特殊性方面，既包括诸如“未富先老”带来的诸多挑战，也包括超大规模老年人口具有的人力资源优势和巨大市场潜力。

In terms of uniqueness of China's population structure, it includes not only the many challenges brought about by “aging before getting rich,” but also the advantages of a large elderly population as a human resource and the vast market potential it represents.

At the 84th CMF Macroeconomic Hot Issues Seminar in April, Dr. Cai said that aging before getting rich leads to an imbalance between the age structure and the capacity and willingness to consume.

China's aging rate (i.e. the proportion of people over 65 years old) is at least 5 percentage points higher than the world average; at the same time, China's resident consumption rate (i.e. the proportion of resident consumption expenditure in GDP) is 18 percentage points lower than the world average. While China's per capita GDP is already higher than the world average, the resident consumption capacity has failed to catch up with the world average. Therefore, it is necessary not only to increase per capita GDP and per capita disposable income, but also to make structural adjustments.

2023年我国老年人口抚养比达到22.5%，比十年前提高了9.4个百分点，这既导致劳动力供给减少，也造成养老金持续发放的压力。应该看到，部分已达到退休年龄的人口既有继续工作的体能体魄，也有延迟退休的愿望。按照自愿、弹性原则，稳妥有序推进渐进式延迟法定退休年龄改革，有助于更充分挖掘大龄劳动者的人力资本和劳动力潜力，同时提高养老金发放的长期可持续性。

The dependency ratio of China's elderly population reached 22.5% in 2023, an increase of 9.4 percentage points over a decade ago. This has led to a decrease in labor supply and put more pressure on the continued pension payments. It is important to recognize that some individuals who have reached retirement age still have the physical capability and the desire to continue working. In line with the principle of voluntary participation with appropriate flexibility, China will advance reform to gradually raise the statutory retirement age in a prudent and orderly manner. It can help further tap the human capital and labor force potential of senior citizens, and facilitate the sustainability of pension systems in the long run.

Compared with worldwide levels, China's retirement age is almost at the lowest end, but raising retirement age is closely related to everyone's life and has a long-term impact, which is why it has become a hot topic online after the third plenary session was concluded. According to a recent report, a former official of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security revealed to Caixin that a plan had already been formulated for delayed retirement, which was more moderate than the current public routine, but considering social resistance and the lack of conditions, it was not announced to the public.

Regarding raising the statutory retirement age, I interviewed Yin Xiwen, a researcher from the Tian He Institute of Labor Relations at Jilin University. Below is Yin's response:

"I would like to emphasize one point first. There is a noticeable social stratification in China today, and public opinion on delayed retirement varies across different social strata. For instance, in rural areas, there is no strict retirement age from the perspective of production, and the same applies to migrant workers. In fact, some major cities even impose age restrictions on older migrant workers for safety reasons. Therefore, it’s not that these groups don’t have a need for retirement, but rather that they don’t feel the impact of delayed retirement as strongly due to the necessity of continuing to work.

The group most affected by delayed retirement is the urban middle class. As the main workforce in cities, they generally have better retirement benefits, but they also face significant pressure to support the elderly. Among this group, opinions on delayed retirement vary depending on their age. Under the current pension system, delaying retirement indeed extends their working years, but it also reduces the pension burden on the younger generation. If we maintain the current uniform retirement age, ensuring the proper disbursement of pensions would require increasing the pension contributions from younger people, which would likely lead to greater dissatisfaction among them.

Therefore, I believe that gradually implementing a flexible, voluntary approach to raising the statutory retirement age is a reasonable decision. It balances the interests of all parties within the constraints of China’s current demographic structure and social diversity."

3. Implementation of reforms

Subject: Ensuring the implementation of reforms with relentless perseverance 以钉钉子精神抓好改革落实

Author: 唐方裕 Tang Fangyu, deputy head of the CPC Central Committee Policy Research Office. (Tang attended a press conference on the guiding principles from the third plenary session in July. )

Source: Tutorial on the Resolution (Page 367-374)

为什么我们经常强调“一分部署、九分落实”呢？其根本道理在于，抓落实作为作决策的后续工作，所花费的时间和精力、所需要的资源和条件、所涉及的战线和领域、所直面的矛盾和问题，多数情况下比作决策更多一些。同时，再好的决策，如果执行不力、抓落实不到位，就见不到成效，或者达不到预定目标。

Why did we repeatedly emphasize that, "to achieve any task, its plan accounts for only 10%, whereas its implementation 90%"? This is because implementation, in most cases, could be more time-consuming and strenuous, and confronted with more problems than decision-making, as it requires more resources and involves more fronts and fields. Meanwhile, without effective and thorough implementation, decisions, no matter how wise it is, can deliver no tangible result or lead to any goals.

“一分部署、九分落实 to achieve any task, its plan accounts for only 10%, whereas its implementation 90%" clearly shows that the top leadership's strong emphasis on the importance of the implementation of the reforms. While it's true that further deepening of reforms presents many difficulties and challenges, it would be unfair to suggest that the decision-makers do not fully recognize the significance of the implementation.

在时间表上，应当按照到2029年新中国成立80周年完成本轮改革任务的总要求，根据轻重缓急确定各项改革任务的起止时限，一个节点一个节点推进，跑表计时，到点验收。在优先序上，是先易后难、循序渐进，还是抓大带小、纲举目张，应当依具体情况而定，不必强求一律。根据需要，可以优先从最急迫的事项改起，从老百姓最期盼的领域改起，从社会各界最能够达成共识的环节改起；也可以集中优势兵力，优先落实牵一发而动全身、落一子而满盘活的重要改革举措。

According to the blueprint, the reform tasks laid out in the resolution shall be completed by the time the People’s Republic of China celebrates its 80th founding anniversary in 2029. Specific time limit and deadlines should be set for each reform task based on its significance, urgency and impact. Every node along the timeline should be supervised and have its expected results checked on time. Priority should be determined on a case-by-case basis as needed. The reform could start with the tasks with the most urgency and of the greatest concern to the people, or tasks that are highly probable to reach public consensus. The reform could also prioritize those tasks with huge and extensive impact through concentrated strengths.

In addition to clearly setting the overall reform goals to be achieved by 2029, there is significant flexibility in the sequence of reforms, avoiding a "one-size-fits-all" approach. Instead, the emphasis is on analyzing each situation individually, embodying the "seeking truth from facts" spirit that is central to the reform and opening-up policy. This sends a positive signal to the departments responsible for policy implementation.

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Xi's encounter with the youth leadership underscores the enduring importance the Party places on youth engagement and involvement. Today's newsletter will unpack the major themes, policy directions, and aspirations voiced by Xi during his address to the CYLC's Central Committee.

The discussions from this meeting are a must-read for anyone keen on understanding the CPC's outlook on youth engagement and its role in China's modernization drive, scientific and technological innovation, rural revitalization, green development, and more.

Some highlights first:

• Party Leadership and Youth Involvement: Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, met with the newly-elected Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC) in Beijing. He underlined the critical role of youth in the future of the Party and the nation. Xi expects the CYLC Central Committee to implement the CPC's requirements, carry on the traditional values, and unite the youth around the Party for the nation's development.

• Recognizing Achievements and Challenges: Xi praised the CPC's advancements in youth work and acknowledged the substantial changes since the 18th CPC National Congress. He highlighted how CYLC has organized young people to participate in major tasks such as the new development pattern, poverty eradication, and response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

• High Hopes for New Leadership: Xi expressed high expectations for the new leadership of the CYLC Central Committee, hoping it would promote greater development of CYLC undertakings and work concerning young people.

• Political Guidance and Ideals: Xi underscored the importance of fostering strong ideals and convictions among young people, and guiding them towards socialism with Chinese characteristics. The CYLC was urged to prioritize strengthening political guidance for league members and young people and to train socialist builders and successors.

• Central Tasks and National Strategies: Xi stressed that the CYLC should focus on the central tasks of the Party, serve the overall interests, and dovetail its work with national strategies. He urged the league to mobilize young people to participate in China's modernization drive and various national tasks.

• Improving CYLC: Xi emphasized the need for the CYLC to follow the requirements for full and rigorous Party self-governance, deepen the CYLC’s reform and exercise rigorous self-governance. He stressed on the need for the league to consolidate its primary level and improve the working capabilities of young people.

• Party Support and Innovation: Xi concluded by urging all Party committees to strengthen their leadership over and support for the work of the CYLC, and to promote the work related to the youth in an innovative way.

The OFFICIAL READOUT

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission met with the leading members of the newly-elected Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC) at Zhongnanhai in Beijing on Monday afternoon, and made an important speech thereafter. He stressed that on the shoulder of the young generation is placed the future of the cause of the Party and the nation. The CYLC Central Committee is expected to thoroughly implement the requirements of the CPC Central Committee, conscientiously shoulder the missions and tasks entrusted by the Party in the new era and on the new journey, inherit and carry forward fine traditions, continue to reform and innovate, and better unite and rally the young generation around the Party, so as to make unremitting efforts in advancing the building of a great country and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Cai Qi, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and a member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee was present at the meeting.

Xi said that the CPC has made notable achievements in its work concerning young people and major changes have taken place in this regard since the 18th CPC National Congress. The CPC has fully strengthened its leadership over the work on the CYLC and the youth. The foundation and political orientation of the CYLC have been consolidated, and direction and tasks of its work further clarified. Its nature as a political organization and a vanguard of the youth has become even more prominent, and its ties with young people closer. Leaders of the CYLC have developed a more positive and healthy style of thinking, work and life, presenting a brand-new image to the youth. Over the past five years, the CYLC has organized its members and other young people to participate, shoulder great responsibilities and pioneer in such major tasks as building the new development pattern, promoting high-quality development, winning the battle against poverty, and responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrating the courage and sense of responsibility of the Chinese youth in the new era. The CPC Central Committee has faith in the CYLC and the youth.

Xi noted that the CPC Central Committee pins high hopes on the new leadership of the CYLC Central Committee. He hopes that it will continue improving itself, play an exemplary role, and promote greater development of the undertakings of the CYLC and the work concerning young people.

Xi stressed that it is major experience in the past more than 100 years to make the central tasks of the Party the theme and direction of Chinese youth movement and work in this regard. The CYLC, as the aide and reserve force of the Party, must do its work by focusing on the central tasks of the Party in the new era and on the new journey which were set at the 20th CPC National Congress, go in the right direction and strive for greater achievements. To realize the great goals of building China into a great country and achieving national rejuvenation, the whole Party and all Chinese people, including the youth, must unite and go all out to take on more challenges and overcome more difficulties. The CYLC should firmly grasp the theme of the work related to the youth in the new era, as extensively as possible unite, organize, and mobilize young people, encourage them to have a stronger sense of historical responsibility and mission, stimulate their passion of getting involved in the endeavors of building a strong country, and play the role of a vanguard and spearhead in the great cause of building China into a great country and national rejuvenation.

Xi pointed out that greater efforts should be made to strengthen political guidance for young people. Only with ideals, a sense of responsibility, grit and dedication will Chinese youth be strong, and there be hope for the cause of the Party and the country. It is important to foster strong ideals and convictions among young people, and guide them to develop the ideal of Communism and consolidate the shared ideal of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Young people should have a firm conviction of steadfastly following the Party and its guidance, set up the right life goals in the historical trend of building a strong country and national rejuvenation, so as to lay the cornerstone for the endeavor of their whole life. The CYLC must give top priority to strengthening political guidance for league members and young people, strive to train socialist builders and successors, and constantly provide healthy and energetic fresh blood to the Party. It is necessary to carry out theoretical study program among league members and young people, who should be guided to earnestly study and grasp the Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and to master the worldview and methodology of this scientific thought. They should learn to extrapolate when it comes to applying the political stand, viewpoints and methods in the thought to analyzing problems, in order to better understand the Party’s basic theory, guideline and policy.

Xi stressed that the CYLC must focus on the central tasks, serve the overall interests, proactively dovetail its work with major national strategies and tasks. He urged the league to mobilize young people to participate in China's modernization drive by doing their own job well. Young people should strive to be the vanguard and a vital contingent in scientific and technological innovation, rural revitalization, green development, social services, national defense, safeguarding frontiers and the like, so as to demonstrate the vitality of youth.

Xi noted that it’s imperative for the CYLC to follow the requirements for full and rigorous Party self-governance, adopt a problem-oriented approach, be strict with itself, deepen the Communist Youth League’s reform and exercise rigorous self-governance to unswervingly follow the development path of people’s organizations with Chinese characteristics, constantly maintain and strengthen the league’s political character, pioneering nature and connection with the people, so as to strengthen its leading capacity, organizing capabilities and services. It is imperative to keep consolidating the primary level, constantly expand the reach of the CYLC organizations and improve the working capabilities of young people. All CYLC officials must cherish the precious opportunity of being involved in the Party’s work related to the youth, constantly strengthen their political ability, theoretical literacy and professional competence, and fully commit themselves to performing their duties, so as to win the Party’s trust, gain respect from the society and enjoy a good reputation among young people with down-to-earth achievements.

At the end of the meeting, Xi stressed that Party committees (Party organizations) at all levels should adhere to the principle that the Party exercises leadership over the work concerning the youth, strengthen their leadership over and support for the work of the CYLC, establish and improve a working paradigm under which all departments work together under the Party's leadership to promote the work related to the youth, and support the CYLC in doing its work in an innovative way. Leading officials at all levels should do whatever they can to become the confidants of young people, and guides for their future development.

A Dong, the first secretary of the Secretariat of the 19th CYLC Central Committee, reported on the convening of the 19th CYLC national congress and its first plenary session, as well as the considerations for implementing the spirit of the Party Central Committee. The secretaries of the secretariat of the CYLC Central Committee Xu Xiao, Wang Yi, Hu Baijing, Hu Sheng, Xiapaketi Wushou'er, and Yu Jing, respectively delivered speeches.

Shi Taifeng, Li Ganjie, Li Shulei, Chen Wenqing, Liu Jinguo, and Wang Xiaohong attended the meeting.

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