Homelessness is exposing the rot in Chinese society

 Beijing has a new term for “homeless beggars.” They are now officially known as “dispersed persons.” The rebranding suggests homelessness in China is getting significantly worse. 

There were 47.5 million homeless individuals in China according to a report from last year. That number — there are widely divergent estimates — is more than five times the reported count for pre-pandemic 2020. With the evident deterioration in China’s economy this year, the number on the streets now is almost certainly higher than that. 

“I was shocked by the statistics too,” said Chen Lei, a cultural critic in Beijing. “I want to disbelieve it.” However, Chen noted, “I’ve seen many more homeless people around recently.” There are now many images online of them sleeping on sidewalks amid piles of refuse and of people milling around in parks.

Most of the homeless are young, and officials report that youth unemployment is rising. Those without jobs are now “flocking” to Communist Party-run service centers to obtain free Wi-Fi, air conditioning, food and water. In Shenzhen, one of China’s most prosperous cities, almost 3,000 young people go to one such center every day.

The homeless toll, as often reported, is the result of both a rapidly deteriorating economy and central government policies pushing automation. Some analysts have linked the trend to “economic strain following the pandemic, particularly persistent youth unemployment that has shown little sign of improvement.”

“The high proportion of younger homeless people is seen as closely tied to that labor market pressure,” UPI reported.  

Homelessness is also a symptom of the ongoing breakdown of Chinese society. Periods of rapid change always stress a people, as did the industrialization of the initial years of the so-called “reform era,” which began in the early 1980s.  

This post-reform period, however, is seeing even more distressing signs of dislocation. Chinese people, for instance, are opting out of society with many choosing to flee, something evident with the unprecedented surge of Chinese nationals across America’s southern border during the Biden administration. Many of them were poor, but some were middle-class Chinese, evidently desperate to live in a free society.

Most Chinese, however, cannot leave. Street dwellers often have low social credit scores. A person’s score reflects all interactions with society, and those with low ones are not allowed to, among other things, maintain bank accounts, buy train tickets or obtain coveted jobs. As a result, they have no home.

Yet even high-score individuals are marginalizing themselves. 

“The sad reality is that Chinese society is currently gripped by a profound, systemic malaise,” Charles Burton of the Sinopsis think tank told me this month. He said the nationwide burnout shows itself in cultural movements known in Chinese by names such as as “lying flat“ and “letting it rot.” These movements “serve as forms of passive resistance against a system that has failed them economically and offers a bleak political future.”

Even rich urban Chinese are rejecting society by reversing decades-old migration patterns and returning — styled as “retiring” — to the countryside. 

“Devoid of fresh, modern ideas, the Communist Party elite under Xi Jinping relies on a stolid ideology to prop up their uninspiring rule,” stated Burton, once a Canadian diplomat in Beijing. “They maintain power by tightening state control over every facet of public life, heavily censoring the media, ideologically constraining education, dictating popular culture.” 

Piero Tozzi, the American First Policy Institute’s senior director for China Policy, noted that Xi has based his governance model on China’s “proto-totalitarian Legalism, which is in the DNA of the Chinese Communist Party.” The party, Tozzi said, now aims for “total societal control.”  

In his drive for absolute obedience, Xi has stolen the vitality and soul of the Chinese people by imposing his will on every aspect of society. Soul-destroying communism is now leading to a crisis for the nation. China’s total fertility rate, the number of children per female reaching child-bearing age, has now dropped to an estimated 1.0, far below the 2.1 needed to maintain a stable population.  

As a result, China will lose a substantial portion of its population in the second half of this century. When the world rings in 2100, China may be only one-third as populous as it is today. Some, such as Yi Fuxian of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, think China could be even smaller than that.

The decline in demography is partially the result of the maturation of society. Countries become less fertile as they climb the economic development scale. But China’s problem is also the result of the pervasive gloom that Burton identified.

China’s people are trying to breathe. As Christopher Tibbs, stationed in China as a banker in the 1990s, told me long ago, “There’s a billion people who don’t like following instructions.”

They still don’t. The problem, however, is that the Legalist-totalitarian regime that rules them insists on issuing instructions — and exacting obedience. This struggle cannot end well for the Chinese people. In the meantime, many — tens of millions — are sleeping on sidewalks. 

Gordon G. Chang is the author of “Plan Red: China’s Project to Destroy America” and “The Coming Collapse of China.” 

https://thehill.com/homenews/6030358-china-homelessness-rising-youth-unemployment/