Inner Mongolia's Malicious Innovation Fills the Gap in China's Malicious Narrative, 15 Complaints Activate the 'Malicious Claim' Medal

Recently, the market supervision departments of Inner Mongolia, in conjunction with multiple other departments, released the "Identification Standards for Malicious Claim Behavior and the List of Malicious Claim Abnormalities (First Batch)." For the first time in the form of a local document, it centrally identifies so-called "malicious claim" behavior and publishes the first batch of abnormality lists.

According to public reports, the first batch of abnormality lists involves 424 phone numbers and 463 people. These individuals filed an average of 1,195 complaints and reports each, with the highest reaching 5,113 complaints and reports in one year.

The identification characteristics of "malicious claims" listed in the document include: purchase quantities that significantly exceed reasonable living needs in a single transaction; filing more than 15 complaints or reports to administrative departments within one year; filing more than 30 complaints or reports on the national 12315 platform; and behaviors such as seeking compensation that significantly exceeds legal standards through exposure or reporting.

Supporters argue that some "professional fake-fighting" and "professional claiming" behaviors have indeed existed for a long time, with some people exploiting legal loopholes to file high-frequency complaints and batch rights protection to obtain compensation gains and consume administrative resources.

However, what has drawn more external attention is China's continuously expanding "malicious narrative" governance model in recent years.

In the context of the Chinese internet, the word "malicious" has long been turned into black humor. Previously, various terms such as "malicious wage demanding," "malicious returning home," "malicious petitioning," "malicious rights protection," and "malicious lying flat" have appeared in Chinese society. Now, "malicious claiming" has joined the luxury package.

Many netizens joke that in the governance logic of some places, the problem itself may not be the most dangerous, but the person who continues to raise the problem is the most dangerous.

For example, food safety issues can be slowly rectified, and unscrupulous merchants can be educated and criticized, but if someone files more than 15 complaints in a year, they may first enter the "abnormality list." This logic is seen by many as a further extension of the Chinese-style "stability maintenance thinking" into the field of consumer rights protection.

Particularly controversial is that the threshold of "more than 15 complaints in a year" is not considered high. For people who have long suffered from consumer fraud, food safety issues, false advertising, and after-sales evasion, frequent complaints do not necessarily mean profit-seeking.

In the actual environment in China, due to high judicial costs, long rights protection cycles, and limited consumer protection mechanisms, 12315 complaints, public exposure, and online reporting are among the few low-cost rights protection tools still available to ordinary people. Now, even these behaviors themselves are beginning to be incorporated into the "abnormality management" perspective.

Some commentators believe that the core issue reflected by such policies is not just the phenomenon of "professional fake-fighting," but a long-standing path dependency in China's governance system: compared to truly solving systemic problems, it is often simpler to manage the people who create pressure.

Similar logic has frequently appeared over the past few years. Migrant workers demanding wages may be suspected of "affecting stability"; depositors protecting their rights may have their travel restricted; owners of unfinished buildings who stop mortgage payments may be characterized as "disturbing order." When local financial pressures cannot be solved, those who speak out, organize, and protect their rights are often the first to be controlled, rather than the source of the problem.

In a sense, "malicious" has gradually become a highly politicized and flexible social label. As long as a certain behavior brings pressure to the management system, it may be redefined.

And this leads many to satirize: the greatest danger in Chinese society may not be food safety, rampant counterfeit goods, or regulatory failure, but that someone takes reporting these problems too seriously.