Inside the System: Rebel Interpretation of the Truth Behind “Elderly Reemployment” and “Lying Flat Is Incited by Foreign Forces”

I am inside the system, and I have previously seen Twitter posts about lying flat. Today I have some free time to write about my feelings. Please be sure to publish this. I believe my colleagues will also see it.

First, there are actually quite a few low‑level civil servants within the system who are dissatisfied with Xi Jinping personally. The reason is simple: his competence and judgment are far less impressive than the central propaganda portrays. Like Mao Zedong, he messes around and expects us to act as missionaries at the grassroots level to promote him.

I personally experience the northern part of the system. I have many impressions. Many things, if viewed only from an ordinary person's perspective, seem absurd, cruel, even incomprehensible, but if you look at them from the central government's own logic of rule, they often appear internally consistent. Only those of us who eat the state’s grain can interpret them.

Attributing "lying flat" to "foreign forces" often elicits ridicule, as many think it is absurd. In fact, the central authorities know what the reality is, but they choose to frame any non‑compliance, lack of cooperation, or simply low efficiency among grassroots civil servants as a political issue. Because if they admit that "lying flat" is a spontaneous choice under real pressure, they would be admitting that the system itself has problems.

First, we must clarify a fact: we who have established posts are "flag people" under the red flag. We eat the system’s food and serve their ruling order. This status makes many policies serve the internal interest groups of the system. Then we are tasked with serving the grassroots populace. (What? You don’t want us to serve you? That’s not up to you 😁)

A simple example: encouraging elderly people to re‑enter employment.

At the time many mocked this, saying it was hoping that rural‑registered elderly workers would labor their whole lives and eventually die on the job. But think about it: does the central government not know the situation of the grassroots? A farmer elderly person receiving only a little over a hundred yuan a month in pension, when old, has no money, no social security, and their children are often only children who must support both older and younger generations, lacking the capacity to fully support them. Even without any policy encouragement, these elders can only continue to go out and work.

This is already pathological: on one hand, they work to reduce the burden on their children; on the other hand, because of long‑term labor and physical over‑exertion, they die earlier, which in another sense reduces the family’s pension burden. For grassroots elders, there is no re‑employment choice because there is no choice at all.

In reality, the deeper target of such policies is the power‑hungry, retirement‑averse officials within the system. Right, you can guess that the real beneficiaries are the senior cadres and leaders inside the system who control resources, positions, approval authority, and personnel power. They do not want to retire because retirement means losing power and the ability to continue funneling benefits to their children. Thus, the rhetoric of "elderly re‑employment" rationalizes keeping them within the power structure.

For grassroots elders, re‑employment means they cannot survive. For system elders, re‑employment means they are reluctant to give up power—that is the difference.

So many policies appear on the surface to be for the whole society, but in fact they truly serve the internal continuation of power and the distribution of benefits. Ordinary people see absurdity; insiders see benefit arrangements. You think it is stupid, but it is actually protecting its own people. You think it ignores livelihoods, but it never placed you at the top from the start. This is the basic logic of central politics—so lofty and righteous that many people never fully grasp it in a lifetime. The system allocates benefits, and those in power use policies to extend their tenure.

Similarly, the phrase "lying flat is incited by foreign forces" should not be dismissed as a silly statement. What it really deals with are those inside the system who are dissatisfied with Xi Jinping and begin to work passively.

If you are dissatisfied with the emperor, you will not truly work for him; without sincere effort, matters become superficial; when matters become superficial, the entire administrative system turns into a low‑efficiency idle spin. People remain in their posts, still receive salaries and benefits, but execution, enthusiasm, and loyalty all decline. Over time, the thing that collapses is Xi Jinping’s own finances and ruling machine.

Therefore, cough, cough, the young people inside the system who "eat meals but do not work," especially those without connections, background, or factional protection, are labeled with a new political tag: being influenced or incited by foreign forces.

The central logic is actually simple: you are financially supported by the system but do not actively serve the central authority; you have no power background and no irreplaceable influence; you are merely a passive, silent, inefficient fiscal burden. Thus, your "lying flat" will be framed as a political issue, even as the result of foreign infiltration.

Plainly put, this is a bit like Xi Jinping’s version of the "Han army exiting the banner." During the Qing dynasty’s Eight Banners system, banner people relied on state support. As the population grew, fiscal pressure increased, and the Qing court had to address the livelihood crisis within the banners. The so‑called "Han army exiting the banner" meant forcibly removing a portion of people originally within the banner system, detaching them from state support and turning them into ordinary civilians.

Today, the situation of some young people inside the system can be understood through this logic: they originally belonged to the state‑supported system, but when fiscal pressure rises, loyalty drops, and their utility diminishes, they are redefined as "problematic population." They are no longer "our own people"; as Dong Ge says, you are no longer our brother, but a burden. Likewise, these people without connections need to be cleared, compressed, and re‑categorized.

That is the purpose of rhetoric like "lying flat is incited by foreign forces." It establishes a new political screening mechanism: whoever is not actively loyal, who does not keep working hard, who cannot prove usefulness to the central authority, may be excluded from the "our own people" circle.