[US Trending] Who Pays for the Superpower Dream? | China Is Creating a “Lost Generation” | Tesla Takes to the Sky While Domestic Car Makers Are Still Racing to Outdo Each Other over Shoe Horns | Back Then You Turned In Iron Pots, Now You Pay Social Insurance? | Entering Beijing Has Become Like “Illegal Border-Crossing”? | An American Speaks Up for China’s Underclass, and the Comment Section Gets Wiped Out
This episode focuses on recent social and economic hot topics in China. The content includes online mockery sparked by Tesla's new car release, traffic controls in Shenzhen due to APEC meetings, controversies surrounding the mobilization for social security payments in various regions and the phenomenon of using Huabei to pay for social security, the discovery of people hiding in the undercarriages of vehicles entering Beijing, the arrest of a Little Pink at a rally in the UK, the deletion of a video by an American named Jessy who spoke up for the underprivileged, the living conditions of the lower classes in the Sichuan-Chongqing region, and the emergence of young people among the waste-picking population. In addition, the program cites a Wall Street Journal report to analyze China's debt crisis and the "lost generation" of unemployed youth, and finally reviews absurd phenomena such as the anti-Japanese biology exam paper and Chongqing's smart toilets.
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American Hot Search lets you hear the voices from outside the Great Firewall. Hello viewers, welcome to today's American Hot Search, I am Qi Xiaotian.
On October 15, Tesla held a launch event at the SpaceX test site in Texas, USA, to showcase the features of the new Tesla Roadster. The new car can use cold air thrusters and high-power fans under the car to drive on inverted ramps, briefly hover, rotate in the air, and land safely. Musk announced that this will be a "car that truly drives on the road"; he plans to start production in 2028. Tesla has always been the gold standard for electric vehicles; what the bosses of Chinese car companies love to do most is to compare their domestic cars to Tesla's ability to take off. So, what are the functions of domestic cars? A netizen also showed off the "in-situ takeoff" function of the BYD Yangwang U9. Netizens joked: If domestic luxury cars add this function, wouldn't all the pots and pans in the car's refrigerator be knocked over? Fans who blindly support domestic cars flocked to the internet to bash Tesla's new feature, asking: What is the use of this car? A humorous netizen said: If the brake pedal of the car behind you breaks, you can fly up to avoid it.
Every time the CCP holds an event, it is always the common people who suffer the most. On October 14, many netizens posted videos stating that due to APEC-related meetings or drills, Shenzhen suddenly implemented large-scale temporary traffic controls and road closures in many places, leading to traffic congestion and seriously affecting citizens' travel. Many citizens found that roads were blocked after work and they could not return home via their original routes, forcing them to take detours; some delivery drivers were also forced to cancel local orders because they could not pass through. Netizens complained: So the powerful and wealthy all think China is the best in the world. When the leaders go out, the roads are wide, there are few people and cars, the lights are all green, and they travel without obstruction.
During the Mao Zedong era, the CCP launched a nationwide Great Leap Forward in steel production, mobilizing every household and sparing even the iron wok in their kitchens. Seventy years later, the CCP has initiated another nationwide mobilization campaign—only this time, instead of hunting for iron woks, it is hunting for wallets. The CCP recently announced that it would use big data to track down every Chinese citizen who has not paid social insurance and mobilize them to enroll. In the past, everyone contributed a wok; now, everyone contributes a pension. On October 14, multiple netizens posted that many regions across the country have intensively promoted the publicity campaign of "Social Security Services Entering Ten Thousand Households," with the theme "Everyone contributes, everyone enjoys." Unlike the period of the Great Leap Forward under Mao Zedong, people in the social media era have successively opposed the CCP's mobilization for insurance enrollment online and pointed out various flaws in China's social security system. A blogger analyzed the 8 major oddities of China's social security below. China's social security has also exposed extreme inequality in society. A blogger pointed out below: Some young people are paying social security while having to support parents who receive only 200 yuan a month in pension. The CCP's mobilization campaigns are generally one-size-fits-all. Many people without social security found through big data are unemployed and simply have no money to pay for it. China's widespread wage arrears mean that even with a job, one cannot necessarily afford social security. Of course, even without income, the CCP will still demand social security from you. A netizen dug out an article published in China Social Security Magazine last August. The article proposed that flexible workers who have difficulty paying social security can borrow money to pay for it. This can not only solve the difficulties of the masses in paying social security fees, but also help banks expand their business, achieving a three-way win of "social security credit enhancement, bank customer acquisition, and mass benefit." Another netizen found that officials now allow Alipay Huabei to be used to pay social security, and installments are even available. He posted a social security payment bill from October 12, showing that he paid 2,785 yuan in social security fees to the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau through Alipay Huabei. A netizen sighed: actually taking out a loan to support government officials, this is far too desperate. Chairman Mao relied on mass movements to make steel back then, and General Secretary Xi now relies on mass mobilization to raise social security. The times have changed, but the flavor of campaign-style governance feels increasingly familiar.
A country's citizens can theoretically go to any region of that country. Unfortunately, as the Chinese passport shows, the vast majority of Chinese are merely residents rather than citizens. Recently, Beijing police issued a notice stating: a Chinese man entered Beijing by hiding in the bottom of a carriage through an acquaintance, and as a result, he was caught. The question is, why did this man have to enter Beijing by hiding at the bottom of a carriage? Netizens guessed: it might be because he has a record of petitioning and could not obtain a Beijing entry permit, the so-called "Chinese version of the Beijing visa," so he entered Beijing through a method similar to "smuggling." Therefore, Chinese residents might need to use "smuggling" methods just to take a trip to Beijing.
Little Pinks of the CCP usually act with utter disregard for the law and morality, only to hit a brick wall abroad. At a protest rally by Hong Kongers against the CCP in the UK, a Pink harassed the protesters by playing the national anthem, resulting in her immediate arrest by the British police. The crowd present burst into cheers. Netizens said: the whole world should do this, democracy cannot be infiltrated by totalitarianism.
Chinese netizens once said, "The ones who care most about the Chinese people are foreigners." Recently, Jessy, an American who has lived in China for a long time, posted a video saying that he saw many farmers, construction workers, and restaurant service staff working from dawn to dusk. Clearly, they contributed to building China, yet they receive no due respect and have an extremely low social status. Jessy said he felt very incomprehensible and very angry. Consequently, the comment section of this video was wiped clean. Netizens sighed: an American has experienced the iron fist of socialism. Another netizen said: this guy is different from most foreigners; many only see the surface of big cities, but very few know the quality of life of ordinary people. This guy has seen some substantive things. The American friend Jessy has only seen a portion of the lower-class people who can still work in the city. The lower-class people outside the city are beyond his imagination. A Chinese blogger interviewed an elderly person at the bottom of the ladder. The elder said that he usually has no money to buy meat and can only eat meat during the Chinese New Year. On October 12, a blogger in Sichuan documented the daily lives of local children. In the video, a toddler squatted on the floor and ate white rice directly mixed with seasoned soy sauce. When the soy sauce bottle was empty, she could only dilute it with water and pour it into the bowl to mix with the rice.
Some young people in cities are also heading toward the bottom of society. Recently, a netizen posted a video saying that many young people have appeared among those picking through garbage, and they can be encountered even in the early hours of the morning. A netizen sarcastically remarked: in the future, let the tax bureau station someone by every garbage bin; anyone without a social security payment proof is not allowed to pick through the garbage, which will surely increase the social security participation rate.
Next, we move to the "Foreign Media on China" segment. For years, Xi Jinping has emphasized the "East is rising, the West is declining" narrative, aiming to build China into a technological and military superpower. However, The Wall Street Journal recently identified a problem: while the General Secretary's superpower dream continues, China's debt is snowballing. The grand blueprint of the "East rising and West declining" may ultimately have to be paid for by the wallets of ordinary citizens. The Wall Street Journal reported that in order to catch up with the United States, Xi has poured trillions of dollars into technology, the military, and manufacturing. But this massive investment has not generated sufficient economic returns; instead, it has pushed China into a dangerous debt cycle. According to data from the Bank for International Settlements, China's total credit to non-financial sectors—including businesses, government, and households—exceeded 300% of GDP last year, 60 percentage points higher than at the end of 2019 and far surpassing the United States. Since Xi took power at the end of 2012, this type of debt has accumulated by more than $43 trillion.
So, where has all this money gone? A massive amount of capital was invested in factories, real estate, and infrastructure. But the problem is that many factories are producing goods that no one buys, and many houses lack demand. To compete for orders, companies have been forced to continuously cut prices, resulting in shrinking profits and impacting workers' wages. An economist at the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Germany said, "We are seeing this system hitting its own limits." Local governments keep subsidizing loss-making enterprises to keep them alive. But since these companies are not profitable to begin with, they naturally have little profit to pay in taxes. In other words, the government borrows money to subsidize companies, the companies lose money and cannot pay taxes, and the government is forced to keep finding ways to raise funds. The hardest-hit area of China's debt problem is local government. Over the past few years, local government financing vehicles (LGFVs) have borrowed trillions of dollars to meet GDP growth targets and maintain employment. China's broad government debt, including LGFV debt, has risen from 98% of GDP in 2020 to about 127% last year. These debts must eventually be repaid. But if lending to loss-making companies stops, many of them might not survive, and state-owned banks could face massive losses. Camille Boullenois of the research firm Rhodium Group said, "If you want to change this system, you have to accept massive losses, and I don't think the Chinese government is ready for that." She believes a more likely scenario is that the debt problem will slowly worsen, the financial system will gradually decline, and it will become increasingly difficult to drive economic growth.
China's debt crisis is also affecting the world. Because domestic consumers cannot afford or consume all these products, Chinese companies, in order to repay their debts, have no choice but to continue producing more cars, solar panels, and electronic products, and then sell them abroad. As a result, China's annual trade surplus has reached the trillion-dollar scale, triggering strong dissatisfaction among trade partners like Europe over China's industrial overcapacity. However, Xi remains unwilling to change course. The article points out that solving the debt problem requires Xi to fundamentally adjust his economic strategy: reducing reliance on factories and exports, and using more resources to improve the consumption power of ordinary households. The problem is that this would mean the government might need to reduce its direct control over the economy and shift funds originally used for technology, the military, and strategic industries toward ordinary households. Currently, Xi still prioritizes goals such as narrowing the technological gap with the U.S. and developing military power. Therefore, Beijing is effectively kicking the debt can down the road so that Xi can continue to push forward his superpower plans. This creates a cycle: Xi keeps borrowing and investing to achieve his superpower goals; investment leads to overcapacity and falling corporate profits; companies cannot repay debts, so the government continues to subsidize them; the debt burden of the government and companies grows heavier, forcing them to rely on production and exports to keep running. This overcapacity further intensifies price wars among Chinese companies, suppressing profits and workers' wages, making it even harder for the already weak domestic consumption to recover. Xi has been shouting about the "East rising and West declining" for so many years, but the "East" hasn't "risen" yet, while the debt has risen first; and the cost is being paid by the income and living standards of ordinary people.
Young people in China are taught from a young age that as long as they study hard, get into a good university, and secure a good job, they will live a better life than their parents. But today, a more and more of them are discovering that their studies are finished, yet jobs are gone; diplomas are earned, but the future is further out of reach. The Wall Street Journal recently published a report titled: "China's Slumping Economy is Breeding a Lost Generation." The article states that China's economy continues to flag, job opportunities are dwindling, and yet a record 12.7 million college graduates are entering society this year. In August of this year, the urban unemployment rate for Chinese youth aged 16 to 24, excluding students, hit about 19%, compared to only around 9% for the same age group in the United States. Wage growth has also stalled. For many young people, life goals that were once taken for granted—financial independence, stable employment, marriage, and starting a family—are now increasingly out of reach.
Twenty-seven-year-old Xiao Ma was originally pursuing a master's degree in computer science in Beijing. But with the rise of artificial intelligence and continuous layoffs at tech companies, he grew increasingly doubtful that he could find a good job after graduation. Last year, he decided to simply stop attending classes. He spent his days wandering around parks in Beijing, and later, he fled to live in Dali, Yunnan. His parents still thought he was in graduate school. Xiao Ma said, "In the past, everyone felt life would get better and better, and income would keep growing. But it's different now. I don't see much hope for the future." Twenty-seven-year-old Zhang Tian studied landscape architecture, a promising major back when the real estate market was booming. As a result, when she graduated in 2021, China's real estate bubble burst. She worked at a real estate company in Hangzhou for half a year before being laid off. Later, she went to Shanghai to work as an administrative assistant, where her monthly salary dropped to about 8000 RMB, and she lost her job again at the end of last year. Her boyfriend, Cheng Ming, had an equally tough time. He was laid off by two real estate companies in succession, then switched industries to work in sales at a tech company, only for the company to go straight into bankruptcy, leaving him unemployed once again this April. Cheng Ming said he felt a suffocating pressure from society, leaving him with only helplessness. Zhang Tian said, "Marriage and having children are economic issues. Our financial situation hasn't been resolved yet, so we aren't considering marriage for now."
Originally working in a film company, he later returned to school to pursue a master's degree in media studies for better career advancement. Yet after graduating this January, finding a job became even harder. He had sent out about 100 resumes since last autumn without finding a suitable job. Having spent all his savings, he could only live at home with his parents and rely on them for support. Having grown up in Shanghai, she participated in a national art competition in kindergarten just to get into a good primary school, and spent a massive amount of time on tutoring in high school. Today, she works as a freelancer, but her income is getting lower and lower. In the past, writing a news release could easily earn her two thousand yuan. But now, client demands are piling up, and her hourly earnings have been cut in half. Twenty-four-year-old Wang Yuanru simply dropped out of the formal job market. She studied design in university and entered a design firm after graduation, only to find her boss taking credit for her work. Now she sells handicrafts in Dali, making just enough money to get by.
Xiao Ma, who fled to Dali, relied on his parents' financial support. Initially, he slept in, worked out, cooked, and played poker every day, finally feeling like he could enjoy life. But a few months later, anxiety struck him again. He said, "I feel like I'm stuck there and can't move." He recently left Dali again to travel to Indonesia, and even he doesn't know where his next stop will be. Currently, the emotions of many young people lean more toward resignation than anger; for now, they still have their parents' savings to help sustain them. However, if this disappointment continues to accumulate, it might eventually transform into social discontent that is far more dangerous for the Chinese Communist Party. It's not that this generation of young people didn't try; rather, after working hard for over a decade and stepping out into society, they found that the path they were promised is no longer passable.
Next, let's look at a few absurd videos. Although the Wolf Warriors brazenly claim there is no anti-Japan education in China, evidence of it is everywhere. A netizen discovered exam questions mocking Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in a high school senior biology test paper below. The netizen lamented: With this kind of education, does our nation still have any hope? For the sake of political achievements, CCP officials have built quite a few absurd architectural facilities. The Chongqing municipal government built a "smart toilet," but the toilet was so "smart" that ordinary people couldn't use it at all. A netizen complained: When I was looking for a toilet in a scenic area, the navigation and road signs clearly showed there was one nearby, but I searched for a long time and couldn't find it. Finally, I discovered that the building looking like a small villa right in front of me was actually the toilet. These bastards waste money in this exact way.
At the end of the program, we enter the netizen interaction segment. Independent thinker comments on whether Xi Jinping will designate a successor: Stop dreaming; someone who delusions of living to 150 years old, how could he possibly give up the imperial throne. Gaga comments on the CCP's mobilization for social insurance participation: Asking those who are currently most in need of money to pay to support a group of people who have no worries about food and clothing is truly the biggest joke in the world. In fact, they have launched a "social security code" that just needs to be shown before entering public places; there is no need for big data at all. Rzt comments on the 18 stability maintenance (weiwen) measures of the 20th CCP Central Committee's Fifth Plenary Session: Guarding against the people as if guarding against thieves; since there are so many hostile forces within the country, looking at it from another angle, the CCP is that biggest enemy.
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