Shantou · Full chronicle and history

On the morning of November 7, high school students at Chaoyang Experimental School in Shantou, Guangdong, were required to go to the playground and stand together to study as soon as the sky brightened, sparking mockery from netizens regarding the school's prison-like management.

On October 29, in Shangtou Village, Binhai Street, Haojiang District, Shantou City, Guangdong Province, a large group of villagers gathered at the entrance and service hall of the Shangtou Community Party-Mass Service Center to demand land expropriation compensation. Local netizens reported that village cadres were suspected of embezzling collective land compensation funds, leaving villagers without the payments they were due. Police arrived at the scene to maintain order.

On October 21, in Jinping District, Shantou City, Guangdong, several people suspected of being involved in a dispute over unpaid wages climbed to the edge of a rooftop near the local government to defend their rights.

On October 14, Shantou in Guangdong rolled out themed buses and ferries for mobile outreach on social security policies, saying the shift is from "people looking for policies" to "policies finding people," with a focus on serving flexible workers, migrant workers and other groups. Netizens joked, "I will find you, whether north or south, east or west."

Heping Town in Chaoyang District, Shantou, Guangdong, was exposed by the media for producing and selling counterfeit goods; official joint law enforcement seized a large amount of counterfeit cosmetics packaging materials, equipment, and creams, and arrested the homeowner involved, Wu某某.

On the evening of August 12, 2026, multiple villagers in Lincuo Village, Waisha Subdistrict, Longhu District, Shantou, Guangdong gathered in a sit-in protest, objecting to the authorities changing agricultural household registration to resident household registration without public notice, and demanding protection of collective land rights.

On August 9, 2026, reports circulated online that a woman fell from a building inside the Suning Appliance Plaza in Shantou, Guangdong. Mall staff subsequently cordoned off the scene with iron railings, and 120 emergency personnel arrived at the scene to carry out treatment.

On August 9, 2026, a video circulating online of a beach in Shantou, Guangdong showed several men dumping several whole barrels of garbage and waste directly into the sea at night, causing large amounts of waste plastic to pile up on the beach; the related exposure video was subsequently deleted.

On July 2, 2026, a bamboo raft in the waters off Houjiang, Nan'ao County, Shantou, Guangdong was capsized after being struck by an iron vessel, killing one person, and the vessel responsible fled the scene. Recently, the family took to the internet to report that no case had been filed long after the incident and that dock surveillance footage had been overwritten, publicly seeking help to defend their rights.

From June 26 to 30, 2026, villagers of Lincuo Village, Waisha Street, Longhu District, Shantou, Guangdong gathered for several consecutive days to defend their rights, protesting that the village committee sold off collective land without the villagers' consent, and demanding the restoration of household registration status that had been altered to non-agricultural without authorization.

Villagers of Lincuo Village, Longhu District, Shantou, had their agricultural household registrations arbitrarily converted to non-agricultural household registrations. After sitting-in for rights defense for a month, they escalated their actions, with hundreds occupying the village committee and engaging in physical clashes with the police.

Official data shows that in 2025, nearly 160,000 people nationwide were disciplined for issues such as "inaction, arbitrary actions, and fraud," a year-on-year increase of 16%.

The 2023 315 Gala exposed chaotic practices at multiple pickled vegetable companies, including Waisha Jingui Fruit and Vegetable Pickling Factory in Longhu District of Shantou, Yulei Foods, and Mutongyuan Foods, such as working barefoot, smoking, spitting, and picking dropped pickles back up to pack them into boxes.