‘Foreign forces’ blamed for rising number of disaffected youths who are quitting their careers to ‘lie flat’
Chinese spies have blamed “anti-China forces abroad” for the rising number of disaffected young people turning their backs on the long hours required to build their careers and spur economic growth.
The Ministry of State Security, the country’s spy agency, this week said foreign forces were seeking to “erode the minds of Chinese youths” by disseminating anti-work propaganda online, encouraging them to drop out or, in Chinese internet parlance, “lie flat”.
“They want only for our youth to ‘lie flat’, handing over our development dividends, strategic opportunities, and the future of our nation,” the MSS said in a statement and an accompanying promotional video on WeChat.
“May every young person uphold their original aspirations, stand firm on their principles, remain undisturbed by noise and unclouded by confusion, and thrive in the prime of their lives.”
The warning underscores the anxiety felt in Beijing over high youth unemployment and the growing ranks of alienated workers. China this year set its lowest growth target outside of the coronavirus pandemic in decades, aiming for a rate of 4.5 to 5 per cent.
While some young workers are optimistic about China’s prospects in cutting-edge sectors such as AI and robotics, a years-long property slump has hit economic growth, while cut-throat competition and falling profits have left many feeling burnt out and fed up.
Some young people are choosing to move back home to live with their parents or to live in cheaper rural areas. There, they take up informal gig work or drop out of the workforce entirely to live on savings.
“When the Chinese economy was doing well, growing at 10 per cent or so a year, working under pressure by and large delivered rewards. Not any longer,” said Steve Tsang, director of the Soas China Institute in London. “To those who practise [lying flat], the question they ask is ‘what’s the point in working so very hard?’”
In its warning, the MSS said it discovered multiple overseas organisations that had funded anti-China media outlets, think-tanks and influencers that had peddled narratives such as “lying flat is justice” and “struggle = exploitation”.
“A nation prospers when its youth prospers; a nation is strong when its youth are strong,” it warned, adding: “Lying flat may bring temporary comfort, but it inevitably leads to missing out on the journey ahead.”
With few easy answers to China’s economic transition, “malicious foreigner forces” were a “ready scapegoat”, Tsang said.
“China’s economy is slowing, and it is politically impossible for the leadership, the government or the media to attribute the slowdown and the drop in rewards to the state or the CCP [Chinese Communist Party],” he added.
Beijing’s worries over lying flat had crystallised into a perceived economic and national security threat in recent years, said Katja Drinhausen, head of the politics and society programme at Merics, a Berlin-based think-tank.
“It’s just something that’s very anathema [to Beijing] . . . You just can’t afford people questioning the collective duty to struggle at this point in time.”
For Wu Chouchou, 34, who this week left Shanghai after 10 years of working and returned to her home village in Anhui province, the reasons for her malaise were more prosaic.
“I’ve probably reached a point of burnout. I don’t want to keep doing this kind of work that’s neither valuable nor interesting,” said Chouchou, who asked to be identified by a pseudonym.
She plans to take up farming in Anhui and is open to exploring other ways to make a living. There was nothing negative about this, Chouchou added.
“I just realised that if we step outside the framework of the general social clock and explore new lifestyles, isn’t that a positive and progressive thing to do?”
Dora Gao is another young woman who has decided to take a step back. As soon as she receives her year-end bonus from last year, which is due by June, the 31-year-old plans to quit her job in Shanghai and take it easy.
“Many of my colleagues and friends around me, probably those aged 28 or 29, have already entered this state — a state of ‘I don’t want to have any career plans or long-term plans anymore, I’m just going to lie flat’,” Gao said. “I want to take a break.”
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