The Great Depression Looms: Millions of Chinese Struggling to Survive Amid Economic Collapse.

The Great Depression is near. Millions of Chinese struggling to survive in the face of economic collapse. China's housing crash worsens. Old home prices in 100 cities have fallen for 36 months, sparking panic sales in second-tier cities. The CCP's large-scale data concealment reveals the harsh reality of China's struggling economy. The Great Unraveling has begun. Across China, millions are teetering on the edge, trying to survive a slow-moving economic collapse. While official voices still claim everything is fine, the reality behind closed doors tells a different story. Families across the nation are now scraping by on instant noodles and pickles. In Guangzhou, a Humble For You and lunch set, about 1.4 U.S. dollars, fried egg, potatoes, noodles and pickles, sells out daily. The government keeps pushing slogans about upgrading consumption. But for most, those words ring hollow or absurd. Even rice, once the most basic and abundant food, is becoming harder to afford. Merchants report grain sales plunging by as much as 30 percent. Online, desperate users share their survival math. With 10 yuan, a family can barely get enough rice to last a day. If they have 50 yuan, they're lucky to afford one decent meal. The writing is on the wall. A prolonged recession is taking root. Among those with some remaining wealth, panic is growing. Some households with means are turning to gold, buying and burying it in secret. Fearing the Yuan will lose its value in a full-blown economic meltdown, they no longer trust banks or official reassurances. Gold, not government, has become their last line of defense. Former luxury brands are slashing prices, pushing items for as little. In the once-vibrant Yangtze River Delta, port activity has fallen by 30 to 40 percent, sending shockwaves through the economy. Purchasing power is collapsing. In March alone, consumer spending in Shanghai dropped 14 percent year on year. Beijing was the outlier with a 10 percent gain. But even that seems more illusion than reality. Unemployment is exploding. Across the country, wages have rolled back to what they were a decade ago. In Zhangjiakou, average pay has dropped from 4,000 to 5,000 yuan to just 2,000 to 3,000. Stores are shuttering in droves. Nearly 93 percent of physical shops have reportedly closed. Around hospitals and labor markets, people line up before sunrise, hoping to grab a day's work, often for just 6 to 9 yuan an hour, despite the national average being 47 yuan. The tension is palpable. Police hand out fines relentlessly. Urban management cracks down on street vendors. Hope is running out. Lying flat has become a quiet rebellion. No house, no car, no marriage. In Wuhan, homeless people gather near water towers to find shelter. One girl pleads, I have no job, no home, no money, just five yuan left. Her family is barely holding on. Many households are down to a single income. Marriages are strained. Government data shows that 90 percent of the unemployed never return to the workforce. For those jobless for over a year, the divorce rate hits a staggering 90 percent. Public spaces, libraries, coffee shops are now de facto shelters for the jobless. The crisis is generational. Middle-aged workers are vanishing from the labor force. Even new graduates are stuck in dead-end jobs. A recent graduate from Anhui who majored in network communications and new media said he had sent out more than 100 job applications and received zero replies. In Tianjin, people work 12-hour shifts for just 3,000 yuan a month. Real estate agents are banned from telling the truth even as the housing market crumbles. Nobody has money. Nobody is buying. As economic pain deepens, anger grows. The U.S.-China trade war has only made things worse. American tariffs have driven up prices in China by as much as 15 percent. Xi Jinping's government remains defiant in public, but behind the scenes, subtle policy shifts reveal quiet concessions. A recent propaganda video titled, No Kneeling, was widely mocked online by overseas Chinese as shallow political theater. Analysts say the Communist Party is scrambling to rekindle nationalistic spirit, even invoking the 1959 famine as a lesson in resilience. But rather than inspire, such messaging only widens the emotional gap between the leadership and the people. China's population is waking up and growing restless. From street protests in Chengdu to fierce online critiques of the Communist Party, public dissatisfaction is reaching a boil. Experts warn that larger, more organized protests are coming, not driven by ideology, but by hunger, hopelessness and despair. For many, daily survival is now the only goal. Belief in the system is crumbling. Why are wages so low? I don't want to follow the rules anymore, said one frustrated worker. Quiet desperation is turning into quiet rage, and possibly into open defiance. The storm may be closer than anyone dares to admit. China's housing crash worsens. Old home prices in 100 cities have fallen for 36 months, sparking panic sales in second-tier cities. China's real estate market is in the grip of a historic crisis. Home prices in 100 cities have fallen for 36 consecutive months, with April 2025 seeing an average year-on-year drop of 7.23% in the second-hand housing market. This isn't just a correction. It's a mass exodus. Once considered a safe haven for wealth, property in China is now being sold off at record speed as homeowners race to exit a collapsing market. While first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai have seen moderate declines, second-tier cities are at the heart of the sell-off storm. In Nanjing, just one day after local restrictions were lifted, listings for second-hand homes surged by an astonishing 332.5%. In Wuxi, more than 7,000 homes were posted for sale in only three days. Such numbers are unprecedented, and point to a widespread panic among property owners eager to offload their assets. Desperation is growing, and sellers are increasingly willing to accept heavy losses just to close a deal. In April, not a single city recorded a price increase for second-hand homes. The strategy now is simple. Slash prices in exchange for any form of liquidity. Some owners are cutting 10% to 15% off the asking price simply to attract interest. In cities like Huai'an, prices dropped nearly 2% in a single month, while over 60 other cities saw declines between 0.3% and 1.5%. In places like Guangzhou, once-prized neighborhoods such as Tianhe, Zhejiang New Town and the former milk factory development have returned to price levels not seen since 2017 or 2018. One unit that was once listed at 4.5 million yuan was eventually sold for just over 3 million after multiple price cuts. For homeowners who borrowed heavily during the boom years, the consequences are dire. Many now face the nightmare of negative equity, losing their homes while still drowning in debt. Adding to the chaos is the sharp decline in transaction volume. Even with falling prices, buyers remain on the sidelines, expecting further drops. Shanghai's second-hand housing transactions fell from 29,000 units in March to just 22,000 in April. Hangzhou saw similar declines, from 12,000 to 9,000. The market is paralyzed. Sellers are anxious, buyers are cautious, and deals are stalling across the board. Some analysts trace the roots of the current collapse to the ongoing trade war with the United States. Professor Huang Jikong warns that the country is now burdened with millions of unfinished and abandoned housing units, which will take years to absorb. Political commentator Chen Pokong goes further, linking the crisis to the mass closure of factories, plummeting export orders, and rising unemployment, all of which have decimated household confidence and buying power. What was once the backbone of China's economic miracle has become a dead weight dragging the country down. Real estate used to be the cornerstone of middle-class wealth, a trusted store of value. But now, as prices crash and liquidity evaporates, families are forced to sell at a loss just to stay afloat. China's property market has entered a long winter, Chen says, and under the shadow of economic slowdown and trade war, that winter may only grow colder. The CCP's large-scale data concealment reveals the harsh reality of China's struggling economy. In recent years, a wide range of official Chinese statistics has quietly disappeared, from land sales and foreign investment inflows to unemployment rates, cremation figures, and even soy sauce production data. Experts believe this blackout is the CCP's way of concealing mounting economic distress. Since 2023, hundreds of economic and social data sets have been scrubbed, including youth unemployment rates and urban joblessness. When asked, authorities simply responded, the data has stopped being provided. With traditional data sources vanishing, scholars have turned to creative methods to measure China's true economic health. Satellite nightlight maps, cement sales, Baidu maps, mobility data, and reports about gyms and beauty salons abruptly closing have become unofficial indicators. One economist even tracks how many business owners flee with customers' prepaid memberships. He claims it's more revealing than official GDP figures. Skepticism towards CCP statistics isn't new. In 2007, Li Keqiang admitted to the U.S. ambassador that GDP figures were for reference only, favoring electricity usage and freight volume instead. In 2023, after Peking University economist Zhang Dandan estimated youth unemployment could be as high as the government halted the release of that data. Months later, after adjusting the statistical method, the CCP resumed publication, reporting a far lower rate of 14.9 percent. China's real estate crash has dragged down local governments and fueled data suppression. The 2021 data outbound control law now hides even basic facts like company records and land sales. Some economists cross into Shenzhen weekly to gather data by hand. As vital statistics vanish, from COVID deaths to school toilet sizes, many see the CCP's secrecy as a sign of fear, not control. Experts warn that this opacity may delay panic but accelerates the regime's collapse. The Chinese economy is sinking like a leaking boat in a storm, rapidly overwhelmed by the long night of counter-cyclical forces. In the face of Trump's escalating trade war, the CCP is floundering, helpless. On April 25, the Politburo meeting presented the futile plan to focus on stabilizing employment, stabilizing enterprises, stabilizing the market, and stabilizing expectations. Less than two months after the two sessions, the real estate has stopped falling and stabilized, and Li Qiang's political work report has vanished without a trace. Once a pillar supporting half of local fiscal revenue, real estate has now become a fatal wound to the CCP economy, one that cannot be healed. In early 2025, judicial auction houses have surged, but the transaction rate has plummeted, and the total transaction volume has crashed. Countless homeowners have lost their properties and wealth, now reduced to negatives. The real sector is on the brink of collapse, dragging the entire economy down into an inevitable financial tsunami. In the first quarter of 2025, judicial auctions exploded across the country, yet the transaction volume fell sharply. Since last year, the flood of supply cuts has relentlessly battered China's already fragile real estate sector. According to the judicial auction database monitored by China Index Academy, as of the end of March 2025, the number of judicial auction houses listed in the national market surged to 217,000 in Q1, up 1.4 percent from the previous year. Yet, insiders in the online video industry reveal that in January-February 2025 alone, the number reached an astonishing 1 million. In the first quarter of 2025, judicial auction houses recorded just 41,000 sales with a meager transaction rate of 13.97 percent and a staggering 74.16 percent average discount. Total sales plummeted by 15.9 percent year-on-year to 64.39 billion yuan, with prices sinking 2.7 percent to 5,131 yuan per square meter. Residential auctions saw a catastrophic decline. 99,000 listings, only 26,000 sales, and an average price of 9,172 yuan per square meter, a 6.1 percent drop from the previous year. In the top 50 cities, residential auction volume edged up by 0.9 percent, but prices tumbled by 8.2 percent. Commercial property auctions fell by 9.6 percent in volume and 12.4 percent in value. Judicial auctions have become a chilling economic alarm. They expose the deepening real estate crisis in China, spiraling mortgage defaults, escalating household debt, and the looming peril facing the banking sector. The non-performing loan rates of the six major banks have surged, and the financial storm is already on the horizon. For the six major state-owned banks of the Communist Party of China, the spike in non-performing loan rates is driven primarily by the rising rate of default in personal mortgage loans. Small and medium-sized banks are also grappling with a widespread surge in non-performing personal loans. Once the cornerstone of China's economic engine, the real estate sector, along with the mortgage interest income that banks heavily rely on, has become a chokehold on the entire economy. The collapse of real estate giants like Evergrande, Country Garden, and Vanka has caused a seismic shift in the industry, threatening to unravel local and national finances. It is now a ticking time bomb, ready to obliterate the Chinese economy at any moment. As the U.S.-China trade war escalates, the implosion of the housing market is speeding up, further sealing the economy's fate. Shanghai's consumption crash and Beijing's economic strain, countless households drowning in debt. I can guarantee that 70 percent of people in Shanghai can't even afford their own wages. You might not believe it, but the reality is brutal. Major companies in the city are already considering salary cuts and layoffs, and for smaller businesses, survival this year is uncertain. Look at Shanghai now. Tenants in major commercial office buildings are hopping from job to job every month. I interact with bosses from all industries daily, and almost every one of them is burdened with online loans and microloans. The struggle to survive has never been harder. But who, in their right mind, would drown themselves in debt, borrowing from Peter to pay Paul just to keep a business afloat? The thought alone is chilling. If even the bosses are battling this nightmare, how can the employees possibly fare any better? What's happened to physical stores in Shanghai? Are we seriously heading toward mass starvation? Quick haircuts on the streets have become ubiquitous. A few years ago, this was unimaginable. Even in first-tier cities like Shanghai, 15 yuan quick haircuts are now everywhere. Before 7 p.m., once-bustling Life Square is deserted, with not a soul in sight. Hair salons, home service shops, clothing stores, department stores—practically empty. What's going on? Compared to a few years ago, this is a completely different scene. As the U.S.-China trade war escalates, the Chinese economy is entering a deep, silent cooling—one that's terrifying beneath the surface. Shanghai, once the economic powerhouse of China, now feels like a sinking ship. Once teeming with people and energy, this metropolis is now slowly descending into despair. Today, I'm sharing the reality of what's happening in Shanghai. I arrived at Shanghai Hongqiao Station today, and it felt like the entire city had vanished. At 7 p.m., there were hardly any people. Last year, Fridays here would have been packed. Today, it was eerily quiet. The streets were wide open with no traffic jams. Where have all the people gone? Even inside Hongqiao Station, the usual crowd was absent, and the scene felt off—almost empty. Fewer and fewer people are in Shanghai. When will the city's economy recover? How bad is the living situation now? Let me show you. You've probably heard of Shanghai Lujiazui, right? It's right next to the iconic Oriental Pearl Tower, but today, most shopping malls there are closed. It's not just Lujiazui. Xintiandi, home to some of the city's most expensive real estate, has empty stores. Even first-tier malls If even the richest in Shanghai are cutting back on consumption, what about those in other cities? The situation is probably even worse. The most tragic part? In Shanghai, the most miserable people aren't the street sweepers or factory workers. They're the ones who appear wealthy. I've lived here for over a decade, working with banks for eight years. Every day, I see people in suits, driving luxury cars, living in million-yuan homes, yet they're drowning in debt. They carry millions in loans, with tens of thousands in monthly interest. Their biggest dream? To live like ordinary people, free from the pressure. Countless young people are unemployed, burdened with debt, and families face bankruptcy in this economic winter. A netizen shared his story on overseas media. He was born in Minhang District from a working-class family. He used to be a marketing manager in Lujiazui. A decade ago, he looked out from a high-rise in Pudong, dreaming of a bright future in Shanghai, changing homes, starting a family, living decently. Today, he stands on a cold street, staring at the deserted Nanjing Road, shuttered RT Mart, and locked shops, his heart filled with chill. Shanghai is terrifying now. Over 70% of physical stores have shut down. That means out of 100 stores on a street last year, only 30 remain, and even those are barely holding on. A customer of mine who runs a clothing store said it clearly. After warmly serving customers, they just buy the same thing online. He used to own 20 clothing shops in Shanghai. Now only one remains, on Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street. It's hard to imagine. When physical stores disappear, so does the city's spirit. If you come to shop in Shanghai and see nothing but closed shutters, what would it look like? In Beijing, the situation isn't much better. The capital, historically a symbol of prosperity, now feels the weight of the same economic pressures. While Shanghai has become the focal point of crisis, Beijing's residents are also grappling with a lack of consumer confidence. Businesses are closing, retail spaces are empty, and even luxury markets have started to feel the strain. The city's once bustling commercial centers, such as Wangfujing and Sun Laitun, are quieter than ever, as fewer people are willing or able to spend. Despite its reputation as the political heart of China, Beijing is experiencing a steady decline in both consumption and economic growth. The property market is stagnating, and rising debt levels are taking a toll on families across the city. Many are living paycheck to paycheck, unable to meet even basic needs, while some wealthy individuals are quietly drowning in debt. What was once an economic powerhouse is now showing signs of significant distress. As Beijing struggles to maintain its status as a leader in China's economy, the reality of the situation becomes more and more apparent. While the government scrambles to address the crisis, ordinary citizens in both Shanghai and Beijing are left to face the harsh realities of a slowing economy, skyrocketing debt, and a future filled with uncertainty.