China: Empty Homes, Silent Streets, and the Coming Economic Collapse

The COVID-19 storm has returned, or rather, it never truly left China, and now it has resurged like a never-ending nightmare. Hospitals in Guangdong, Hubei, and Yunnan are overwhelmed, with beds fully occupied and corridors thick with the stench of disinfectants. A report from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, revealed that the positivity rate at outpatient clinics surged from 7.5% to 16.2% in just five weeks, while the number of severe respiratory cases requiring hospitalization rose from 3.3% to 6.3%. In Hong Kong, COVID-related deaths have increased tenfold compared to two months ago, with 30 deaths recorded in just the first four weeks of the month. However, the real figures could be even more alarming. A Wuhan-based blogger named Li Jianjun shared on Douyin, People are collapsing right on the streets, in parks, even while eating dinner. Last week, a 25-year-old man in my neighborhood suddenly died without explanation. Residents in Shenzhen reported that, Rural cemeteries have run out of space, and the price of burial plots has skyrocketed to 10,000 yuan, around 1,386 USD. An office worker in Yunnan whispered, They call it type A flu or unidentified pneumonia to fool us, but everyone knows it's COVID. Dr. Lin Su, an American virologist, warned that data from the Chinese CDC lacks transparency, with no confirmed case or death figures released, turning this into a concealed public health crisis. After three years of strict lockdowns, people live in fear, avoiding public places, leaving streets eerily deserted like scenes from a ghost town. China's economy is spiraling into recession, driving people into despair, surrendering to fate, abandoning spending, the dream of owning a home, getting married, or even having a decent meal. Retail sales in Beijing have plunged by 9.9%, while the food and beverage sector dropped by 3.1%. A clothing store owner in Shanghai lamented, Customers are only buying cabbage and radishes. Even rice sales have dropped by 30%. How can people survive if they're skipping meals? The taxi industry in Zhengjia teeters on the brink of collapse. Drivers slash prices and offer free snacks, yet still have no passengers, barely scraping by. Fast food chains like Seven Snack Stores are selling juice for just 1 yuan, 14 cents, but staff admitted, We still have to throw it away because no one buys it, even at that price. The bubble tea industry, a cultural icon among youth, has also crumbled, with 10,000 stores shutting down in just two months. A report from the Hakuhodo Institute shows that 80% of Chinese consumers have cut back on spending, 59% due to reduced income, and 47% due to social factors. A 40-yuan Starbucks latte now equals a can of milk, and a 200-yuan hotpot meal could feed an entire family for a week. Young people trapped in the grueling 9.96 work schedule, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week, have neither the time nor the money to spend. A driver in Chongqing sighed, I drive all day just to pay for gas. If I take a day off, my whole family goes hungry. Yiwu City, once dubbed the World Supermarket, has now turned into a ghost town. The once-bustling streets are now deserted, with For Rent signs plastering every storefront. A local resident named Chen described, the shopping mall looks like an abandoned movie set. There are more staff than customers. Even KFC only has a few lonely diners. While official data lists Yiwu's population at 1.91 million, the International Trade Center and Weekend Night Market are as quiet as 3 a.m. A shoe store owner lamented, I can't even afford to pay the rent. Customers have vanished, and orders have fallen into a black hole. The U.S.-China trade war and the global economic downturn have strangled Yiwu, drying up foreign investment. Small business owners are drowning in debt, and local banks report a sharp rise in defaulted loans. A bitter loan broker remarked, Everyone in Yiwu is crying. Those with ambition have lost everything. Live-streaming booths that once buzzed with activity are now dark and silent. Mealtime has become the saddest part of the day. At fast food stalls in the new labor district, owners scroll through Douyin, waiting for customers who never come. Under the dim streetlights at 4 a.m. in Wuhan, people live in misery, like beasts pulling carts, struggling to survive beneath overpasses. A 2 yuan bowl of porridge becomes salvation for laborers in hard hats and cloth shoes, working tirelessly for meager wages. An elderly vegetable vendor broke down in tears after losing 50 yuan, his entire fortune. I live with my dog. There's no happiness, just waiting for this life to end, he said. A 25-year-old woman with terminal cancer still sells vegetables in the cold rain, earning nothing. A 68-year-old grandmother sweeps the streets, 14 hours a day, for just 56 yuan, with only the lunar new year off. A 41-year-old man works construction for 120 yuan a day, only daring to eat at the cheapest stalls and never taking a break for fear of going hungry. All of them utter the same words. In my next life, I don't want to be human. Meanwhile, CCP officials are served organic food from private gardens, rigorously tested for safety. A farmer supplying China's elite revealed, We use vinegar and rice wine as natural pesticides. Their food is completely different from what ordinary people eat. A food safety crisis has left Chinese citizens fearing every meal. Cucumbers growing at unnatural speeds, oranges oozing chemicals, and meat so rotten that even dogs turn away. A man in Guangxi filmed a restaurant using toilet water for cooking, calling it clean. A study by Harbin Institute of Technology found 20 types of pesticides in the blood and urine of urban residents. Eggs rejected by Europe for antibiotic residues are still sold domestically. One angry citizen asked, Why do we have to eat things that not even Africans would touch? China's cancer rate is three times higher than India's, leading the world in new cases and deaths, while the elite remain detached from the public's grim reality. Since the beginning of this year, abnormal phenomena unlike those in the past have repeatedly appeared in Shanghai, resonating widely on social media. Recently, six abnormal phenomena in Shanghai have once again circulated on social media. Six more abnormal phenomena were reported in Shanghai. First, business in most physical stores is declining. In many shopping malls, there are more salespeople than customers, and salespeople are often seen live streaming in the store to sell goods. Second, many office buildings and office parks in Shanghai are now vacant. As long as you are willing to rent, you can avoid paying rent for a few months, only needing to cover property fees and utilities. Third, the number of takeout couriers and online ride-hailing drivers continues to rise, but their incomes are decreasing. Even more concerning, there are sometimes queues for people applying for these jobs. Fourth, many landlords have revealed that it is now difficult to rent out their properties. Without voluntarily lowering the rent, no one is interested. Fifth, the government has obviously released a lot of liquidity, hoping people will spend and invest more. However, most people are not only refraining from spending, but are also saving as much as possible in banks. Sixth, many business owners are now avoiding loans for expansion, instead switching between banks to replace previous high-interest loans with lower-interest ones to cut costs. Ten strange phenomena have appeared in Shanghai. In the past, Shanghai was the economic center of the country, with one-third of the country's income coming from Shanghai. Shanghainese and even people across the country were proud of it. Since 2024, many people have posted on social media saying, now Shanghai's economic strength has gradually weakened, the manufacturing industry has almost been evacuated, Shanghai has lost a lot of people all at once, and the economy has collapsed. The current Shanghai is not what it used to be. There are at least ten strange phenomena in Shanghai. These abnormal phenomena did not exist in the past. In March of this year, Siyu Wen, a financial writer who has lived in Shanghai for more than 10 years, posted a video on his Weibo and WeChat account, Rampage Duan Gongzi, to list the top 10 strange phenomena that occurred in Shanghai this year. However, the Weibo account, Rampage Mr. Duan, was banned soon after. First, white-collar workers have begun to bring their own meals. Duan Yuwen said that there used to be a Japanese food shop downstairs from his company, which sold set meals for 40 or 50 yuan RMB the same below, at noon, but it couldn't sell this year and has closed. Many people carry a bag with them to work and bring rice with them. They heat it up in the microwave at the company at noon and then eat it. Second, no one in the group discusses job hopping. In the previous group of friends, everyone often had heated discussions about job hopping, salary increases, and changing jobs. This year, he didn't see a single message. On the contrary, people often say, don't call me for any activities this year, or I have to work more overtime this year to keep my job. Third, second-hand houses cannot be sold anymore. In February this year, only 6,800 second-hand houses were sold in Shanghai, with the average transaction price being 38,633 yuan per square meter. The transaction price dropped 9% from the previous month. Fourth, shopping malls in downtown Shanghai are also closing. Take Shujiahui in Shanghai as an example. This is the core business district of Shanghai. 30 years after its opening, Pacific Department Store, once one of the few high-end shopping malls in Shanghai, has also closed its doors. Fifth, office rents are free. A friend engaged in the leasing business in Shanghai told him that in many office parks now, as long as you pay property fees and water and electricity bills, the office rent is basically free. Not only in Shanghai, but also in Beijing's commercial office market, a similar situation has occurred. Sixth, it is very convenient to take a taxi, and luxury cars are also available. Even during rush hour, taxi orders are received within seconds. This was unimaginable before. You typically had to make an appointment and queue up, but now orders are received very quickly, and you can often get luxury cars at cheap prices. Seventh, food delivery is extremely fast. He believes there may be two reasons. Either few people are ordering takeout, resulting in fewer orders, or there are too many takeout workers, many of whom are unemployed and have taken up food delivery, making deliveries very fast even during peak periods. Eighth, more loan calls are received each day than before. Last year, he received one to two loan calls a day. This year, after the new year, the number has at least quadrupled, with eight to nine calls a day. Ninth, there is practically no discussion about traveling abroad. Tenth, there are fewer and fewer foreigners. In the past, foreigners were all over the streets of Shanghai. At its peak, there were more than one million foreigners in Shanghai. But now, even on the Bund and pedestrian streets, there are very few foreigners. There are two reasons. First, working from home in 2022 disillusioned many foreigners. Second, there is less investment from foreign companies, and many foreigners have withdrawn. Shanghai is an international metropolis. Since the 1990s, with the influx of foreign capital, more and more foreigners have come to work in China. Nowadays, even on the streets of Nanjing Road, there are not many foreigners, especially white people. There are more black people than before. The above strange phenomena are a true portrayal of current Shanghai society.