China Crisis: Beggars Steal Cat Food, Jobless Scavenge Trash for One Meal!

China in crisis. Everyone begs, fights, steals for food. Even snatching cat food from strays. The jobless scavenge trash just to survive. One meal a day. From officials and ordinary citizens to influencers. Lying flat. Explodes in China. Exposing desperate lives. Government rushes to block. Tofu dreg projects. Spread across China. 70-year homes on the brink of collapse after just two years. House gone. Mortgage remains. China's seafood market collapses. Even free giveaways find no takers. Mountains of fish dumped as trash. Exposing a cruel truth behind the scene. State media leak. 41 seconds of shock. Xi Jinping. Erased. Zhang Youxia declares the end of the Xi era. You're watching Decoding China, where we bring you timely analysis and grounded perspectives on today's China. China in crisis. Everyone begs. Fights. Steals for food. Even snatching cat food from strays. The jobless scavenge trash just to survive. One meal a day. A blogger warned, with China's current economic situation, many people might eat once every three days. What was once dismissed as an online rumor is now becoming an undeniable reality. Across the country, scenes of despair are unfolding. Long lines of unemployed citizens waiting for free temple meals. Elderly scavengers rummaging through trash. Young people sleeping on sidewalks. And even people fighting stray cats for leftover food. These are not isolated cases, but the daily portrait of a collapsing economy. In Zhengzhou, the Daguanyin Temple has become a refuge for hundreds of jobless citizens seeking free meals. The queue stretches far beyond the temple gates, with many still able-bodied, but left with no other means to survive. An elderly woman in her 80s collects discarded food just to live through another day. One middle-aged man, jobless for six months, recalled his young son asking why he never went to work. I told him I wanted to, he said, but no one will hire me. Such stories echo the silent suffering of millions of Chinese families. Unemployment among people over 35 has become a national crisis. Job listings across platforms frequently read under 35 only, even as the government pushes for a higher retirement age. This contradiction has left millions of middle-aged workers excluded from the labor market. Many who once held steady jobs now rely on unstable, low-paying temporary work that barely covers daily food expenses. I want to work, one man said, but there's simply no work to do. The downturn has spread to every sector. Countless small business owners have gone bankrupt. Factories have shuttered, and once-bustling commercial streets in Chongqing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai now stand half-empty. Physical retail is fading rapidly, as, for lease signs, replaced storefronts, gig workers, couriers, taxi drivers, food vendors, can hardly earn a living. I've been online for an hour, one delivery driver lamented, and still haven't gotten a single order, even the three when jobs are gone. Ordinary citizens have resorted to extreme frugality. Dining out is now a luxury, and some only charge their electric scooters during off-peak hours to save a few cents, unplugging at 90% to avoid paying for the rest. Shopping for clothes has nearly stopped. Supermarkets are empty. Street markets are silent. This collapse in consumption has reached all social strata. Luxury retailers report devastating declines. Orders for designer handbags have plunged by 70%, while bespoke jewelry services have practically frozen. One business insider revealed, even those who used to spend lavishly on mistresses can no longer afford to maintain such arrangements. Shanghai's rental market, once fiercely competitive, now faces a vacancy rate surge of over 50% as special apartments, once used for discreet relationships, are being abandoned. Exclusive clubs and KTV lounges are deserted. Many hostesses have turned to live streaming to survive, as the big bosses no longer come to spend. Meanwhile, debt is spreading like wildfire. Millions of young people rely on online loans and credit cards just to survive. When they can no longer make payments, they face relentless harassment from debt collectors. It's not that people have become smarter, one commenter wrote bitterly. It's that they simply have no money left to be fooled. Those who once lived beyond their means now cling to every yuan, creating a vicious economic cycle. When people stop spending, businesses collapse, production halts, and unemployment soars even higher. Elsewhere, the fallout is visible on the streets. A former factory owner now sits on a curb, his business gone. Everything's bankrupt, he mutters. Yet corruption scandals among officials continue to surface. The recent investigation into the head of China's National Welfare Lottery Center revealed the largest embezzlement case in history, dwarfing even the 2 trillion yuan scandal tied to property tycoon Xu Jiayin. To put that in perspective, if you won 5 million yuan every single day, it would take you more than 1,000 years to match that sum. I once thought making a billion was impossible, one man said. But now I see. These people play tricks that span millennia. No wonder I've been buying lottery tickets for 10 years and never won once. Across Chinese social media, calls for compassion and understanding are spreading. Everyone's struggling. Let's stop making life harder for each other. When even the most basic human needs— food, shelter, survival— are at risk, talk of economic recovery becomes an illusion. Analysts warn that China may now be entering its most severe social crisis since the Great Leap Forward, as hunger, unemployment, and hopelessness consume the nation from within. From officials and ordinary citizens to influencers, lying flat, explodes in China, exposing desperate lives, government rushes to block. This is a scene from a video by internet cafe girl Xiao Qing, one of many bloggers making waves across Chinese social media with the Lying Flat Movement, a lifestyle that rejects material competition, promotes minimal living, and quietly opts out of the rat race. These bloggers do not portray refined middle-class lives, but rather a rough, humble existence that borders on poverty. Xiao Qing often films herself in rundown rental apartments or urban villages, spending just a few yuan per meal, playing games in internet cafes, and reviewing the environment and prices. Another video features a homeless veteran of two and a half years sharing survival tips, like visiting a 24-hour McDonald's in the morning to find discarded coffee cups for free refills and sometimes even leftover burgers. When Xiao Qing needs to shower, she suggests going to a hotel around 10 a.m. when rooms are vacant after checkout, sneaking in to bathe. Another figure, Little A Online, documents his ultra-low-cost city life, renting a room for 600 yuan a month, eating cheaply, spending his days gaming at internet cafes, and reviewing each one in detail. In one video, he shows off his new place, a tiny room with an old, inefficient air conditioner that drives his electricity bills sky-high. I only dare turn it on for a few minutes, he says. Other creators live the same way, slow-paced, thrifty, sustained by cheap rooms and internet cafes scattered across the city. They call it another way of living, free from social expectations. But those same videos, hugely popular among young audiences, have since been wiped from nearly every platform. Numerous other bloggers were also banned, including those advocating minimalist living, rejecting marriage and children, or daring to say that China's quality of life remains below that of the West. Some were even accused of being pro-Western, for discussing inequality and poverty. Local authorities also joined the crackdown, announcing the closure of thousands of rumor-spreading accounts for damaging the city's image. One of the most well-known figures, Mao Zedong, who called on young people to lie flat and described himself as was detained live on camera by plainclothes officers on April 16th. Six weeks later, he reappeared with a shaved head, saying he had been unrelated to his videos, urging fans to In a follow-up video, he ate a banana while shouting, lie flat, but in the next, he fell silent as the screen displayed a warning, live streaming banned for one day. The case sparked public speculation. One comment read, if everyone lies flat, who will the CCP exploit? The lying flat videos themselves are simple diaries, waking up, eating noodles, playing games, living frugally. They don't criticize the government, chant slogans, or call for protest. Yet observers say it is precisely their ordinariness that makes them dangerous. While Beijing wants citizens who smile while being poor, young workers sweating in factories, on delivery bikes, or in live streaming rooms but not complaining, the lying flat lifestyle shows another possibility, that one can live without consuming, borrowing, marrying, or striving. Analysts say this is what frightens Beijing the most, a loss of confidence. In 2025, China's economy is weakening, the real estate market is shrinking, local debt is mounting, and consumer confidence remains low. The urban youth unemployment rate for ages 16 to 24 has reached 18.9%, one in every five young people can't find work. Over 12 million university graduates have entered the job market this year, facing not opportunity but cutthroat competition. In this context, videos showing people surviving on 600 yuan rent and a few yuan per meal, quietly undermine the government's confidence campaign. According to David Bandersky, director of the China Media Project, the rise of lying flat reflects a natural social reaction to worsening economic and social prospects, anxiety, doubt, and disillusionment. The leadership fears this sentiment could spread like contagion, thus regulators have moved to redefine the narrative, labeling even harmless vlogs as decadent and spreading negative energy. Commentators argue that these creators are not being silenced for promoting negativity but for revealing uncomfortable truths, that in a country preaching common prosperity, millions of young people are barely getting by in dimly lit internet cafes and tiny rented rooms. In a system sustained by illusion, sometimes just living truthfully is enough to be dangerous. Tofu Dreg Projects Spread across China, 70-year homes on the brink of collapse after just two years. House gone, mortgage remains. Across China, numerous newly built residential projects are showing signs of subsidence, cracked walls, and even structural collapse, sparking growing public concern. A wave of videos circulating online has revealed the rise of so-called Tofu Dreg Projects, a Chinese term for shoddy constructions where contractors cut corners, use substandard materials, and bypass safety regulations. In one video from Zhangjiakou City, angry residents confronted a group of construction workers. Has your boss come here yet? Look at this mess, can you even accept this kind of work? One man asked, as even the builders admitted the structure was unsafe to live in. Reports say that the Rongshengcheng residential complex in Zhangjiakou, advertised with a 70-year property ownership term, is now in a state of severe disrepair. Large cracks have appeared in the basement, walls, and load-bearing columns of Building No. 9. Residents report that the ground beneath the building has sunk. The structural columns are cracked, and some have shifted or partially collapsed. Many fear the entire building could come down at any moment. One homeowner, who moved in just a year ago, said she lives every day in fear, uncertain whether the building will still be standing tomorrow. Apartment prices in the complex range between 4,000 and 7,000 yuan per square meter. With units exceeding 100 square meters, including interior decoration and underground parking, each home costs over 1 million yuan, the combined savings of three generations in a family. Many residents are still paying off their mortgages, even as their homes may collapse at any time. Despite more than two months of petitions and public complaints, the developer has yet to send representatives or propose any solution. Another video shows the basement of Building No. 9 riddled with deep fissures and misaligned support columns. The person filming said, every column is cracked. The entire foundation is sinking. The ground has completely caved in. Who knows when Building No. 9 will collapse? Maybe tomorrow, maybe tonight. Viewers have called the scene A similar incident occurred in Danyang City, Jiangsu Province, where an apartment building in the Taiyang residential area began to split apart and was on the verge of collapse in early November. Footage from the site showed outer walls peeling away, exposing the steel reinforcement inside. According to residents, when the local government conducted underground pipe reconstruction a month earlier, many had already reported structural cracks and subsidence. Officials later declared the buildings safe. But just days afterward, the building fell apart, leaving dozens of families homeless. One resident said the building was only 30 years old, far from its promised 70-year lifespan. Many displaced households have yet to receive temporary housing or official updates from authorities. Similar problems are being reported across major cities, including Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Harbin, and Hainan. Sinking foundations, cracked walls, broken drainage pipes, and concrete so brittle it can be crumbled by hand. In some cases, even manhole covers can be snapped apart, revealing the use of dangerously weak materials. Residents say the concrete mix in many projects contains little to no real cement or stone, only sand, mud, and sometimes even sea sand, which corrodes steel reinforcement over time. Construction experts say the spread of tofu-dreg projects is rooted in widespread corruption and systemic fraud within China's real estate sector. Many contractors, driven by profit, skimp on materials, ignore building standards, and subcontract work to smaller, unqualified teams. Most residential developments are overseen by state-run entities, where corruption seeps through every level, from tendering to inspection to final approval. Experts warn that this phenomenon reflects not only moral decay in the construction industry, but also the deep structural rot of a profit-driven system under the Chinese Communist Party's control. When power and money intertwine, public safety becomes expendable. Weak oversight, opaque legal frameworks, and collusion between developers and officials have turned countless buildings, bridges, and residential complexes into geological time bombs that could collapse without warning. At a deeper level, this is not merely a construction crisis. It is a crisis of trust. For millions of Chinese citizens, the dream of home ownership, a symbol of stability and security, has turned into a nightmare of fear, debt, and disillusionment. The walls may crack first, but what's truly collapsing is people's faith in the system that promised them a safe place to call home. China's seafood market collapses. Even free giveaways find no takers. Mountains of fish dumped as trash, exposing a cruel truth behind the scene. Take a look at how difficult business has become. Yesterday, prices fell another 1.61, a level not seen in 16 years. Prices have dropped fourfold, now so low that anyone can buy seafood without any financial strain. One vendor lamented, yes, we had a good harvest, but the better the harvest, the cheaper the price. We worked hard all year, but now we can't sell even the best catch. The warehouses are full, and price suppression is getting worse. At wholesale markets, the scene is bleak. The market has completely collapsed. Seafood is now cheaper than pork. No one wants it. Prices have plunged for days in a row, and the supply is enormous. Another vendor added, prices have been cut in half. Shrimp and crab now cost the same as cabbage. The market is so bad that retail prices are even lower than the prices at the farms. In previous years, Shanghai's hairy crab was a prized delicacy on Chinese dining tables, selling for 10 yuan each and snapped up eagerly by buyers. But this year, amid a slowing economy and declining consumer spending, baskets of crabs sit abandoned in the corners of wholesale markets. Even when sellers shout themselves hoarse, few crabs are sold. Once a sought-after luxury, seafood has now become a burden no one wants to touch, a sign not just of weak demand, but of a fundamental shift in consumer behavior across China. Prices have crashed, and confidence has crashed with them. One restaurant owner said, we simply can't sell. It's too hard. Last year, shrimp sold for 40-50 yuan per gin. This year, even at just over 10 yuan, no one buys. The market is dead. Online, fishers are voicing their despair. 50 shrimp for 11 yuan, same as vegetables. Shrimp used to be a luxury. Now it's as cheap as pork. There are simply too many farmers. Production keeps increasing, so prices can't rise, another added. In the past, shrimp caught from the sea were naturally fresh and pure. Now, they're soaked in chemicals. Some producers dip shrimp into phosphate baths to make them plump, adding nearly 100 grams of water per kilo. Buyers think they're buying shrimp, but what they get is chemical-laced ice. Worse still, many farms rely on antibiotics and even ban substances. Investigations reveal that over 60% of shrimp farmers admit to using antibiotics, and some even use prohibited drugs such as malachite green. The residue from these chemicals cannot be destroyed by normal cooking. China's 315 Consumer Rights Program recently exposed that some factories' phosphate levels exceed the limit by 145%, meaning each kilo of peeled shrimp contains an extra 20 grams of the harmful compound known to cause hair loss, heart problems, and bone damage. Meanwhile, seafood markets are witnessing scenes never seen before. Crabs, fish, shrimp, and even king crabs, once luxury items, are now being dumped like garbage. Beautiful large pomfrets, all thrown away, loaded onto garbage trucks, one worker said. Another added in tears, no one will buy, no matter the price. You can't even give it away for free. The market is dead. We're finished. King crab, once selling for 600-700 yuan per gin, now fetches just over 200 yuan and still can't find buyers. It's too hard. Even at this price, no one wants it. What should I do now? In some regions, a single heavy rain wiped out tons of crabs. One storm and everything dies. How can we survive this? Cried a farmer. Observers point to three key reasons behind the collapse. Uncontrolled overproduction leading to oversupply, rampant use of chemical enhancers eroding consumer trust, and widespread antibiotic abuse in aquaculture making seafood a high-risk food. Surveys show that 68% of Chinese consumers now fear drug residues, proving that behind cheap prices lies a deadly risk at the dinner table. At major seafood markets in Dalian, Qingdao, and Shanghai, the emptiness is haunting. No people, no buyers. It used to be packed this time of day, but now it's deserted. A livestream vendor complained, I can't even go live today. Only three fishing boats came in and the entire marketplace is empty. The most striking image comes from a restaurant owner in Guangdong. Sitting in his deserted shop, he says quietly, I ran Shrimp Man Lu for three years. Today, I close for good. Three years of savings, all gone. It's not that I didn't work hard. This industry is just crazy. Others use frozen or dead shrimp, half my cost, and sell cheaper. I was stubborn, only used live shrimp. Regulars praised me for my conscience. New customers scolded me for being expensive. I kept my integrity until my integrity bankrupted me. China's seafood crash is more than an economic event. It's a reflection of a collapsing social trust. When fresh and safe food can't be trusted, and when honesty can no longer compete with cheapness, it's not only the fishermen who lose, but every consumer who sits down at the table. State media leak. 41 seconds of shock. Xi Jinping. Erased. Zhang Youxia declares the end of the Xi era. On November 3rd, Xinhua News Agency, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, published two consecutive news releases about the military study of the spirit of the fourth plenary session of the 20th Central Committee. The two reports were released only 41 seconds apart. Yet the discrepancy between them triggered a political earthquake in Beijing. Observers believe the rare contradiction revealed a hidden power struggle inside Zhongnanhai, signaling the possible end of Xi Jinping's era of absolute control over the military. According to records, the first report was published at 6.32 and 40 seconds PM under the title, The People's Liberation Army Holds the First Session to Study and Implement the Spirit of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee. Zhang Youxia and Zhang Shengmin meet with the propaganda delegation and listen to the report. The central figure was Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission and currently the most powerful man in China's armed forces. This article still featured the familiar political slogan, Firmly Support the Two Establishes, a phrase used to affirm Xi Jinping's core leadership role within the party. However, just 41 seconds later, at 6.33 and 21 seconds PM, Xinhua suddenly released a second report almost identical in structure, the same meeting, the same journalist, and the same main figure. The only difference, but a highly sensitive one, was that all references to the two establishes and any trace of Xi Jinping's personal authority had completely vanished. Political commentator Zhang Feng noted that the change was subtle yet deeply significant. He pointed out that in the first version, Zhang Youxia urged soldiers to firmly support the two establishes. But the usual follow-up phrase, to align their thinking and actions with the decisions of chairman Xi was missing. This omission, Zhang said, marked the beginning of a shift from loyalty to a person toward loyalty to the party organization itself. Analysts noted that this was not the first signal of a quiet detachment from Xi's personal dominance. Following the third plenary session in July 2024, rumors circulated that Xi had suffered a stroke during the meeting, creating a rare power vacuum for Zhang Youxia and senior party elders to step in. Subsequent military reports showed a change in tone. Zhang began emphasizing aligning thought and action with the spirit of the plenary session without mentioning chairman Xi at all. Notably, after Xinhua's two conflicting reports, the People's Liberation Army Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese military, initially republished both articles verbatim. Yet by the morning of November 4th, the paper issued its own separate report, identical to Xinhua's second version, the one omitting Xi, and changed the byline from Xinhua's reporter, Mei Changwei, to its own staff journalists, Yan Shan and Xiong Siki. Zhang Feng explained that this move symbolized a shift in authorship and authority. Reissuing the article under the military's own name meant the message now officially represented the military's voice rather than the party's propaganda arm. A clear declaration that the cult of personality around Xi Jinping had effectively ended within the armed forces. Independent sources further revealed that two central committees may now exist within Zhongnanhai. Outwardly, Xi remains the core leader, but real power has shifted to a behind-the-scenes, central decision-making coordination mechanism. Since the fourth plenary session, Xi's policies toward the United States and Taiwan have grown noticeably more conciliatory, including concessions on rare-earth exports, a $500 billion U.S. import commitment, and softer language on reunification with Taiwan. These moves suggest his domestic power has been curtailed. Analysts conclude that although state propaganda continues to promote Xi Jinping thought, the actual authority of Xi himself is entering an unprecedented period of decline. 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