Fujian’s Golden Era Ends in Ruin: Debt Chains, Riots, and Empty Storefronts Everywhere

Business owners in Xiamen are vanishing one after another. Following the rules feels like being slowly drained dry, while breaking them feels like walking into a trap with no way out. Over 10,000 small and medium-sized entrepreneurs in Xiamen are barely surviving on the edge of collapse. I've worked in finance here for eight years, and I've never witnessed anything this brutal. Orders have plunged by 60%, and profits are thinner than a sheet of A4 paper. Trapped in chains of cross-debt, many business owners are exhausted, constantly shuttling between courts and banks. Even more alarming, 90% of their credit reports look like honeycombs, riddled with holes. Banks are more ruthless than debt collectors. Some have mortgaged their homes just to get by. Others are taking out high-interest loans just to cover payroll. And many more cry in silence at their workshop desks late at night. Has Fujian really fallen this far? Or is this just one piece of a nationwide collapse? A friend from Xiamen came back recently with another who used to work in Fuzhou. He told me, It's nearly impossible to find a job now. We opened a shop, but there are no customers. It's like people have just disappeared. Another friend, and this is no exaggeration, recently moved back to his hometown and said, As long as I can afford a bit of meat each day, I'm okay. I grow my own vegetables, live in my own house, pay almost nothing in utilities, and fetch water from the well. That's it. These days, you look around and realize, no one is truly living well. We all stepped into the world chasing a better life. But is that still possible? Fujian, once a beacon of China's booming private economy, flourished during the golden era of foreign trade. It led the charge in reform and opening up. From textiles and footwear to electronics and furniture, nearly every major export industry was rooted here. Industrial parks in Fuzhou, Guangzhou, and Xiamen used to glow through the night, with freight trucks rumbling without pause. It wasn't just Fujian's glory, it was China's, the so-called world's factory. But now, Fujian has become the first major casualty of China's economic unraveling. In this episode, let's uncover what really happened in Fujian. In Fuzhou, the closure rate of food and beverage businesses over the past three years has reached nearly 100%. That's not exaggeration, it's fact. As someone working in marketing, we have access to back-end data from clients. Why do startups fail at such alarming rates? Because Fuzhou's commercial rents are sky-high, labor is expensive, and the competition is brutal. Once dubbed the capital of small food brands, the city is now a graveyard for mom-and-pop shops. The family-run businesses that once thrived 10 or 20 years ago can't compete on price, can't match corporate supply chains, and fall hopelessly behind in branding and marketing. Now let's head to Xiamen's Kaiyuan Road and witness firsthand the harsh reality of doing business today. Look around. Storefronts are up for lease transfer everywhere, but no one's biting. Boss, are you transferring your store? No, I'm not. Then who is? Up ahead. There are tons. Let's go take a look. This shop hasn't opened for ages. It used to sell incense, then tried selling snacks, but still couldn't make it work. And this one over here? It used to sell bread, then switched to selling beef, and now it's completely empty. At the Wanbao City Mall of Baolong Zhongfang in Fuzhou, almost all of the shops are gone. The atmosphere is desolate. Right now, perhaps the ones suffering the most are the landlords. Think about it. Why was this mall built in the first place? A place that was once so bustling is now filled with shuttered storefronts and only a few people walk the entire stretch of the road. The Yonghui Supermarket on Student Street in Kangshan District, Fuzhou, has shut down. That store seemed to have been around for many years. This may very well be the last of the old Yonghui stores to close down. Are there any other long-standing Yonghui supermarkets in Fuzhou that haven't closed? A house once bought for 3 million yuan is now being auctioned for just 1 million. This isn't a rumor. It's reality in Jinshan, Fuzhou. Mortgage defaults in the city have hit record highs, but no one dares speak openly. It's an open secret. Many small business owners had mortgaged their homes to start businesses. Now, with property values cut in half, they're still forced to repay loans in full, down to the last cent. Think prices only dropped 100,000 or 200,000 yuan? Some homes have already lost 50% of their value. Those who bought at the peak are barely holding on as incomes can't keep up with collapsing home prices. A netizen from Fuzhou's Kangshan District recently spoke to overseas media. He's just a regular resident who's relied on the night market economy for years. But behind the flashy term street vendor economy lies a harsh truth. Nothing is stable. Whether you can even set up a stall depends entirely on luck. One day, you might make just enough to survive. The next, your cart and goods could vanish without warning. One netizen recounted that, as night fell, vendors at the village night market downstairs began gathering as usual. He, too, pushed his little cart to the entrance of the alley, preparing to sell fried tofu and cold noodles. Next to him were the familiar vendors selling stir-fried noodles, fruit, barbecue. Everyone already knew one another. No one wants to be out there suffering like this. But where are the jobs? You think we enjoy sweating in the scorching sun or being battered by wind and rain just to make a living? It's not that we lack ability. It's that society gives us no opportunity. Just as they were about to open for business, a group of uniformed officers suddenly stormed in. Without saying a word, they started shoving people and flipping carts, knocking over the vendors' stalls. At first, someone shouted, Why are you hitting people? Then more and more people began to gather. I was in the crowd, too. At that moment, I was literally shaking with rage. I wasn't just witnessing a clash. I was watching a naked authoritarian regime crush an ordinary person trying to survive through street vending. More and more people gathered to watch. The crowd grew from a few thousand to over ten thousand. Some began recording videos, others called friends over, and some posted the incident online. Only then did the enforcers retreat to their vehicle in fear. That netizen sighed and said, I've always known that this system offers no hope for people like us at the bottom, but never before have I realized it so clearly that we don't even have the most basic right to survive. Overnight, Fuzhou's property market has erupted. Everywhere you turn, people are rushing to sell their homes. It's like the entire city suddenly decided to cash out. A friend in real estate told me this morning, second-hand listings have hit record highs. Many homeowners are willing to lose their down payments, even sacrifice years of mortgage payments, just to get out. Fuzhou's housing prices aren't just dipping. They're heading for a nosedive. In the long run, prices could drop by half, or even two-thirds. Aside from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, most cities may end up like Hegang, where homes are worth next to nothing. The head of a Fujian-based export shoe factory with an annual output value in the tens of billions spoke to the media in resignation. Our customers disappeared overnight. We used to export over 3 million pairs of shoes to the U.S. each year. Now we don't have a single order. The factory has already shut down. Nearly 2,000 workers are on unpaid leave. Private enterprises in Fujian were already walking a tightrope. High debt, high costs, and razor-thin profit margins. Years of restrictive policies have driven many Taiwanese businesses to pull out, while local enterprises have been drained of vitality. Under the double blow of the U.S.-China trade war and a nationwide economic downturn, countless business owners simply couldn't hang on anymore. Their last resort? Fleeing. A worker at a textile company in Guangzhou recalled, Just two weeks ago, the boss was still telling us, We'll get through this together. Who would have thought he'd vanish overnight? Wages have been unpaid for over three months. Hundreds of workers haven't received a cent. All that's left is an empty factory, a pile of goods that can't be shipped, and the anger and confusion of workers and desperate creditors. The wave of restaurant closures is about to crash down. At this point, how many people can still hold out? I believe that by mid to late May, a huge number of restaurants have already shut down, and coming next, many more will follow. It's tuition season again. The third child alone costs over 7,000 yuan. The eldest? Add rent, books, meals. How much does it take to raise three students? Easily over 20,000 yuan. I didn't compare prices, didn't haggle, didn't ask for installments. I paid it all, in full, without hesitation. Why? Because I feared that if I was even a day late, my children would lose their spot at school. And all I could think of was that brutal truth. I'm not afraid of your fat paycheck. I'm terrified of your three kids with school bags. Pay today, pay again tomorrow. And after a whole year of grinding, it all goes into tuition like water into sand. China, half submerged in floods, half scorched as temperatures hit 77 degrees. While southern China is suffering from devastating floods, vast areas are submerged, resulting in countless losses of lives and property. Days of relentless rain have forced thousands of dams across the country to race to release floodwaters. Cities lie underwater, villages have been swept away, and farmers in provinces like Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong and Gansu have seen their crops completely destroyed, leaving behind widespread devastation and casualties. Meanwhile, parts of northern China are scorched by extreme heat, with ground temperatures soaring to 77 degrees C, hot enough to cook food outdoors without a stove. Many people are crying out, what grave sins has the CCP committed for the Chinese people to endure such catastrophic disasters? These past few days, the weather in Beijing has been truly strange. On my way home from work, I saw smoke rising in the distance. My heart skipped a beat. It turned out to be an electric scooter on fire. All I could say was, oh my God, it's so hot in Shanghai that things are literally catching fire. I had only walked a short distance and already couldn't take it. Just how hot is it in Shanghai? As people step out of the subway station, they have to stand in the shade to collect themselves before daring to go out. The weather in Hubei is also unbearable. Temperatures of 39, 40 degrees. Is the sky trying to roast us alive? It's so hot, I feel like I'm about to evaporate. Oh man, it's hot enough to kill someone. Seriously, this isn't a joke. Heatstroke can be life-threatening. In this kind of weather, everyone needs to be especially alert for heat exhaustion. I ask you, are you feeling the heat? The extreme temperatures are sweeping across the country. Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Hunan, Jiangxi, Guangdong. The entire country is basically in grill mode. Chengdu has issued the earliest heat warning in its history with temperatures soaring past 40 degrees. On the morning of July 4th at 10 a.m., Guizhou, Hefei and Lingbi in Anhui became the hottest places in the country. Ground temperatures in West Lake, Hangzhou, exceeded 55 degrees, and the local meteorological bureau had to clarify, this is not an exaggeration. In Shandong, even the elderly are voluntarily turning on the air conditioner, which tells you just how cold-tolerant they normally are. Everyone at work today was complaining about the heat. It's 30 degrees at night, 40 during the day, and even if you're standing still, sweat just pours off you. What's scarier is, this heat wave has only just begun. I just want to ask one thing. Has Wuhan's weather been taken over by the tropics? Every day it's 34, 38, 39 degrees, like a car stuck in high gear. At 1.36 p.m. on July 5th, Beijing time, the city's thermometer read a scorching 50 degrees. Since early July, mainland China has entered a rare widespread heat wave. As of the afternoon of July 4th, 754 provinces, cities, and counties had issued heat warnings, with temperatures in many places exceeding 40 degrees. Such extreme weather not only harms human health, but also causes animals to suffer from heat stroke. At noon on July 5th, the surface temperature on Zhonghan Pedestrian Street in Wuhan exceeded 50 degrees. A video recorded by a local resident quickly went viral online. In the video, a gray zebra dove lay limp on the scorching pavement. Its wings spread weakly, its beak opening and closing as if gasping for air. Someone poured water into a bottle cap for it to drink. After some time being cared for, the bird eventually recovered and flew away. How should I describe today's heat in Wuhan to you? Even my grandmother turned on the air conditioner today. Someone even said an 80-year-old man in their village, who had never bought an air conditioner in his life, finally had to get one this year. At 38 degrees C, going to the bathroom means using 10 tissues, 9 of which are just to wipe off sweat. Who can understand that? Even with the AC on, it's still hot. In Hangzhou, with temperatures at 40 degrees, just look at what I've been drilled into. Walk three steps and a wave of sweat breaks out. It's really unbearable. This is the searing 40-degree heat of today. My phone was so hot, I had to stick a cooling patch on it. Do you want to know just how hot it is in Jinan? Look, this thermometer is only showing the limit of what it can handle, not the actual heat in Jinan. And summer there is just beginning. What about Beijing? It's so hot, I thought I was standing next to an AC exhaust or right by a car's tailpipe. I figured walking a few steps might help. But no, it stayed just as hot no matter how far I walked. Touching my skin felt like it was burning. Just saying a few words made my mouth and nose feel like they were full of hot air. I swear, I'm dying from the heat. I was born and raised in the northeast, and I've never experienced heat like this before. Changchun is now 35 degrees. Is that even normal? Come stand outside in the northeast for half an hour. Forget about getting a tan. Your skin will be coated in an oily paste. I barely walked 300 meters and was soaked in sweat. It's honestly terrifying. When I got to Shanghai, I thought I was going to lose it. There's a video showing Wuhan's weather. The dryness is just unbelievable. And what about Henan? Look at this electric fan. The sunlight passing through the tin roof outside has heated it so much it's been distorted by the heat. Let me show you my makeup. It's like it's been through a literal storm surge. This year, Shanghai is experiencing an unprecedented heat wave that has broken multiple records. In June alone, there were nine days of extreme heat, the first time this has happened in 150 years. In news reports, they use just four words to describe this phenomenon. Rare in history. Around 1 p.m. in Wuhan, where temperatures hit 38 degrees soon, someone tested the heat by cracking eggs on a pan without oil. And they cooked. The eggs sizzled, bubbled, and was fully done, ready to eat with just a bit of salt and pepper. According to Chinese media, on July 4th, on a rural road in Zhu County, Shangqiu City, Henan Province, a black car was driving along when the driver had to slow down to avoid a tricycle. At that moment, the concrete road ahead suddenly cracked, arched up, and split horizontally due to excessive heat, forming a large fissure and kicking up clouds of dust, forcing the driver to brake suddenly. Many netizens believe the cause was the lack of expansion joints in the concrete, which gave no room for thermal expansion. Recently, much of China has been experiencing severe heat waves. According to China's National Meteorological Center, high temperatures are covering southern North China, the Huanghuai region, Jianghuai, Jiangnan, and the Sichuan Basin. Over 2 million square kilometers are experiencing temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius, with some areas in Henan, Shandong, Anhui, and Zhejiang exceeding 40 degrees. In Bengbu, Anhui, one resident used three thermometers to measure the outdoor temperature. At 10.54 a.m. on July 5th, all three thermometers were placed in the same spot. One read over 50 degrees C, nearly 60 degrees C, the round one had maxed out, and the long thermometer also hit its limit of 50 degrees C and went off the scale. Under the scorching midday sun in Wuhan, surface temperatures of various objects were recorded at alarming levels. Metal railings at 55 degrees C, trash bins at 57 degrees C, and cars parked under the sun reached degrees C. Even the underside of electric scooters hit 77 degrees C. One person exclaimed, Oh my God, Wuhan's weather is insane. Locals warned out tourists that Wuhan's 39-degree heat feels far worse than elsewhere. Just stepping off the bus can make you feel sick, and walking 100 meters burns your feet. Some said their shoes melted in puddles, making their feet feel oddly cool. People dubbed it the toughest 300 meters of the year. Residents advised anyone planning to visit Shanghai to cancel their trip. With temperatures hitting 40 degrees C, everyone was complaining, It's hot enough today. No one dared go outside. Guys, just how hot is it in Shandong? Someone asked. This frying pan was taken out at around noon, and now it's 2.40 p.m., just a little over two hours later. Let's crack an egg and see. No need for fire. The egg fries on its own. This kind of heat is way beyond tolerance. Right now, people in mainland China are truly living in a boiling hot hell. On top of the prolonged heat wave affecting many provinces, half of the country is also battling devastating floods.