Before the Chinese New Year, the Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping visited Liaoning in Northeast China to inspect the situation. State media depicted a festive atmosphere with glowing lights and decorations, portraying Xi Jinping as “deeply loved by the people,” completely ignoring the economic downturn across various industries nationwide and the dire situation in the old industrial cities of the three northeastern provinces. Dissidents in the area faced crackdowns during this period. Commentators pointed out that Xi’s actions were just a show, and the official propaganda was nauseating and sycophantic.
According to the official Xinhua News Agency, from January 22nd to 24th, Xi Jinping, accompanied by his confidants Cai Qi and He Lifeng, visited several places in Liaoning including Zhujia Gou Village in Shuizhong County, Huludao City, Shenyang Dadong Food Market, and Chang’an Community in Dadong District. State media cameras focused on scenes of “festive decorations” and interactions between Xi and “the people.”
State media reported that Xi was “very happy to see the people having such material conditions,” and even captured the rare moment of Xi mingling in the crowd at Dadong Food Market in Shenyang on the morning of the 23rd. Many bodyguards were seen placed within the crowd.
Mainland China observer Jiang Shi (pseudonym) told The Epoch Times that prior to 2015, when Xi Jinping just came to power and launched the anti-corruption campaign, he didn’t have as many followers accompanying him on trips, and people at the grassroots level especially believed his rhetoric. However, after 2015, particularly since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, not only businesspeople with slightly better lives but even those facing severe hardships and who were easily deceived before, now when Xi’s name is mentioned, no one has anything good to say. Even lower-level public servants and bureaucrats within the Communist Party’s governance structure find it hard to speak positively about Xi.
“It can be said that it’s difficult to find any group, whether official or civilian, that can say Xi is good. So this so-called populist propaganda led by Cai Qi is particularly sycophantic and nauseating, and the people are extremely dissatisfied with them in reality,” he said.
Political commentator Li Linyi told The Epoch Times that because Xi emphasizes singing the “song of economic prosperity” and suppressing the reality of economic downturn, officials in various regions cater to him by organizing “crowd actors” to perform. It’s believed that on that day, various units were informed well in advance to selectively invite customers to participate in interactions with the leader to ensure absolute security, allowing the party leader to get a taste of “populism,” which is all fake. This can deceive foreigners.
Amid the current economic slump in China, the restaurant industry, which directly reflects consumption, has been severely impacted. According to the catering industry media “Red Food Network,” nearly 3 million restaurants closed throughout 2024, marking a historical high, including several well-known brands. Industry professionals believe that the restaurant market is currently facing an oversupply situation, and it is predicted that another wave of restaurant closures will occur in the first half of 2025.
On Chinese social media, videos often reflect the poor economy, bankruptcies of businesses, cries for unpaid wages, and unemployment. However, some of these videos are swiftly removed, but they are collected overseas. Xi Jinping also visited Mingshui Manchu Village in Suizhong County, Huludao City, which was hit by floods last year.
Previously, the official Chinese media praised Xi for personally cracking open farmers’ pots from Zhengding to Fujian, but this time Xi Jinping did not do it himself. A video from CCTV showed a woman from Zhujia Gou Village opening the first pot for Xi. Commentator “Jintao Patan” wrote that this was arranged by the party committee. If someone opens a pot, Xi Jinping will then start gesturing. For a dictator with a penchant for opening pots, giving up this hobby is the “party’s need” and also reflects a change in Xi Jinping’s personal image.
American political commentator Chen Pokong told Radio Free Asia that Xi Jinping visited Huludao in Liaoning under the pretext of condoling with the flood victims from last year, even though it has been over half a year since the floods and the post-disaster reconstruction work has nearly ended. From the visuals, the on-site arrangements and interactions with the crowd appear more like carefully orchestrated “popular dramas.”
When the Chinese party leader travels, local public security authorities often act as if facing a major enemy, leading to escalated stability maintenance operations.
According to sources, during Xi Jinping’s inspection of Liaoning, political writer in Liaoning and author of “Xi Jinping’s Power History” Sun Daluo, while having a meal at home in Anshan on January 22nd, received a phone call from the local police station inquiring about his whereabouts, stating that it was requested from higher-ups and inviting him for a meal in a few days as they were quite familiar. The next morning, the police called again to ask for Sun’s exact address, claiming it was requested by the Beijing Public Security Department.
Only when Sun Daluo saw the news on his phone about Xi Jinping’s inspection in Huludao, Liaoning, did he realize that the police were monitoring his movements, possibly fearing that he might petition during Xi’s inspection of Liaoning or cause trouble.
Ahead of the Chinese New Year, reports of various rights activists facing suppression continue to emerge across mainland China.
Zhang Hai, a Wuhan pneumonia victim’s family member living in Shenzhen, recently purchased two fruit knives through the Pinduoduo e-commerce platform and was questioned by the police at the Nanshan Police Station in Shenzhen: “What are the knives for?” Zhang Hai was infuriated by the police’s actions, criticizing it as comprehensive surveillance against him.
Jiang Weidong, a rights activist from Guanyun County in Jiangsu, was arrested and prosecuted in the second half of 2024 on charges related to online remarks. Recently, when friends in the country were preparing to raise some living expenses for his two underage children, the Guanyun County National Security Bureau interfered as soon as they contacted his relatives. The national security officers even threatened the relatives, saying they couldn’t seek an out-of-town lawyer to defend Jiang Weidong.
Tong Bin, a rights activist from Wuhan, was taken away by the police on January 20 for advocating for rights and protesting against “Beijing police’s cooperation with local authorities in kidnapping and trafficking people” during a street protest. Since then, there has been no news about his whereabouts. On the 22nd, sources revealed that Tong Bin has been administratively detained for 10 days on the charge of disrupting public order in public places by the Wuhan police.
On January 23, a young girl in Shenzhen, Guangdong, said that her father became a vegetable after undergoing cerebral angiography at Shenzhen Nanshan Hospital, and her mother went to the Nanshan District Government for rights protection and went missing. She doesn’t know what to do now. The video has since been deleted from the web entirely. This is the type of news that won’t be reported by the official Chinese media or visited by Xi Jinping.
In addition to Huludao and Shenyang, on January 23, Xi Jinping also visited the Benxi Steel Cold Rolling Plant in Benxi City, Liaoning, to inspect the production line.
As previously reported by The Epoch Times, due to continuous drops in steel prices leading to increasing losses, Chinese steel companies have been struggling and facing a wave of closures. Even the giant steel company Jiangsu Delong Nickel Industry with hundreds of billions of yuan has gone bankrupt.
On the morning of the 24th, Xi Jinping emphasized full revitalization of Northeast China to Liaoning officials, stating that “we must unwaveringly adhere to the party’s leadership.”
The rise and fall of Northeast China can be seen from the perspective of Hegang, a third and fourth-tier city in Heilongjiang. The Hegang municipal government had difficulties repaying the due government debt principal and interest for two consecutive years in 2019 and 2020, requiring a “financial restructuring.”
Due to population and industry exodus, local property prices in Hegang have been falling annually, with tens of thousands of yuan being common for a house. Despite plummeting prices, there is still no demand for the housing, and the city has turned into a ghost town. Similar phenomena have appeared in other cities, known as becoming “like Hegang.”
According to media reports, in September of last year, housing prices in 25 provinces and 95 cities in China were heading towards a “Hegang-like” situation. Even economically developed regions like the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Pearl River Delta, and Chengdu-Chongqing areas were surrounded by cities experiencing “Hegang-like” conditions, with housing prices dropping to tens of thousands or even thousands of yuan.
Recently, Shuangyashan City in Heilongjiang has been selling floor houses at a price of just 10,000 yuan, sparking discussions.
Chen Pokong told Radio Free Asia that currently, Northeast China is the poorest region in China. Many people in the Northeast complain that since Xi Jinping came to power, there has been no financial injection into the region. Northeast China is collapsing comprehensively, with industrial output continuously declining, a severe outflow of the population to other provinces, resulting in a sharp decrease in the Northeast’s population, with the birth rate dropping to the lowest in the country, declining by as much as 30% annually. The local finances have been running a long-term deficit. With the central financial allocations depleted, Northeast China cannot rely on substantial assistance.