In March 2023, Cheng Hong embarked on a journey to the United States with her 9-month-old son, a journey she took without hesitation. Just before leaving, a phone call from a buyer finally closed a deal on a house she had been trying to sell for two years, allowing her to clear her debts. “Perhaps the heavens are supporting me, allowing me to leave,” she reminisced.
Cheng Hong, originally from Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, was once a promising young entrepreneur. She started her business at the age of 25 and within a decade owned three large internet cafes, three chain pharmacies, and a fast food restaurant. Before the pandemic, her annual revenue reached over two million RMB. Reflecting on her past success, Cheng Hong expressed, “I had a 300-square-meter villa, a Maserati, a Porsche, a Mercedes-Benz, a BMW, and all kinds of luxury goods, I had them all.” Not born into wealth, she cherished the fruits of her hard work, but ultimately succumbed to the pressures of the Chinese Communist regime.
The investment cost in Cheng Hong’s internet cafe business was nearly ten million RMB, with each store occupying around a thousand square meters and equipped with over three hundred computers, accommodating hundreds of customers. In addition to earning money from customers for internet use or gaming, she also set up a bar, supermarket, and dining area in the internet cafes, creating a complete entertainment experience, running a successful business cycle. Later, due to the success of the small kitchen in the internet cafe, she even expanded into a delivery market for the kitchen. At its peak, one of her internet cafes made a profit of at least six to seven hundred thousand RMB per year.
Despite the good business before the pandemic, Cheng Hong not only had to worry about managing her business but also had to deal with maneuvering through various Chinese government departments. In the hints or explicit demands of the authorities, she had to learn to “understand” what was required. Cheng Hong said, “They must force these landlords and business owners; everything has to be accompanied by money as a pass. Without paying, you can’t survive and operate.”
Using her own internet cafe as an example, Cheng Hong had to go through checkpoints set up by various departments, including the fire department, cultural department, local police station, and even the urban management team. She was already familiar with the rule of “understanding,” which essentially meant bribing them.
“When they came to inspect, they would say what wasn’t up to standard in the renovations, then wait for the boss to come to them. ‘Come find us,’ they would say, ‘I’m just trying to help you, for the safety of your store.'” She explained that after multiple renovations to meet standards, no one came for inspections.
“‘You wait a bit, we will arrange it here, send someone over to check whether your modifications are qualified or not.’ Actually, at this point, they’re hinting that no matter how well you do (it doesn’t matter), they’ll say you haven’t ‘understood,’ and you should be ready to bribe them.”
“An envelope, five thousand, ten thousand, quietly placed on the desk. A few days later, it passed inspection,” she bluntly revealed the systemic extortion: no matter how well you do, it’s never enough, they’ll still think you haven’t ‘understood.’ Without the right amount of money, you’ll never pass inspection.
She even wrote a satirical poem titled “It’s Really Hard to Survive”: “Paying to open the door, otherwise, wait a year. Picking bones out of eggs, fines must be cash. Pull out your server, wait for you to find me. The fire department is tough, slyly handing over an envelope with money. Provide the government’s equipment, during holidays, supermarket cards first. Inviting someone to dinner, the bill is sky-high. ‘Little ghosts’ shopping, calling you to pay. For monthly services, money is always necessary. To survive, it’s all about money, money, money, money, money.”
Once, Cheng Hong invited a government official in Xi’an to dinner, and the official chose a designated restaurant. “It was a restaurant of his own. When we were eating, the dishes we ordered were ordinary, but when it came time to pay, it was outrageous. For one table of food, you had to pay at least three thousand.” Fearing potential retaliation, Cheng Hong reluctantly paid the bill.
Some government officials directly asked her, “Can you help me get a computer for the office?” Cheng Hong dared not refuse, as it meant she had to give them a computer as a gift.
Apart from officials asking for bribes, there were also various intermediaries exploiting the situation and colluding with government departments. Cheng Hong referred to these intermediaries as “little ghosts.”
“They say, ‘I’ve got your back, you have to pay a service fee every month.'” In a city in Guangxi, the intermediary she encountered was the chairman of the local internet industry association, demanding one thousand RMB per month from her. Sometimes they would even ask her to pay for their shopping at the supermarket, implying they were gifts to officials to facilitate relationships. “When I went to the supermarket, I saw that it was all ‘Zhonghua’ brand cigarettes, sometimes two packs, sometimes four packs. Because I was afraid of being disadvantaged if I didn’t buy them, I had to endure it.”
Cheng Hong emphasized that this was not an isolated case. She believed that 95% of her peers had experienced similar situations; China did not have a free economy but rather relied on bribery to survive within the privileged economic system.
The pandemic’s lockdown policies severely impacted all three of Cheng Hong’s businesses, while monthly fixed expenses such as rent, salaries, and loans exceeded 200,000 RMB.
Cheng Hong’s three pharmacies were part of a chain, with each store covering nearly two hundred square meters. “Many people might think that pharmacies did well during the pandemic, but it wasn’t the case. During the pandemic, the state had strict control over pharmacies, very strict. They wouldn’t allow us to sell certain categories of drugs such as anti-inflammatories, painkillers, antipyretics, antivirals, the most common types of these medicines. Isn’t this pushing pharmacies toward a dead end?” she questioned.
Under immense pressure, feeling overwhelmed, one day during an inspection by government officials, Cheng Hong decided to speak up. “I got into an argument with them. I said, you have to help us, we need to survive, why don’t you help us negotiate with our landlords, or why doesn’t the government provide us with some assistance, whether it’s in the form of loans or other kinds of support?”
The response from government officials took Cheng Hong by surprise. They coldly said, “Others are managing just fine, they don’t have as many complaints as you do!”
As more and more people gathered around, Cheng Hong rallied some nearby business owners and urged them to stand together to demand answers from the country, to take action to address the real difficulties faced by the people.
Government departments viewed Cheng Hong as an agitator leading the crowd, accusing her of provoking trouble. Subsequently, she was taken to the police station for interrogation and later detained for six days.
Cheng Hong said they kept asking, “Who instructed you? Why did you do this? Why create such an unstable factor in society? Why incite the crowd?!”
Yet, all she wanted was to survive.
Faced with the collapse of her financial chain, Cheng Hong borrowed extensively, even mortgaging her villa at exorbitant interest rates to financial companies. “At that time, I wasn’t just borrowing money, I was on the path of borrowing money,” she said, determined to weather this disaster.
She once owned a Maserati, Porsche, BMW, a 300-square-meter villa, and luxury goods. But under authoritarian rule, those achievements became fragile. For her, the most terrifying aspect was not the loss of money but the feeling of being dehumanized and trampled upon.
What broke Cheng Hong’s heart was her mother’s ordeal. Her mother had been diabetic for over a decade, and during the pandemic, she was prevented from going out to buy medicine due to lockdown restrictions. “Diabetes isn’t a serious illness; just bear through it,” the community staff’s words were cold. Within half a year, the lack of medication led her mother to develop diabetic retinopathy, resulting in late-stage blindness in both eyes.
Cheng Hong attributed her mother’s blindness to the system’s indifference and inaction.
All of this ultimately led her to make the biggest decision of her life – selling off assets and leaving China. “I am completely disappointed with this country,” she said.
In March 2023, she arrived in the United States with her nine-month-old son. The following year, her child was hospitalized for severe pneumonia and had to be transferred by helicopter, with the hospital not mentioning any costs throughout the process, only concerned about providing timely treatment.
“At that time, my financial situation wasn’t good, and the doctor never mentioned payment, only focused on treating the child. I thought, if my son was in China, he probably wouldn’t have survived.” In Chinese hospitals, treatment requires payment upfront, leading Cheng Hong to firmly believe that her decision to come to the United States was the right one.
She believed that the concept of “cutting ties, discarding, and leaving” applies not only to getting rid of material possessions but also to abandoning toxic people, situations, and even an oppressive system.
“Why should we support bad governance? A country is made up of countless individuals. If you don’t uphold the basic life and rights of these people, why should I support you?”