Trump Trolls China, and the Chinese Youth are Lying Flat

 

Corporate media and its commentators (The Economist, Paul Krugman, Center for Strategic and International Studies) are pushing a disturbing narrative that the Chinese are winning the economic and cultural war against the United States.

In fact, Trump proved the exact opposite to the world. His epic reception of the Chinese president on September 23–25, 2026, was the ultimate troll. The 47^th President mocked the 46^th President, who had played the perfect puppet for Chinese interests at the expense of America. If nothing else, Xi Jinping should have taken the hint that his attempt to turn the United States against itself with corrupted leaders failed. Trump also scheduled a B-2 Spirit bomber and four F-22 Raptors to fly over their red-carpet reception, allowing Trump to flex our nation’s military muscle before the leader of our main international rival. Most importantly, China walked away from the latest summit with the President with no major concessions from Trump to ease China’s growing economic challenges.

However, if Trump’s diplomacy doesn’t convince the public that China is facing serious domestic problems, consider the disturbing trend spreading among Chinese youth, which should provide the truth the West needs to know about China’s future.

Since 2021, Chinese Gen Z and younger are facing burnout like never before and responding with a growing disengagement from the relentless rat race. They face daunting college entrance challenges, fewer opportunities for studying in the United States (thank you, President Trump, for putting American students first!), and a foreboding career market, with little chance of upward mobility.

This generation of youth has labeled their movement Tang Ping, or “Lying Flat,” in which they are engaging in a non-Confucian, passive-aggressive rebellion against Chinese leaders, parents, and employers. They see corporate demands yielding diminishing returns, and employment options are not good. Instead of fighting for a better life, which is further out of reach, they have opted for the following:

·         They have given up the broader “Chinese Dream” of owning a car, property, a home, or even raising a family.

·         They have given up on “going big,” rejecting what they deem empty consumerism.

·         They don’t care about larger professional or corporate goals, opting to opt out of life in general. It’s “quiet quitting,” but with a Chinese twist.

·         They do the bare minimum so that they can just get by, since they are convinced there’s little hope of attaining anything better.

 

The Chinese Communist Party is doing what it can to reverse this trend, since the government craves a striving workforce culture to rival the United States' ongoing hegemony in the world. The government has resorted to deleting social media posts, including anything with the hashtag relating to Tang Ping. The government has cracked down on the notorious ‘996’ (9 am to 9 pm, six days a week) work culture. Large employers have implemented mandatory clock-off times and shorter workweeks, too. Last of all, the Communist government has labeled the whole push to urge young people to do as little as possible as a Western conspiracy to frustrate Chinese productivity and national success.

Yet all the prodding cannot make a Chinese ox drink, and they cannot force Chinese youth to drink the Communist Party Boba-Tea of “Work Hard, Get Ahead, Have Babies, and Make China Proud” when there’s little chance that they can achieve any of this.

Even younger generations in China are succumbing to similar Lying Flat middle-life crisis levels of disengagement. In one of the most heart-breaking videos recently posted on social media, a third-grade schoolboy from Tianjin (a major port city in northeastern China) broke down in tears, slaving over a homework assignment, while his mother filmed the entire nervous breakdown for the world to see. He wasn’t crying because the assignment was difficult. He was wailing because of a growing certainty that all his hard work would amount to nothing. He was convinced that instead of wealth, success, and independence, he would turn into another wage slave, or worse, end up in manual labor just to get by later in life.

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What’s particularly striking about this exchange is that this little boy is openly challenging his mother, arguing with her, contradicting her, and talking over her despite her best attempts to calm him and redirect his attention to his studies. No matter how modern societies have become, traditional Chinese Confucian culture places considerable emphasis on filial respect and obedience to parents. Shockingly, this child dismissed submitting to those norms, revealing desperation and exhaustion.

Another concern: why would a parent want to record her child having such a horrible mental breakdown? At least she could have blurred out her son’s face. Perhaps she was trying to alert the public to the increasing stress and strain that Chinese children are facing?

What should the mother have done? She should have told him to stop working right away instead of recording his emotional outburst, given him a big hug, and then told him: “Yes, times are tough, but everything will be OK.” If none of her assurances would have helped the boy, the mother should have allowed him to be angry and let him release his emotions. Clearly, the child was losing control of himself.

Major Asian news sites, including Gutzy Asian, The Online Citizen, and Singapore-based Mothership, commented on this sad scene, with some of the articles making light of this boy’s meltdown. Perhaps Chinese government officials watched this video, or at least they should, since this suggests that their efforts to turn back the “Lying Flat” movement are failing.

Despite all the Chinese Communist Party’s pretenses, the nation’s younger generations are not doing as well as President Xi Jinping would like us to think. Rapacious business policies, unsound protectionism, and aggressive anti-American chauvinism are taking their toll on Chinese youth, forcing them into harsher competition for higher education and jobs which aren’t as plentiful as before. A large cohort of unemployed and underemployed, educated Chinese are simply dropping out in the face of increased surveillance state pressures, economic decline, and cultural malaise.

China is in trouble, and President Trump’s ongoing trade war and pressure tactics are taking advantage of these weak spots. There is no better proof of China’s ongoing problems than a Chinese boy breaking down over the stress and strain of school and career. Could that cry, multiplied by millions of other young Chinese, turn into a collective shout and national protest against the regime’s authoritarian measures? Who knows, but Chinese youths’ “Lying Down” movement shows no sign of stopping; rather, it exposes China’s ongoing national—and international—weakness in the face of President Trump’s continued MAGA policies.