Life Has Gotten Surreal in China

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/08/china-utopia-censorship-propaganda/683998/?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social&utm_content=edit-promo

Posted by theatlantic

6 comments

  1. The popularity of Labubus appear to be a sign of China’s global success. At home, however, the government is working to dampen the enthusiasm, Michael Schuman reports.

    Many of the figurines are sold in “blind boxes,” meaning that the consumer gets to see the contents only after purchase. An article in China’s main newspaper, the People’s Daily, criticized the “out of control spending” on blind boxes and similar products among minors who are “irrational” in their decisions, and called for tighter regulation to prevent such objects from becoming “tools to exploit children’s wallets.”

    Labubus are but one cultural trend to incur the Communist Party’s ire. “In recent years, Chinese authorities have gone after video games and K-pop, comedy clubs and Halloween parties, gay and lesbian activists and women’s-rights advocates, tech entrepreneurs and financial advisers. The incessant crackdowns, and the campaigns of censorship or censoriousness, suggest that the Chinese regime is intent on not just eliminating opposition, but also micromanaging its people’s lifestyles, consumption, and beliefs,” Schulman argues.

    At the link in our bio, Schuman reports from Beijing on how the Chinese Communist Party has grown more insistent on a reality at odds with people’s experience, all while the state intrudes more and more into daily life.

    Read more: [https://theatln.tc/tiAvi3rt](https://theatln.tc/tiAvi3rt)

    —Mariana Labbate, assistant editor, audience, *The Atlantic*

  3. I would argue life is far far more surreal in the United States right now.

  4. Gimmicks designed to scam people out of money using tricks like “blind boxes” deserve criticism. It’s a scam to get money from children. This is only a problem if seen from the lens of American greed, where scams are fine as long as you’re not the one getting scammed.

  6. One thing that struck me about the article was the similarities between current China and a trumpist USA. Granted the US obsession with consumer crap is far worse, and Chinese surveillance is far more advanced, but it seems to me there is a very real global shift towards authoritarianism taking place right before our eyes. China’s liberalization time may be coming to an end, just as a fascist coup is cementing itself into American political culture. As Tiananmen and the Uhygur’s disappear from memory, there is a very real program to erase and rewrite history in the USA, especially concerning white supremacist revisionism towards slavery and the BLM movement, among other events and popular movements.

    I always appreciate these kind of articles that open a window into China. The Gao Zeng Li censorship and the state response to critical-mass style bike rides in China is informative of the perpetual coercive mechanisms of the CCP.

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