At Year’s End, Public Opinion in China Surges—The Death Knell of the CCP Is Ringing

Dark clouds loom over Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. (Feng Li/Getty Images)

[People News] As the year that is about to pass comes to an end, China’s economy has shown no improvement, ordinary people’s lives have gone from bad to worse, and the CCP’s high-pressure rule has intensified day by day. As year’s end approaches, public resentment has soared to the heavens. Mainland netizens, no longer able to endure it, have been expressing their dissatisfaction and anger toward the CCP in various settings and through various forms.

Three Major PR Disasters for Party Media in One Week

Recently, after the party mouthpiece People’s Daily ran on its front page the “Bell Toll” line—“The Chinese people in all countries of the world must be prepared and resolutely safeguard peace and justice! —Stand by at all times”—it took less than 90 minutes for the comment section to erupt and completely fall.

“Even Sanae Takaichi dares to disclose her assets—do you dare? On behalf of 1.4 billion people, I issue you a declaration of war!”
“Whoever dares to incite war, I’ll take him out with a targeted strike first. Thanks!”
“Give me a gun and I’ll go to the airport right now—I guarantee not a single acquaintance gets away!”
“Lanlan, are your passport and U.S. dollars ready?”
“You drink wine and eat meat without inviting me, but when it’s war you call me to risk my life? Sorry, my phone’s out of battery.”

Be aware: these “out-of-bounds” comments did not appear on Twitter, nor on YouTube, but right under People’s Daily’s own app—within the last stronghold of real-name registration, green codes, and iron-fisted comment control—openly hanging in the top ten hot comments, racking up hundreds of thousands of likes, impossible to delete completely.

Previously, the CCP Ministry of National Defense’s Douyin account posted a “全民皆兵” (“everyone a soldier”) video, and the comment section instantly turned into a relay of “leaders’ children go first.” The Communist Youth League Central Committee’s line “integrate youth into strengthening the nation and the military” was pushed to read “first integrate a Beijing household registration into my youth.” Added to People’s Daily’s latest fiasco, party media have suffered three major PR disasters in a single week.

Someone summed it up: “In the past decade, official media meltdowns were occasional incidents; today, official media not melting down is the real news.”

Douyin Sees a “Charging the Tower” Wave Not Seen in Many Years

Even more shocking is that recently China’s Douyin platform has consecutively seen a series of highly sensitive historical and political content, including videos or discussions involving figures such as Hu Jintao, Chai Jing, Zhao Ziyang, Wang Yang, and even Xi Jinping. Netizens described this as a “charging-the-tower wave not seen in many years.” This phenomenon spread rapidly within just a few days, with an unprecedented breadth of content.

The most stunning content of all was actual footage from documentaries about the June Fourth incident. Because such images have long been a high-level taboo on the Chinese internet, their appearance stunned the entire community. The footage shows an unnamed student with a red cloth tied around his head, riding a bicycle toward Tiananmen Square to take part in a demonstration, when he is stopped en route and interviewed by a foreign journalist. When asked why he was going, he replied briefly and firmly: “Going to march, at Tiananmen Square.” When the reporter asked why, he answered without hesitation: “Why? I think it’s my duty!” Many people left comments saying, “This is the first time I’ve seen this on Douyin.”

“Les Misérables”: Audiences Sing a Song of Resistance in Unison

Videos show that on the 13th, after the 40th Anniversary Concert version of the musical Les Misérables concluded at the Shanghai Grand Theatre, many audience members spontaneously began singing “Do You Hear the People Sing.” This is the theme song of the film version of Les Misérables, which was once banned in mainland China.

The song was repeatedly sung during Hong Kong’s “Umbrella Movement” and the “Anti-Extradition Movement,” becoming a protest song for democracy and freedom and an important symbol of Hong Kong’s social movements.

Many netizens commented:
“I believe this definitely wasn’t rehearsed in advance—it was a single call answered by hundreds…”
“Everyone usually just dares to be angry but not to speak.”
“The tour has been going on for months; this didn’t happen before, and the audience aren’t actors…”
“Shanghai folks are big bold—if things keep going like this inside the Great Firewall, I believe there will be more and more big bold people.”
“A song that would draw massive police presence if sung on Hong Kong streets being able to echo under Shanghai’s sky is already a miracle.”
“The CCP is afraid of the people singing this song.”

Official media meltdowns, Douyin charging-the-tower waves, audiences loudly singing songs of resistance—the concentrated emergence of these phenomena shows that public dissatisfaction with the CCP’s tyrannical rule is getting closer and closer to an ignition point.

As current-affairs commentator Xingaodi pointed out, “When even the People’s Daily comment section dares to brazenly shout ‘guard the airport,’ when ‘Lanlan’ has become an unspoken code understood nationwide, and when every official mobilization ends in an epic PR disaster, this is no longer a simple failure of propaganda, but the end-of-days countdown of the entire regime’s legitimacy.”

Listen—the death knell of the CCP is ringing!

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