Speaking Out in the Shanghai Metro Against “996” and Difficult Access to Healthcare, Wuhan Man Detained in Psychiatric Hospital for 25 Days (Dec 5–29, 2025)
Jin Guohui, a 47-year-old resident of Wuhan, recently submitted a testimony to the “Yesterday” channel stating that on December 5, 2025, he used a loudspeaker to speak publicly inside a carriage on Shanghai Metro Line 2. In his remarks, he described the social hardships faced by ordinary people and criticized the “996” work schedule and the difficulty of obtaining medical care. What moved him most, he said, was that when metro staff entered the carriage to search for the person speaking, hundreds of passengers silently coordinated and no one stepped forward to identify him. However, when he later voluntarily went to a police station to cooperate with the investigation, he was sent to a psychiatric hospital, where he says he was confined and mistreated for 25 days. According to him, the experience caused him to “lose 13 jin (about 6.5 kilograms) in weight, and he still suffers from tinnitus, constipation, and lower back pain.”
On March 13, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) deployed over a hundred personnel to Gaolou Village, Baihe Subdistrict in Kaizhou, Chongqing, to forcibly install solar panels, beating villagers who protested.
Between March 11 and 13, a large number of shops near Gutan Street and the Hongxin Building on Xihu Road in Tianxin District, Changsha, Hunan Province, were vandalized by unidentified individuals for failing to ‘cooperate’ with demolition efforts. According to the shop owners, they refused to relocate because their leases had not yet expired, and some had even just recently finished renovating their stores.
“Beijing activist Quan Shixin decries the CCP for seizing her legal property in front of the Beijing Public Complaints Bureau (2026.03.11).” In 2023, Beijing activist Quan Shixin was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison on trumped-up charges for accepting interviews with overseas media. While in prison, she conducted a hunger strike in protest and was subjected to forced feeding. During her detention, the CCP forcibly demolished her only residence.
Workers Protest After Losing Jobs Without Compensation at Four Factories in Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang (Mar 1–9, 2026)
In early March, shortly after the Lunar New Year holiday ended, several manufacturing factories in China announced closures. Among them, four companies located in Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Fujian triggered days of worker protests after failing to provide compensation in accordance with China’s Labor Law. The four factories involved are as follows:
At Sihui Jinye Textile Dyeing & Finishing Co., Ltd. in Sihui, Guangdong, hundreds of workers who returned after the Lunar New Year holiday discovered that the company had moved its equipment away during the holiday period. This sparked continuous protests from March 1 to March 3, as workers demanded compensation.
At Putian Qiming Footwear Co., Ltd. in Putian, Fujian, employees returning from the Lunar New Year holiday found that the company had no intention of resuming production and even prohibited workers from staying in the dormitories. From March 5 to March 9, angry workers staged several consecutive days of collective protests, blocking the factory gate to prevent vehicles from removing equipment. According to workers, the company has already relocated the factory overseas.
A factory of Jiangnan Buyi Co., Ltd. located in the Xiaoshan industrial zone of Hangzhou, Zhejiang, announced its closure but refused to compensate workers. On March 5, workers organized collective protests demanding compensation.
Biel Crystal (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. in Shenzhen, Guangdong shut down and laid off workers due to a lack of orders, but refused to provide compensation in accordance with China’s Labor Law. This triggered four consecutive days of worker protests from March 5 to March 8, as employees demanded lawful compensation. Workers reported that under the company’s proposed compensation plan, ordinary employees would receive only “0.4N” in severance pay. Public records show that Biel Crystal (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. is a subsidiary of Biel Crystal (China) Co., Ltd., a Hong Kong-funded enterprise, primarily engaged in the research, development, and production of precision optical glass lenses, sapphire glass, and related products.
Over the past two years, under the combined pressures of economic slowdown, shrinking export orders, and the relocation of industrial supply chains, many small and medium-sized factories across China have suspended operations or gone bankrupt. When it comes to worker compensation, companies of different backgrounds have shown starkly different responses. Foreign-funded enterprises generally follow the “N+1” compensation standard—or even higher—when closing or relocating operations. By contrast, many domestic Chinese companies and some Hong Kong-funded firms often offer compensation below the legal standard, and in some cases simply disappear without paying workers at all. This widespread failure to provide proper compensation has left large numbers of unemployed workers not only without livelihoods, but also trapped in difficult struggles to defend their rights.
On March 12, at Chuanwei Beach in Shangnan Village, Jingdu Town, Chaonan District, Shantou City, Guangdong Province, aquaculture farmers lay and sat in front of excavator tracks to stop the local government from forcibly demolishing their shrimp ponds. According to the people involved, due to a government development project, the Chuanwei Beach Hechuang Park unilaterally terminated the contracts with the farmers before their expiration and refused to pay compensation, despite the fact that there are still 600,000 catties (300 metric tons) of shrimp in the ponds waiting to be sold.
From March 6 to 12, hundreds of workers at Meiyi Garment Co., Ltd. in Panyu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong held a strike for several consecutive days, protesting the company’s failure to pay social security contributions for four consecutive months.
On March 10, ahead of the 18th anniversary of the 2008 “March 14 incident” in Lhasa, Tibet, several military veterans who participated in the suppression of demonstrating monks in Lhasa shared their personal experiences on Chinese social media platforms. They recounted that due to insufficient armed police forces, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was ordered by superiors to wear armed police uniforms and pose as armed police to suppress the monks. These soldiers also stated: “Shoot as soon as you see red (monks)”, “wipe out everything taller than a wheel, a certain village”, “rivers of blood”, and “fire trucks washing the ground.” Some soldiers also posted pictures of their commemorative medals from that time. Currently, the related content has been deleted.
Summary of Mass Protests in China (Published Cases) (February 2026)
In February 2026, a total of 43 mass protest events were recorded in China. Due to the Lunar New Year falling in this month, the number of mass protests saw a relative decline compared to usual.
I. Protesting Groups
Workers (18 incidents, 42%)
Composition: Construction workers (8), manufacturing workers (8), sanitation workers (2).
Core demands: All centered around labor-capital conflicts (demanding unpaid wages, protesting pay cuts, unreasonable shift/leave arrangements, company relocation evading compensation, etc.).
Families of the Deceased/Patients (6 incidents, 14%)
Seeking compensation for severe medical malpractice, seeking truth for a student’s suicide due to bullying, demanding accountability for an employee’s accidental death after a company drinking gathering, worker suicides, and resisting forced cremation (corpse-snatching conflicts), etc.
Farmers (5 incidents, 12%)
Resisting forced demolition, protesting environmental pollution by a cement plant, protesting the village committee’s unauthorized leasing of a collective school, demanding long-overdue land requisition compensation, etc.
Religious Believers (4 incidents, 9%)
Protesting the ban on traditional folk/deity-parading (Youshen) activities, protesting the authorities’ forced demolition of Mazu statues and ancestral halls.
Investors (2 incidents, 5%)
Mainly targeting financial investment fraud.
Other Groups (8 incidents, 18%)
Petitioners (2), students (1), corporate firefighters (1), community/substitute teachers (Min-Dai-You teachers) (1), military veterans (1), evictees (1), fishermen (1).
1 incident each in 7 other provinces/municipalities (Shanghai, Fujian, Xinjiang, Chongqing, Jilin, Liaoning, Jiangxi).
III. Triggers and Causes
Worker Wage Arrears and Labor Conflicts (19 incidents, 44%): Unpaid wages, pay cuts, laid-off firefighters denied compensation, uncompensated company relocations, unreasonable Spring Festival leave arrangements, etc.
Conflicts between Public Power and Livelihood (13 incidents, 30%): Forced demolition of civilian homes/ancestral halls/temples and fishing rafts, defaulted demolition and land requisition compensation, bans on folk and deity-parading activities, unfair veteran resettlement, government corpse-snatching for forced cremation, cement plant pollution, etc.
Social Bottom Line and Trust Crises (7 incidents, 16%): Fatal medical malpractice, student suicide due to teacher bullying, worker jumping to death, demanding accountability for an employee’s accidental death at a gathering, lack of pension for community/substitute teachers, and a student “uprising” triggered by a school restricting personal freedom, etc.
Financial and Investment Fraud (2 incidents, 5%): Investment platform scams leading to collective petitioning by investors.
Blocked Petitioning/Rights Defense (2 incidents, 5%): Petitioners being violently intercepted, such as being bound with duct tape at train stations.
IV. Scale and Size Statistics
1-9 people: 3 incidents (7%)
10-99 people: 32 incidents (74%)
100-999 people: 8 incidents (19%). (Including: Uprising by students smashing school buildings in Dezhou, Shandong; strike by sanitation workers in Zhongshan, Guangdong; strike by workers at Hoshine Silicon in Xinjiang; strike by BYD workers in Xi’an; standoff by religious believers in Xi’an; strike by workers at Yura Corporation in Heze, Shandong; farmers blocking roads in Shaoyang, Hunan; farmers occupying the town government in Tangshan, Hebei).
V. Police Deployment and Violent Suppression
Police Presence Rate: Approx. 63% (police were deployed in 27 incidents).
Violent Dispersal or Arrests: In 10 incidents, clear violence, beatings, binding, or arrests of protesters by police occurred (accounting for 23% of total incidents).
Suppression Characteristics: Violent police arrests were mainly concentrated in “wage-demand protests,” “families demanding accountability,” and “land/forced demolition protests” (e.g., police in Dongguan tying up wage-demanding workers; police violently expelling wage-demanding workers at Wuhu Shipyard in Weihai; violent obstruction of ancestral hall construction in Zhangshan Town, Ji’an; clashes triggered by police entering a village to snatch a corpse in Fuyuan, Yunnan).
(Note: Because the Gaoyou event involved workers from three independent factories demanding unpaid wages, it is counted as three incidents.)
On March 10, after a patient died following treatment at Lixing Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital in Tongxu County, Kaifeng, Henan, the family of the deceased went to the hospital to demand an explanation and burn joss paper. Judging from the comments section, this hospital appears to have a notorious track record of wrongdoing.
