Property staff at luxury Shenzhen complex rally for days over unpaid wages (July 6–7, 2026)
From July 6 to 7, property management staff at the Mangrove Bay (红树西岸) residential complex in Shenzhen’s Nanshan district held rallies for two consecutive days, demanding two months of unpaid wages from Baishida Property Management. Mangrove Bay is one of Shenzhen’s well-known luxury residential developments, with units selling for around 20 million yuan.
32-year-old mother dies after minimally invasive surgery in Hebei’s Xingtai; family seeks answers for days (July 7–10, 2026)
From July 7 to 10, the family of a woman who died after minimally invasive surgery held a sit-in in the lobby of Xingtai People’s Hospital in Hebei province for several consecutive days, demanding answers. According to the family, the deceased was a mother of two, a son and a daughter. She had been scheduled for a relatively routine minimally invasive surgery to remove an abdominal fibroid, but about 10 minutes after receiving anesthesia, her heart suddenly stopped. She was rushed to the ICU, where she died two days later.
In June 2026, the Yesterday Project published 46 collective protest incidents that occurred in China. Three landmark events drew the greatest attention during the month. The first was a nonviolent noncooperation movement in Heilongjiang that lasted for more than two months and involved over one million merchants, making it the largest protest documented by the Yesterday Project since its archive was established. The second was China’s first large-scale anti-animal-cruelty gathering, which broke out in Chongqing and was jointly initiated by netizens and animal-protection volunteers. The third took place in Hefei, Anhui, where more than 1,000 residents took to the streets and successfully forced the suspension of a large waste-transfer-station project.
In addition, labor disputes, clashes triggered by urban-management officers seizing vendors’ carts, and the continuing rights-defense campaign surrounding the medical-malpractice case of “Xiao Luoxi” in Ningbo, Zhejiang, formed three other major themes of protest during the month.
1. Composition of Protest Groups
Workers and other laborers: 11 incidents (23.9%)
Breakdown: factory workers, 5 incidents; sanitation workers, 1; office employees, 1; supermarket employees, 1; construction workers, 1; taxi drivers, 1; and students temporarily recruited to work as security guards, 1.
Homeowners and residents: 6 incidents (13.0%)
These included protests against forced demolitions, arbitrary property-management fees, former property-management companies refusing to leave residential compounds, the failure to issue property-ownership certificates, and proposed hazardous-laboratory and waste-transfer-station projects.
Farmers: 4 incidents (8.7%)
These mainly involved compulsory land expropriation and local authorities unilaterally changing villagers’ household-registration status in order to avoid distributing collective land rights and benefits.
Families of the deceased and related rights defenders: 5 incidents (10.9%)
These included medical-malpractice cases, the drowning of a minor while fleeing a fisheries-enforcement pursuit, and continuing rights-defense actions related to the “Xiao Luoxi” case in Ningbo.
Merchants and exhibitors: 4 incidents (8.7%)
These included the mass business shutdown involving more than one million merchants in Heilongjiang, a Guangzhou merchant using horses to transport goods, and two consecutive days of protests by exhibitors at a trade fair in Shenzhen.
Street vendors and onlookers: 4 incidents (8.7%)
All four incidents involved urban-management officers seizing, impounding, or towing away vendors’ food carts.
Animal-protection advocates and netizens: 2 incidents (4.3%)
These included a gathering of several thousand people against animal cruelty in Chongqing and a protest by a woman in Dongyang, Zhejiang, after her pet cat was tortured and killed.
Students: 2 incidents (4.3%)
These included a student being taken away by personnel from a so-called “compulsory correction school,” and several hundred graduating high-school students breaking through school restrictions to celebrate their graduation collectively.
Petitioners: 2 incidents (4.3%)
These included petitioners singing outside a public-security agency to denounce corruption, and resistance triggered when interception personnel forcibly dragged away a petitioner in public.
Other groups: 6 incidents (13.0%)
These involved policyholders, bank depositors, airline passengers, Christians, netizens, and other individual rights defenders.
2. Geographic Distribution
Guangdong: 12 incidents
Zhejiang: 7 incidents
Sichuan and Chongqing: 4 incidents each
Anhui, Hebei, Hunan, and Guizhou: 2 incidents each
Heilongjiang, Hubei, Hainan, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Gansu, Liaoning, and Beijing: 1 incident each
One additional incident occurred at a site connected to the Ministry of Public Security.
Guangdong and Zhejiang together accounted for 19 incidents, or 41.3% of all incidents published during the month. Incidents in Guangdong were mainly concentrated in Shenzhen, Dongguan, Yangjiang, Guangzhou, Qingyuan, Lufeng, and Shantou. Incidents in Zhejiang were concentrated mainly in Ningbo, with additional cases in Taizhou, Hangzhou, and Dongyang.
3. Distribution of Causes
Unpaid wages, low pay, and other labor disputes: 10 incidents (21.7%)
These included unpaid wages, 5 incidents; excessively low wages, 2; layoffs without compensation, 1; wage deductions and unfair compensation, 1; and unpaid wages and social-insurance contributions combined with refusal to repay employee investment funds, 1.
Land, housing, and community-governance disputes: 9 incidents (19.6%)
These included compulsory land expropriation, 3 incidents; forced demolition, 1; arbitrary property-management charges or refusal by former property managers to withdraw, 2; prolonged failure to issue property-ownership certificates, 1; unilateral changes to villagers’ household-registration status to avoid distributing land-related rights, 1; and the proposed construction of a hazardous laboratory near residential neighborhoods, 1.
Medical malpractice and related rights-defense actions: 5 incidents (10.9%)
These included families of deceased patients being suppressed by police while seeking accountability at hospitals, as well as incidents in which relatives and supporters connected to the “Xiao Luoxi” case in Ningbo were summoned, disappeared from public contact, or subjected to pressure.
Urban-management officers seizing or impounding food carts: 4 incidents (8.7%)
In Chengdu, Haikou, Ningbo, and Yangjiang, vendors climbed onto their food carts to prevent urban-management officers from towing them away. Several of these incidents attracted hundreds of onlookers who expressed support.
Animal cruelty: 2 incidents (4.3%)
These included the large-scale anti-animal-cruelty gathering in Chongqing and a public protest inside a residential compound in Dongyang, Zhejiang, after a pet cat was tortured and killed.
False promotion by trade fairs: 2 incidents (4.3%)
A cross-border e-commerce exhibition in Shenzhen was accused of attracting far fewer buyers than advertised and even hiring people to pose as purchasers. Hundreds of exhibitors demanded refunds for two consecutive days, and some angry merchants later smashed exhibits.
Environmental and waste projects: 2 incidents (4.3%)
These included Wuhan residents opposing the establishment of a hazardous-waste laboratory and more than 1,000 Hefei residents marching to force the suspension of a large waste-transfer-station project.
Other causes: 12 incidents (26.1%)
These included arbitrary inspections and fines by government agencies, restrictions on religious practice and memorial activities, disputes over insurance-policy cancellation, compulsory airline charges, bank deposits being converted into insurance products, restrictions on merchants’ transport tools, conflicts over student management, interception of petitioners, and deaths caused by law-enforcement pursuits.
4. Scale of Incidents
1–9 participants: 13 incidents (28.3%)
10–99 participants: 11 incidents (23.9%)
100–999 participants: 17 incidents (37.0%)
1,000–9,999 participants: 4 incidents (8.7%)
More than one million participants: 1 incident (2.2%)
A total of 22 incidents involved at least 100 participants, accounting for 47.8% of all incidents. The Heilongjiang merchants’ shutdown involved more than one million participants and was the largest protest of the month. The Chongqing anti-animal-cruelty gathering, the employee protest at Wanwei Education in Xi’an, the wage protest by workers at Liansheng in Jiujiang, and the anti-waste-project march in Hefei each involved more than 1,000 participants.
5. Police Repression
Police present: 20 incidents, or approximately 43.5%
Clear incidents of violent repression or arrest: 10 incidents, or approximately 21.7% of all incidents
Among the 20 incidents in which police were present, 10 involved beatings, pepper spray, forcible dragging, arrests, or the removal of rights defenders. This means that repression or arrests occurred in half of all incidents attended by police.
Typical cases included the following: police in Xingtai, Hebei, used pepper spray against the family of a medical-malpractice victim seeking accountability; villagers in Taizhou, Zhejiang, opposing compulsory land expropriation were beaten by police; after a teenager drowned in Chongqing, family members and residents who marched in protest were suppressed by police; participants in the Chongqing anti-animal-cruelty gathering were arrested and placed under continuing surveillance; several Wuhan residents opposing a hazardous-waste laboratory were arrested; police raided a worship service at Chengdu’s Early Rain Covenant Church and took away several church members and children; hundreds of homeowners in Chengdu blocked a road, after which multiple people were beaten and arrested; the anti-waste-project march in Hefei briefly developed into clashes with police; homeowners in Chenzhou, Hunan, demanding property-ownership certificates were violently dragged away by police; and villagers in Shantou, Guangdong, were suppressed while occupying the village committee office and surrounding local officials.
“Villager Killed After State Grid Improperly Energizes Power Line; Bereaved Family Suppressed While Seeking Answers in Hebei (July 9, 2026)”
A disused power line in Anzhong Village, Dongliang Township, Longyao County, Xingtai, Hebei Province, was recently energized without warning, electrocuting a villager who was carrying out construction work.
On July 9, the victim’s family went to the Longyao County power supply company to demand an explanation, holding a banner that read, “The power grid killed him—give us back our son.” They were subsequently blocked and suppressed by police.
The family said they had repeatedly tested the line before construction and confirmed that it was not live. However, electricity was suddenly restored while the work was underway, resulting in the fatal accident.
“The Plague God Cometh: A Million Merchants’ Nonviolent Noncooperation Movement in Heilongjiang (April–June 2026)”
From April to June 2026, China’s northeastern province of Heilongjiang saw an unprecedented wave of “nonviolent noncooperation.” According to figures compiled by the “Yesterday” project, over 67 days between April 25 and June 30, merchants in 34 counties, cities, and districts across the province collectively shuttered their businesses, with total participation exceeding one million. The movement had no public organizers, no unified call to action, and no identifiable leadership, yet it spread through longstanding tacit understanding among merchants, becoming one of the longest-running and most geographically extensive collective actions in China in recent years. Facing this decentralized, large-scale movement, Chinese Communist Party authorities proved largely powerless, left to watch the wave of closures spread unchecked.
Prelude
The movement first surfaced in a small county in southwestern Suihua, Heilongjiang. On April 25, merchants across Qing’an County shut their doors in unison, with no public explanation offered by anyone and no official comment forthcoming. A day later, merchants in neighboring Wangkui County followed suit. Both closures lasted roughly three days, but they marked the opening act of what would become a large-scale campaign of nonviolent noncooperation.
Escalation
After a lull of more than ten days, on May 12 merchants in Nehe, roughly 300 kilometers from Qing’an County, closed en masse citywide. Over the following two weeks, the movement began spreading across regions. Between May 23 and 29, merchants in Baiquan, Yi’an, Kedong, Keshan, and Fuyu counties in the Qiqihar area joined one after another.
By June, following the sporadic spread of April and May, the movement erupted in full. From June 3 to 16, closures first swept across the Suihua region in succession — Beilin District, Anda, Zhaodong, Lanxi County, Qing’an County again, and Qing’an County. Daqing’s Sartu, Ranghulu, Longfeng, Honggang, and Datong districts, along with Lindian and Dorbod Mongol Autonomous Counties, soon joined as well.
Starting June 17, Qiqihar saw a concentrated outbreak. Within two days, merchants across Tailai, Longjiang, Gannan, Ang’angxi, Meilisi Daur, Fularji, Longsha, Tiefeng, and Jianhua — nearly every county and district in the city — shut down simultaneously, forming the largest regional surge of the entire movement. As Heilongjiang’s second-largest city, nearly all of Qiqihar’s urban districts and subordinate counties were swept into the wave of closures, a scale rarely seen in Chinese collective action in recent years.
Meanwhile, merchants in Daqing’s Zhaozhou County remained closed continuously from June 17 to 23; Nenjiang City in Heihe joined on June 20; and Zhaoyuan County saw two consecutive days of collective closures shortly after.
In late June, the movement continued spreading through the Suihua region. Hailun and Suileng County saw repeated closures over several days, with some areas cycling between opening one day and closing the next. On June 30, merchants in Suileng County closed their doors for the final time, bringing this large-scale noncooperation campaign to a temporary halt.
By that point, merchants across 34 counties, cities, and districts in Heilongjiang had collectively shut down at various points, spanning four prefecture-level cities: Suihua, Qiqihar, Daqing, and Heihe.
The Plague God Cometh
What, then, caused merchants across so many parts of Heilongjiang to shut their doors one place after another, with no unified organization and no public call to action? The answer lies in a term some local merchants use: “the plague god” (瘟神).
According to numerous local merchants and internet users, the movement’s direct trigger was word spreading among merchants — reportedly originating from inside the system — that a joint government inspection team was about to conduct sweeping checks of shops, supermarkets, and restaurants across the district. Inspections themselves are nothing new, so why did merchants close en masse to avoid them? The reason lies in a long-standing pattern: government departments frequently conduct centralized inspections under the banners of fire safety, security, hygiene, and market regulation, then issue steep fines. A single penalty can run from several thousand to tens of thousands of yuan, and sometimes more than 100,000 yuan. For many small merchants, a fine like that can exceed an entire year’s earnings. During times of economic prosperity, merchants could recoup a fine through continued business over time. But with the economy now in a downturn, many merchants are already operating on the edge of profitability, and a single steep fine amounts to a death sentence for their business.
As for what actually counts as “passing” an inspection, officials cannot say and merchants do not understand — but once inspectors are inside a shop, they can always find some pretext for a fine. Fire exits, how food is displayed, hygiene details, licensing paperwork, product labeling: any single detail can become grounds for a penalty.
This uncertainty has left merchants on edge. Some say the inspection teams are more fearsome than COVID-19 — the mere sight of someone walking down the street with a serious expression is enough to raise suspicion that they might be an inspector. As a result, whenever word spreads that inspections are coming, more and more merchants choose to close preemptively for several days to avoid the risk; once one shop shows any sign of trouble, nearby stores tend to shut their doors in unison almost immediately. For merchants, losing a few days’ income is bearable — but a fine is often ruinous.
The fallout extends beyond merchants themselves. With so many shops closed at once, ordinary residents’ daily lives have also been disrupted: restaurants shut down, buying vegetables and household goods becomes difficult, and everyday services like haircuts become hard to find. Many residents have complained online about being unable to buy groceries or find an open barbershop, their routines thrown into disarray. Some have asked why authorities can’t apply this same swift efficiency to problems like food safety, healthcare, and corruption. Out of fear and resentment toward the inspectors, local residents have taken to calling the inspection teams “the plague god.”
Nothing Left to Fine, Authorities Rush to “Set the Record Straight”
With merchants shut down en masse, inspectors have found it difficult to enter shops and find pretexts for steep fines as they once did, and many inspection efforts have come away empty-handed. In an effort to get merchants to reopen, local governments have issued a series of public notices “debunking rumors,” with some areas even dispatching loudspeaker trucks to broadcast along the streets that online reports of merchants facing massive fines are “untrue,” insisting no citywide inspection campaign was underway. But for authorities who had already lost public credibility, these statements failed to ease merchants’ doubts — and in fact deepened their distrust, prompting many to keep their doors closed.
Indeed, during the movement some merchants who believed the official notices did reopen for business — and quickly paid the price. According to accounts circulating locally, fines ranged from tens of thousands to more than 100,000 yuan. Some penalties were reportedly issued over grounds as trivial as three spoiled potatoes found in a shop or a single ashtray left out. Many residents have mocked the fines online, saying it looks like the government is short on cash and “fundraising,” or bluntly, “just collecting money, pure and simple.”
Decentralized, Nonviolent, Noncooperative: A New Model of Collective Action
Over 67 days, this collective action — with no unified organization and no public leader — spread through longstanding tacit understanding among merchants, along with the circulation of information and mutual imitation, eventually reaching 34 cities, counties, and districts across Heilongjiang and forming a textbook case of “nonviolent noncooperation.” For most participants, closing shop began as a simple act of self-interest — avoiding inspections and steep fines. But as more and more merchants made the same choice, these scattered individual decisions coalesced into a mass collective action involving more than a million people.
One key reason the movement lasted more than two months is precisely that it had no fixed organizational structure, making it difficult for authorities to shut down the way they typically handle mass incidents. For years, the Party’s standard approach to mass incidents has relied on identifying organizers, cutting off communication networks, and summoning ringleaders for “talks” — dismantling the organization to end the action. But this movement had no public initiator from start to finish, no unified communication channel, and no jointly issued demands. Whether any given shop closed was, in form, simply an individual business decision. Faced with a spreading wave of closures, authorities found no organizers to arrest and no network to sever, and struggled to fit a widespread shutdown with no rallies, no slogans, and no organizational structure into their existing playbook. The main measures authorities could take during the movement were issuing notices debunking rumors, dispatching loudspeaker trucks, and urging merchants to reopen — all with limited effect.
This phenomenon is especially notable because it unfolded against the backdrop of an ever-tightening stability-maintenance apparatus in China. In recent years, grid-style social management, facial recognition, big-data early-warning systems, social media surveillance, and the close monitoring of “key individuals” have all intensified. In such an environment, large-scale collective resistance that depends on organization, coordination, and public assembly has become increasingly difficult to sustain. Data compiled by the “Yesterday” project and its predecessor, “Not the News,” bear this out: compared with a decade ago, both the number and scale of large-scale civil protests in China have declined markedly.
By contrast, the “avoiding the plague god” movement relied on almost none of these easily identifiable elements. Participants needed no organization among themselves, no fixed assembly point, and no unified list of demands. The movement spread mainly through longstanding tacit understanding among merchants and shared judgment of a common situation, rather than through formal organizational mobilization. As a result, many of the responses the stability-maintenance system has developed for organized action found little purchase against this movement.
At a time when large-scale marches, joint petitions, and organized resistance have all grown more difficult, this mode of action — centered on “noncooperation” and spreading through individual, autonomous decisions — deserves attention. Its barrier to entry is low: merchants need only choose not to open their doors; they need not reveal their identities or take on the risks of being an organizer. It is equally hard to stop, since what draws more people in is not a unified call but the same choice repeatedly made under similar circumstances.
Of course, decentralized action has clear limitations. Without unified organization or representation, participants struggle to form a common set of demands or enter into formal negotiation with the government. How long such a movement lasts depends largely on whether the underlying pressure persists. Once inspections ease and merchants reopen, the action tends to dissipate on its own, unable to sustain long-term pressure around deeper issues such as grassroots law enforcement or the fining system itself.
But in the current environment, this very limitation may be what allows the movement to endure. Without organizers, there is no one to target for a “targeted strike”; without unified demands, there is no single objective to suppress. In this sense, the “avoiding the plague god” movement may represent more than a single episode of merchants shutting their doors — it points to a mode of action gradually taking shape under high-pressure conditions: as space for organized resistance keeps shrinking, people can still express shared grievances through choices made independently yet in striking un
“Xi’an Sino-Gems Case, Continued: Citizens Defy Pressure to Attend Memorial, Heavy Police Presence Remains Outside Mall (July 5, 2026)”
On July 5, a memorial service for Yan Peng was held at the Xianning Hall of the Xi’an Municipal Funeral Home, with large numbers of citizens defying pressure to attend and pay their respects. Meanwhile, a heavy deployment of police and security guards remained stationed outside the Sino-Gems International Shopping Center. Amid the ongoing public boycott, the mall remained largely empty.
“Construction Workers Block Gate to Demand Wages at CSCEC Bureau 7 Site — Shenzhen (July 5, 2026)”
On July 5, in Futian District, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, workers at a project built by China State Construction Seventh Engineering Division — the southern headquarters building for Wumart Technology — blocked the site’s main gate, demanding the hard-earned wages owed to them.
Property Owners in Yantai, Shandong Protest Illegal Parking Fees, Tear Down Toll Barrier (July 4, 2026)
On the evening of July 4, at Jinhui Garden residential compound in Zhifu District, Yantai, Shandong, a property management company that residents had never hired installed a toll barrier at the compound entrance without authorization, intending to charge parking fees. The barrier had barely gone up before it triggered protests from residents, who tore it down on the spot. To defuse the situation, authorities deployed a large number of police to the scene to “maintain stability.”
Xi’an Sino-Gems Aftermath: Heavy Police Presence Continues as Boycott Empties the Mall (July 3–4, 2026)
On July 3 and 4, a heavy police and security presence remained outside Xiaozhai Sino-Gems International Shopping Center in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province. Due to a boycott by local residents, the once-bustling mall stood nearly empty even during Saturday peak hours. Even the influencer known as “Miss Sino-Gems,” who had long been a fixture at the mall, relocated to MixC.
On July 2 and 3 in Xi’an, Shaanxi, as residents continued arriving to lay flowers at the Sage Digital Mall, authorities treated the gatherings as a major threat, deploying large numbers of police to intercept people nearby. One delivery rider, found simply carrying flowers on a street far from the mall’s entrance, was surrounded by nine people — six police officers, two chengguan officers, and one unidentified man.
