On August 31, San Zhi Yang Middle School in Du’an County, Guangxi, colluded with China Mobile to forcibly require students to use a facial recognition payment system in the cafeteria, charging a fee of 120 yuan. This sparked dissatisfaction among students and parents, who gathered in protest. Under pressure, the principal publicly announced that students would be guaranteed supper that day and that the collected fees would be refunded.
Translation: On Friday (August 29), thousands of laid-off private, substitute, and kindergarten teachers gathered at the Shanxi Provincial Department of Education, demanding that the authorities make retroactive social security contributions for them and grant them the same benefits as active teachers.
On August 28, as the new school term was approaching, construction workers who could not afford to pay their children’s tuition blocked the entrance of Fucangcheng Ziyuefu in Kunming, Yunnan.
On August 29, Liu Mingyao, the victim of the “wife-killing case” in Mengcun, Hebei, was laid to rest. Although the authorities deployed a large number of plainclothes officers to guard the site in the early hours of the day, thousands of netizens still came to bid her farewell. Those who tried to take photos at the scene were stopped by the plainclothes officers, and the few videos uploaded online were quickly removed.
Zhuhai Qisi Intelligent Manufacturing Co., Ltd. in Guangdong relocated its factory to Dongguan. In order to evade compensation, the company announced a three-month shutdown. On August 28 and 29, workers staged protests for two consecutive days to stop the company from moving out equipment. On the 29th, company security guards carried a female worker—who had come to demand her maternity pay—out of the factory.
Fujian Nanping New Vision Eye Hospital lured an 85-year-old woman to the hospital with the promise of a free check-up. However, not only was the check-up charged, but the hospital also deceived her by claiming she had cataracts and needed surgery, even grabbing her hand to force a signature. When her family went to the hospital (on August 21 and 28) to request a detailed bill, the hospital refused to provide it.
[Workers at Jiangsu Guanyun Electronics Protest Boss’s Disguised Layoffs to Avoid Social Insurance]
On August 27, the Yilu branch of Minghao Electronics Factory in Guanyun County, Jiangsu, announced another two-month suspension of work without any allowances, after already being shut down for two months. According to workers, Minghao Electronics has three branches. In two of them, the boss pays workers’ social insurance, but at the Yilu branch—located in a rural area where employees are older and earn just over 1,000 yuan per month—no social insurance has ever been provided. Recently, after the labor bureau required the boss to purchase social insurance for these workers, he declared a further shutdown, in an apparent attempt to evade his social insurance obligations and compensation responsibilities, thereby pressuring workers to resign voluntarily. Workers had requested a few hundred yuan in monthly subsidies, but were refused. They then appealed to the county government, which took no action.
“Liu Mingyao scored over 600 on the college entrance exam, yet chose to attend an ordinary college in Shijiazhuang just to be with Jin Hao, whose score was barely over 300.” “Less than ten days after their wedding, Jin Hao hit her for the first time. As a staff member of the Mengcun County Procuratorate and a trained sanda (Chinese kickboxing) fighter, he repeatedly apologized and promised to stop, but domestic violence became the norm of their marriage.” “Her lumbar spine, cervical spine, and ribs were fractured, her skull was shattered, and a rib pierced her lung. The dirt trapped under her fingernails showed she had clawed at the walls desperately in her final moments.”
On August 24, hundreds of people gathered in Xizhaohe Village, Mengcun County, Hebei, holding banners reading “Jin Hao’s family must pay with their lives for murder,” demanding justice for a young woman brutally killed by her husband. The victim, Liu Mingyao, after enduring years of domestic abuse, was beaten to death by her husband, Jin Hao. The case not only revealed the tragic trajectory from campus romance to domestic violence and murder, but also exposed to public scrutiny the collusion between a powerful local family and state authorities.
According to family members and people familiar with the case, Liu and Jin had been high school classmates. Although Liu scored more than 600 points on the college entrance exam, she chose a lesser college in Shijiazhuang to be with Jin, who had only scored in the 300s. What seemed like a romantic “sacrifice for love” quickly collapsed after marriage. Liu’s aunt recalled that within ten days of the wedding, Jin hit her for the first time. As a Mengcun County Procuratorate employee and trained fighter, he repeatedly apologized and swore it would never happen again, but violence became routine. After marriage, Liu quit her job to become a full-time mother. When she tried to work and regain independence, Jin stopped her, saying it was “shameful.” He also controlled the household finances. Friends said she was so frugal she refused to buy a dress that cost 399 yuan, spending almost everything on her child.
The trigger was Jin Hao’s extramarital affair. Multiple sources confirmed he had an affair with a colleague at the Procuratorate and got her pregnant. When Liu found out, she personally begged the woman to leave her family alone. Instead, the woman relayed the conversation to Jin, embellishing it further. On the early morning of August 22, after drinking, Jin returned home and beat Liu for hours. Surveillance footage showed signs of violence already in the elevator as they returned. Against Jin, a trained fighter, Liu was defenseless. According to netizens, he even used an iron rod. The prolonged assault left Liu with spinal, rib, and skull fractures; one rib pierced her lung. Dirt beneath her nails indicated she clawed at the walls in a desperate struggle. After the assault, Jin went to sleep, only calling emergency services at 7:08 a.m. the next morning. By the time Liu reached the hospital at 7:41, she had no heartbeat or breathing. “Her body was already cold, it wasn’t a failed resuscitation,” a friend said. Liu’s father choked up: “If he had called 120 in the middle of the night, my daughter wouldn’t be dead.”
Jin’s parents might also have prevented the tragedy. They were present during the incident and took the child away, yet for unknown reasons did not stop the violence.
The handling of the case by police further fueled public suspicion of corruption and injustice:
Delayed response: Liu’s father called police at 7:49 a.m. on August 22, but the Chengguan Police Station delayed, passing the case to the Criminal Police Brigade, wasting nearly an hour. There was a 40-minute gap between reporting and hospital transfer, and police failed to secure the crime scene promptly.
Evidence concerns: Police stopped family members from entering the apartment, claiming they might “contaminate the scene,” but Jin’s mother, Ms. Zhang, was allowed to enter freely. Family suspects she cleaned the scene, and traces of wiping were found.
Missing evidence: A surveillance recorder once attached to the refrigerator was missing its memory card. Police even asked the family to unlock Liu’s phone themselves.
Negligence: Even after Jin was detained, he managed to use his phone to contact others.
Netizens claimed Jin’s father had government connections and his mother was a B-ultrasound doctor at a hospital. The family held influence locally and may have interfered in the case.
The trajectory of the case seemed to confirm suspicions: though Liu’s body bore obvious trauma, the hospital initially issued a death certificate citing “heart attack.” Police only detained Jin on August 24, under public pressure.
That day, Mengcun County Public Security Bureau announced that Liu had died from “craniocerebral trauma caused by blunt force.” Jin Hao was arrested, as well as his mother, Ms. Zhang, for allegedly destroying and falsifying evidence.
Meanwhile, online posts and reports about the case were being massively deleted. Local netizens were even warned by police: “If you don’t delete it, you’ll be arrested.” The censorship only deepened public anger and distrust. What began as outrage over domestic violence expanded into doubts about the fairness of local justice and public authority.
For many, Liu Mingyao’s death is not only a tragedy of domestic violence, but also a mirror reflecting the vulnerability of women under marriage, institutions, and entrenched power structures. On platforms like Weibo, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu, despite widespread deletion, netizens continued archiving and reposting, demanding: “Investigate thoroughly and return justice to her.”
On the evening of August 26, in protest against the inaction of the property management, residents of Tianlu Shangcheng in Yuelu District, Changsha, Hunan, dumped garbage into the property office. According to residents, the dispute began when Word Property, the community’s property management company, tried to forcibly upgrade a construction waste dump site into a garbage transfer station. After residents refused, the company allegedly retaliated by delaying garbage collection and even spreading trash, leaving the community littered with waste. On August 27, under pressure, the community committee and the property management dispatched staff to clear away the garbage.
