Workers throughout China are flooding the streets in revolt as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs slam the fragile Chinese export economy.
From the cramped streets of Sichuan in the southwest to the cold outskirts of Inner Mongolia in the northeast, furious workers are demanding back pay and protesting mass layoffs as factories shutter under pressure from Trump’s tariffs.
Outside a LED light manufacturing plant near Shanghai, thousands of unpaid workers shouted furiously at company managers over wages that haven’t been paid since January.
In central China’s Dao County, a similar scene unfolded outside a sporting goods store after the company abruptly shut down last week without paying employees.
In the northeast city of Tongliao, construction workers climbed onto rooftops and threatened to jump if their wages were not paid.
The wave of unrest follows a brutal plunge in China’s export orders, now at their lowest since the COVID lockdowns. Goldman Sachs estimates up to 16 million Chinese jobs could vanish as Trump’s tariffs bite deeper into the regime’s weak underbelly.
Trump said the tariffs placed on China are having their intended effect.
“They were making from us a trillion dollars a year. They were ripping us off like nobody’s ever ripped us off,” he stated. “They’re not doing that anymore.”
Huang Deming, a garment exporter in southern China, has already sidelined 30% of his workforce after three major U.S. clients walked away, the Wall Street Journal reported. Textile manager Qian Xichao said the internal market is so bleak that Chinese factories are locked in suicidal price wars just to stay afloat.
“To be frank, personally speaking, all we can do is go out and look for new opportunities,” Qian told the Journal.
The wave of anger sweeping across China today echoes the uprising in 2022 when Chinese citizens protested President Xi Jinping’s COVID lockdown orders. Xi’s forces quickly cracked down on dissent, leading to violent clashes across the country. China watchers anticipate Xi will take action again.
“Xi today has the same mentality as Mao. His bottom line is that no major crisis will be allowed to endanger his hold on power,” an adviser to the Chinese government told the Journal.
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