Opinion | Why China is cracking down on ‘involution’

The word “involution”, or neijuan – referring to excessive competition in social and economic life – has become a common slang term in China. Students, workers and even business leaders have been feeling overworked, stressed and unable to find a way out of huge external and internal pressures.

This usage of the term has its roots in the work of anthropologists who employed it to describe conditions in rural societies where increasing labour inputs did not seem to yield tangible benefits. The term became popular on Chinese social media in 2020, particularly in relation to students being pushed by their parents to spend more time on preparing for competitive examinations.

Gig workers who operate on a “996” work schedule – 9am to 9pm, six days a week – feeling the intense pressure of making deliveries on time but not seeing much, if any, benefit to their income is an example of this dilemma. The Chinese capacity to work harder and longer hours than anybody else has been part of the nation’s resurgence in competitiveness in export industries, notably in electronics, consumer products, electric vehicles, batteries and the like.

At roughly the same time, the phrase “lying flat”, or tang ping, emerged among young people on social media. This was a signal of passive resistance to jobs requiring 996 or even “007” – midnight to midnight, seven days a week.

As China’s competitiveness in global manufacturing increased, the term involution became associated with overproduction, price wars and cutthroat competition. Given China’s unique approach of encouraging internal competition between cities and provinces to drive efficiency and productivity, including using innovation and raising product quality, involution has led to deflationary pressures, profit erosion and a race to the bottom in product pricing.

While this is good for consumers in terms of product choice and pricing, there is concern over excessive investment in industries with overcapacity. Thus, a degree of involution through exports could lead to importing countries complaining of excessive competition, product dumping and protectionist measures such as tariffs and import quotas.