Positive energy: the darker side of China’s social media catchphrase

Zheng neng liang was once little more than a fashionable online catchphrase, but its meaning has taken on a political hue

The death of a student raises a question: is something deeply negative hidden behind all that relentless positivity?

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Zhong Yusheng, 13, got into hot water for uploading videos of himself imitating teachers on the video-sharing platform Kuaishou. Photo: Handout

Maria Siow

Published: 2:00pm, 21 Jun 2020Updated: 2:13pm, 22 Jun 2020

Corrected [2:12pm, 22 Jun, 2020]

[2:12pm, 22 Jun, 2020]
An earlier version of this story inadvertently carried an image of writer Jinghua Qian imitating Zhong Yusheng. This story has been updated with an image of Zhong only.

The fates of the two Chinese children could not have been more different.

Zhong Yusheng, 13, and Miu Kexin, 10, were both reprimanded by educational authorities for not exuding “positive energy”, but while Zhong got away with a rap on the knuckles, Miu ended up losing her life.

This, in a country where the buzz surrounding the phrase has grown to the point where “positive energy” has come to be seen almost as a public duty.

When it first took off on Chinese social media a few years ago, saying zheng neng liang was little more than a fashionable way of describing feel-good movies or healthy lifestyle fads. But over the years, Chinese government authorities have made it their own, adopting it as a shorthand for everything from describing Communist Party policies to urging the public not to dwell on official shortcomings.

Increasingly, the phrase has gained traction in education too, as Zhong and Miu found out.

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