The Chinese Couch Potato

| published July 21, 2026 |

By Bob Armstrong
Thursday Review contributor

Despite the continuing tension and clash of values between China and the United States, young people in both countries have a lot in common when it comes to evaluating their elders in power. How about stepping down? Better yet, die. On top of contempt for their leaders, young people on both sides of the Pacific Ocean question the economic and political system under which they live.

On one side students and start-of-life twenty somethings who have joined the workforce are skeptical of the twin engine of prosperity: unbridled capitalism along with individual rights trumping collective social arrangements. On the other side the young quietly snicker at the Communist Party's full-throated embrace of their Great Leader's slogan: "Xi Jinping's Thoughts on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.

The snickering includes a clever new way to stick it to the CP rulers. Chairman Mao once said "Revolution is not a dinner party." But no, today's kids say to Grandpa Mao let’s have a dinner party with plenty of Peking duck and rice wine. Let's enjoy ourselves and "lie flat." This phrase means rejecting the pressure to obey, conform, follow the rules and work long hours. Or maybe even take the extreme form of lying flat: Don't work at all. Behold the couch potato with Chinese characteristics. Pursue an easy-going lifestyle. With youth unemployment currently at 16.3 percent, economic and social successes seem out of reach. Reuters wire service reported that in 2024 over three million Chinese young people applied for 40,000 civil service job openings. Why humiliate yourself bothering to fill out an application? Why join the high stress high tech wave? Instead, ditch the rat race. Do the bare minimum to get by. (Does this sound familiar to American parents with teenagers?)

Lying flat is not going down well with the authorities in Beijing. Shirking hard work is tantamount to challenging the arbitrary power of the Communist Party. It is a serious threat to growth and stability. China's propaganda and counterespionage spy agency, the Ministry of State Security, sent out a warning calling on young people to buckle down and realize "a brilliant life can only be written through hard work."

This harangue only creates a backlash. Group chats and commentary on social media are filled with sarcasm directed at the Ministry of State Security. This does show that the spy catchers will brook some dissent. But for how long and to what extent remains to be seen especially since over the past five years the lying flat subculture has slightly penetrated into the mainstream with a cross-section of people agreeing with their youthful counterparts.

Lying flat emerged in 2021 as an informal social movement calling on youth to reject ambition and the social pressure to achieve workplace success. A post on the Baidu platform went viral with the title "Lying Flat is Justice." The author wrote "I can be like Diogenes who sleeps in his own barrel taking in the sun." The following year, 2022, President Xi in a report to the CP's National Congress, urged young people to forgo napping under the warmth of the sun and embrace the winter of discontent. Work hard, take responsibility, he said, adding the memorable injunction, "eat bitterness."

Nice touch. Sounds like Xi echoing one of the pithy Quotations from Chairman Mao in the little red book. For the lying flat crowd, eating bitterness is not on their dinner party menu. What is called the "996" work culture—9 AM to 9 PM shifts six days a week—has little appeal. During another speech at a university Xi urged students to "let youth blossom in the unremitting struggle for the motherland, the nation, the people and mankind." (Another Mao reminder: "Let a hundred flowers bloom...," which led to mass executions).

Working in Xi's favor is the simple fact that lying flat as a way of life has no future. Or as one internet user pointed out in a comment, "Lying flat is not surrendering. We are just momentarily bent—eventually, we will snap back."




Bob Armstrong is a journalist and writer, and the author of a new memoir, No Exit From Vietnam, available on Amazon; Armstrong is a frequent contributor to Thursday Review, and his writing has also appeared in the Washington Examiner.

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