China’s top spy agency has come out of the shadows to warn that its young people are being duped by foreign forces into shirking hard work and prioritizing their individual emotions at the expense of national development. It hasn’t landed well online.
“Young people are China’s future and have also become a primary target for ideological infiltration by hostile anti-China forces abroad,” says a handsome young man wearing military uniform in a video posted by the State Security Ministry’s official account last week.
The post warned young people to stay vigilant against “complex opinion traps” and any “lying flat” narratives that propagate the message that hard work is futile.
That hard work in China’s increasingly cutthroat economy is indeed futile is an opinion that’s been gaining ground in recent years – and is encapsulated in the phrase to “lie flat.”
The phrase apparently traces its origins to a 2021 post in an online forum run by Chinese search giant Baidu. The author of that now-deleted post suggested that instead of working one’s entire life chasing an apartment and traditional family values, people should pursue a simple life.
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