The part about naps and the disability quotas sounds pretty nice actually.
And they have a strong economy, what an interesting contradiction of capitalist logic.
There's so many 
moments in this.
this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2026
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The article seems pretty hostile to China, did not bother reading it all the way because of that.
That's precisely what makes it so valuable for sharing with libs who screech about China's work culture though.
I agree with StillNoLeft. This article is entirely hostile and actually frames the overtime underpay abuse of 996 as a positive ('hustle and industriousness'), and then just peddles in 'Communist bureaucracy inefficient and corrupt' anecdotes. It would be counterproductive to share this with libs as a myth busting article, imo
I find these are the kinds of articles they respond to. The key part of it is that it acknowledges 966 is not the norm, and whatever moaning it does supports that point. So, when libs smugly point out how people have to work crazy hours in China, this is a piece of acceptable media they will engage with.
"See, they're not actually all hard working, it's because they're actually mostly corrupt and lazy" <--- this is the thrust of the article, and I fail to see how that is a win if it 'dispels' one notion in order to actively entrench another. I appreciate the effort, but an article by James Palmer ain't it, I feel
But if that's the angle they take, you can just point out how China is running laps around the west technologically, in terms of production, infrastructure, and so on. So, if Chinese get to be 'lazy' and achieve all that, then that surely must be a sign of a superior system. If we're working hard, and we can't do these things, then what are we even doing?
Good point. I would maintain that the article itself didn't dispel 996 on its own (on my read it still presents it as the Chinese analogue to US hustle culture and, in so doing, as a postive counterpart to the laziness he attacks in the article) but the framing that you've added around it has "Well if they're lazy and can still lap us...", so yes, I understand how it is useful. I wouldn't drop this article on its own without those followups you mentioned above
It's mostly about being able to counter the 996 myth with a liberal source. A china friendly post will always be rejected as propaganda.
I also don't think it really entrenches a new myth of them being lazy. That would go against the narrative of the CPC being a totalitatian dictatorship, as naps, low quality work and late documents are not exactly part of that story. In that way, the new laziness myth would actually work against the rest of the propaganda which positions the entire population as mindless worker drones that don't have time to question their state.
I think I may not have thought out my comment as clearly as I could have.
The 'communist bureaucracy is corrupt and lazy' trope isn't novel. It has been on and off the boil as a major characterisation of China's government and work ethic across the years. So by 'entrenching' I probably should have said 'revisiting' or 'trotting out'. You only need to recall the pig iron example from the Mao era, where communues would under produce quality metal and officials would overrerport output to keep up with Five Year Plan targets. Libs are more than happy to trot that out (people lazy, officials corrupt) when critiquing the modern FYPs. They're reaching back in history to cherry pick the examples that they can then use to typecast the 'national work ethic' or trends to the current day.
Secondly, the characterisation of the current generation of Chinese workers as actively being lazy (偷懒/摸鱼/躺平 lie flat movement) has also cropped up recently, sometimes positively (people recognising they are in bullshit jobs and winning back their own time) or sometimes framed as quiet rebellion against the presumed crushing weight of the totalitarian system. I've seen more of the latter in lib media. They compare tangping lie flat to the Japanese hikkikomorri as an ipso facto symptom of a sick society, and then point the finger at the nebulous ills of the SeeSeePee. So the phenomenon is the same but the framing is different.
Libs will not allow themselves to be caught out by articles like this. This article itself has its own built in China bad through line. China is so vast that every criticism you can think has been leveled against it, and the right propagandists like James Palmer know when to take which one of the shelf to keep the main 'China bad' fire burning
archive link?
updated to add it