China’s National Bureau of Statistics announced it would suspend the release of youth unemployment data. Currently, China’s youth unemployment rate remains high, consistently breaking records. A substantial number of young people find themselves “unemployed upon graduation.” (Video Screenshot)
[People News] In the economic winter of China in 2025, the wave of unemployed migrant workers returning to their hometowns has become a sensitive topic. Official data show that millions of migrant workers are returning home early, and the reasons behind this are not only factory closures and low wages, but also structural problems in the entire economic system.
Hengyang County in Hunan Province expects that after the 2026 Lunar New Year, 183,000 migrant workers will return home, and more than 40,000 of them will be unable to return to their jobs. This wave of returning home is no longer a simple seasonal flow, but a large-scale phenomenon of “being stuck in the hometown,” triggering alarm at the central government level. Why is the regime under Xi Jinping so fearful of unemployed migrant workers returning home? Starting with the concept of “malicious return home,” this article explores the plight of unemployed migrant workers, policy changes, and similar historical lessons.
I. What Is “Malicious Return Home”?
The term “malicious return home” first originated during the zero-COVID policy period in 2022, when some local governments stigmatized people who insisted on returning home from medium- and high-risk areas as “malicious,” and threatened detention after quarantine. For example, a county head in Henan publicly warned: “If your health code changes color, regardless of the reason, detain first and quarantine—no malicious returning home allowed.” Central media criticized this as an abuse of power, questioning the standards and legal basis. Netizens mocked the authorities’ arbitrary trampling of people’s rights with phrases such as “malicious petitions” and “malicious wage demands.”
Today, under the backdrop of economic recession, “malicious return home” seems to have been resurrected, now used to describe migrant workers who “chaotically” flow back due to unemployment. What the authorities fear is that this return is not an orderly entrepreneurial trend but something that may trigger social unrest. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs admits that “large-scale returning-home stagnation” is out of control, with tens of millions of migrant workers unable to stay in the cities but also unable to return to a viable rural life: their land is gone, and their pensions amount to only 200 yuan. This is not mere stigmatization, but a precaution by the regime against potential instability.
II. Where Should Unemployed Migrant Workers Go After Returning Home?
Migrant workers are the cornerstone of China’s economic miracle—300 million people sustaining urban construction and manufacturing. But now, with global demand weak, export orders shrinking, and domestic overcapacity, waves of business closures, unemployment, and layoffs are erupting. After losing their jobs, they can hardly survive in the cities—rent is high, living costs are rising, and they lack social safety nets. Returning home should be a natural choice—to farm, take care of family, or look for local opportunities. But reality is harsh: rural land has been consolidated, and many have “lost their land,” making it difficult to make a living.
If they don’t return home, where else can they go? Cities have become battlegrounds where they are “lambs waiting to be slaughtered”—wage arrears are rampant, and business owners are running away. The authorities deployed special operations three months ahead of schedule to prepare for the returning-home wave precisely because they fear that these workers, “with nowhere to go,” will express their discontent. Discontent with the current regime has become mainstream. If large-scale return to poverty happens, migrant workers may “rise in revolt.” This is not an exaggeration, but the genuine fear of grassroots officials: large-scale return flows could collapse rural order and paralyze labor-intensive industries.
III. Didn’t the Government Previously Encourage Returning-Home Entrepreneurship?
Indeed, for decades, the government vigorously encouraged migrant workers to return home to start businesses. In the early 1990s, underdeveloped regions began to focus on returning-home entrepreneurship, and after the turn of the century, as industries shifted inland, central and western provinces introduced supportive policies. In 2015, the National Development and Reform Commission reported that 2.42 million returning migrant workers created 260,700 small and micro enterprises. Central directives stipulated that returning entrepreneurs were entitled to favorable policies in land use, business registration, tax, and financing. In 2016, the number of people engaging in returning-home entrepreneurship reached 5.7 million, 80% of whom were involved in integrated projects such as specialty farming, agricultural processing, and e-commerce.
These policies stemmed from the idea of “leaving the land but not leaving the hometown,” and township enterprises between 1978 and 1991 absorbed 6.217 million rural workers per year.
Returning-home entrepreneurship was seen as the third path of rural revitalization, leveraging the skills, experience, and capital accumulated by migrant workers in the cities. But today, policies have shifted to preventing “disorderly return flows,” because economic downturn has worsened the entrepreneurial environment: infrastructure is insufficient, and land policy supply is lacking. This shift from encouragement to fear reflects the anxiety of the Xi Jinping regime about maintaining control.
IV. Which Dynasty in Chinese History Feared Farmers Returning Home From Outside?
Throughout Chinese history, many dynasties collapsed due to unrest sparked by displaced farmers returning home. At the end of the Qin dynasty, the uprising of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang stemmed from the suffering and exploitation of conscripted farmers—they rose up and overthrew the tyranny. The uprisings of the Xin, Pinglin, and Red Eyebrows during the Han dynasty were also composed mostly of displaced farmers driven by famine and land consolidation.
The most typical case is the late Ming dynasty. Land consolidation was severe, and officials such as Xu Jie and Gao Gong occupied tens of thousands of mu of land, leaving farmers destitute. When unemployed farmers returned home and faced landlessness, they turned to rebellion. The peasant armies led by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong—displaced masses—captured Beijing and ended the Ming dynasty. At the end of the Yuan dynasty, the Red Turban Rebellion also arose from the poverty and resentment of farmers returning home after working outside.
These historical lessons demonstrate that governments often fear farmers returning home only when a dynasty is close to collapse, because it often signals the decline of the dynastic cycle: economic exploitation and political oppression trigger peasant revolutions. The Song dynasty was relatively lenient but still faced issues of wealthy landowners and peasant uprisings. Peasant uprisings in the Shaanxi–Gansu border region during the Qing dynasty ultimately contributed to the rise of revolutionary bases.
V. The Fear Comes From the Instability of the Xi Jinping Regime
The reason Xi Jinping’s regime fears unemployed migrant workers returning home lies in the fact that contemporary Chinese society is like a powder keg filled with explosives. In rural areas, violations of law and discipline by local cadres occur almost daily. In the past, villagers with culture and knowledge were all working in the cities, and those left at home were mostly the elderly, weak, women, and children, who could only allow rural officials to run rampant.
But now, these unemployed “elites” of the villages, who have suffered injustices, are returning collectively—some having lost both land and jobs—and are about to settle back in their villages long-term. This poses a major problem: many village rules will have to change. Especially when these returnees learn that their families were bullied by village officials or that their homes were forcibly demolished, or even that these officials slept with their wives—imagine, would this not lead to bloodshed?
China has 300 million migrant workers. At a 30% return rate, that’s 100 million people. Once large-scale stagnation in the countryside occurs, it will inevitably overturn the current rural social structure, and the veil covering the crimes of Xi Jinping’s authoritarian rule will be completely torn off in rural China. In this reality, local village officials facing unemployed returning migrant workers are like Ximen Qing and Pan Jinlian in Water Margin fearing the return of Wu Song. On a small scale, a wave of village officials in China may die; on a large scale, these returning migrant workers may push the CCP regime to its final years.
History repeatedly proves that dynasties that ignore the plight of farmers cannot escape destruction. In today’s China, if structural unemployment and rural decline are not resolved, the returning-home wave may become the fuse leading to the downfall of the CCP regime. Yet if the CCP does not allow farmers to return home, then where should they go? Besides, it is natural and proper for farmers to return home after losing their jobs—what crime is there in returning to one’s own home?
(Source: Author’s X Account)
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