The Great Disconnect: Xi Jinping War Vision vs the 'Rat People' Generation
As Xi calls for a revival of the Long March Spirit, young "Rat People" — surviving on low energy and no hope — reveal deep cracks in the regime's control.
Facing the ever-increasing pressure of the tariff war, Xi and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) seems to have only one solution: shift the blame to the United States. At the same time, it demands that officials and citizens sacrifice themselves and actively prepare for war.
However, the sudden rise of the term and phenomenon of "Rat People" on Chinese social media raises an important question. Does the CCP still have the ability, as it did during the Korean War (1950–1953) decades ago, to send hundreds of thousands of young people to the battlefield?
CCP Revives Long March Rhetoric
As the US-China trade war rages on, a sense of despair permeates the entire CCP bureaucracy. Apart from calling on Party members to draw upon the so-called Long March Spirit and the Chosin Reservoir Spirit from the "War to Resist America and Aid Korea (Korean War)," Xi Jinping's proposed solutions also reportedly include large-scale confiscation of assets and wealth from purged officials and their families. These resources would be used to stabilize the regime amid economic decline and fiscal exhaustion, and to prepare for military operations around the Taiwan Strait.
The so-called Long March Spirit refers to the period before the CCP seized power. At that time, it was still an illegal organization facing repeated large-scale military encirclements by the then-legitimate Nationalist government.
Forced into a massive retreat, CCP members sometimes survived by eating wild herbs and tree bark. According to Party propaganda, there were even instances where they boiled and ate leather belts. Such scenes are frequently depicted in propaganda films and posters.
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4/29/2025
