As the title suggests, around mid-December, the term “kill line” in the United States became popular. An American international student, “Squiqi King,” shared his observations while working as a corpse collector, mentioning that many Americans are in poor financial situations, with high debt ratios, on the brink of bankruptcy. Once they encounter a difficult-to-cure illness, they can be directly pushed into bankruptcy or even death due to issues like massive medical bills, hospital appointment systems, social credit systems, image taxes, and opioid abuse. However, within this public opinion, there are many pinks who exploit the situation to vigorously promote China’s medical insurance and social assistance systems, even creating a term “China blood lock” to claim that as long as you can work in China, you can survive without starving, with a “very high tolerance for errors,” which is utterly absurd. What are everyone’s thoughts?
My assessment is that they are talking nonsense with their eyes wide open. They simply cannot see the current Great Depression of China’s economy, with many factories operating below capacity, and shopping malls even on weekends still experiencing sparse foot traffic. I don’t know how many workers are unemployed at home, relying only on the meager wages of other family members to survive; when I was working at a machinery factory in August, I learned from a worker that his family included his sister and parents, all unemployed at home, and only he was working. The factory worked ten and a half hours a day, with a monthly salary of 6200 yuan, and he still said it was too low, not enough for living expenses; this is in a relatively better job market city, while smaller cities in other regions are even more depressed. Moreover, even if there is work, it involves over ten hours of labor with extremely high intensity, yet wages are very low. Workers who keep their jobs to support their families sometimes have to voluntarily extend their working hours to earn a tiny amount of overtime pay. The increase in labor productivity reduces society’s demand for labor, with one person doing the work of two or even three, while capitalists pay only for one person, intensifying exploitation. As a result, unemployment among workers will worsen, and overall working conditions and treatment will decline. Three or four months ago, it was like this; now, it’s even worse. I don’t know how many workers will suffer injuries or disabilities under the high-intensity employment, unable to afford treatment or losing their ability to work, dying from lack of income. The social contradictions of capitalism ensure that the upcoming economic crisis will continue to erupt again before the previous crisis’s depression phase ends, and workers’ treatment and conditions will only worsen, with contradictions becoming sharper. To ease social tensions, imperialist wars will inevitably be launched, and by then, hunger and death will become more widespread phenomena among the broad masses of workers.
No wonder that when I previously interviewed at the factory, I met a female worker who felt her salary was not enough and asked the agency if there were any 12-hour, month-round, no-rest jobs.
In fact, the popularity of the so-called “kill line” topic is also an inevitable result of the rivalry between the US and Chinese imperialism. To attack each other, both China and the United States, as the two major imperialist countries, expose each other’s shortcomings. Aside from some exaggerated and distorted parts, the proletariat and workers can, to some extent, learn about the lives of the working people in other imperialist countries through their materials. For example, previously, US imperialism kept exposing the situation of the Xinjiang concentration camps within China, and some bourgeois self-media, such as YouTube channels like “Yesterday,” record spontaneous struggles of Chinese workers and farmers. These are firsthand materials. From the beginning of the year’s so-called Xiaohongshu big reconciliation to the current “kill line” topic, all reveal how miserable and painful the lives of the working masses are under American bourgeois rule.
However, among these events, people of different classes and different ideologies show completely different attitudes. For example, Chinese “Little Pink” fans celebrate wildly, claiming that the United States is a hell on earth (of course, it cannot be denied that no capitalist country is not a hell for workers, because capitalism itself is the root cause of all suffering), saying that Americans live very miserably, far worse than Chinese, and even mentioning “Chen Ping inequality” (i.e., 2000 RMB > 3000 USD) and other arguments. Their statements are entirely aimed at serving the purpose of the revisionist imperialist regime in the US, portraying the Chinese laborers’ hell as a paradise with “blood-lock” and “basic security in place.” This has already been countered and refuted, as it is a complete inversion of black and white.
On the other hand, some pro-American bourgeois liberals and traitors (referring to those who look down on Chinese people and insult them as pigs and beasts) strongly deny it, claiming that the US is a paradise and that the “kill line” is all false rumors. Some of these people are so furious that they even go to the extent of opening boxes of “Squicky King.” It is very funny that “Squicky King” is actually from a bourgeois family; he openly admits that if it weren’t for Miss Dong’s incident, he could have returned to China with a high salary and become a exploiter. The work he does now in the US, like corpse dissection, was secured through a recommendation letter from his professor, and his background is very strong. As an intern worker, his salary is already higher than that of some senior employees (or similar, I forgot the exact details). These bourgeois lackeys attacking Squicky King are truly “sons beating fathers” and “the water flooding the Dragon King’s temple, a family not recognizing each other.”
These people seem to shout loudly, but in reality, they are the most pro-capitalist. However, they do not support the capitalism of the Chinese imperialist bloc but support other capitalist groups, whether American or Japanese. If Chinese “Little Pink” fans are extremely shameless and hateful, then these people are equally shameless, hateful, and even disgusting. From a dialectical perspective, fundamentally, they and the Little Pink are essentially the same type of people—both are the most steadfast supporters of capitalism, only opposing each other (manifested as fighting fiercely over whether American capitalism or Chinese capitalism is better) but united in their support for capitalism, anti-China, anti-communism, and anti-people. Under certain conditions (for example, if they benefit from China), they will immediately switch from singing praises of the US to praising China. These people are, in essence, the most shameless political prostitutes.
Recently, I also discovered that the term “kill line” has been translated into “kill line” and spread back to the US. Many Chinese on American social media have asked American workers and petty bourgeoisie whether it is true. After reading some American pinks’ angry responses claiming it’s all bots and CCP rumors, most Americans say it is indeed true, and they relate it to their own experiences, describing how such things have drained the last coins from their wallets. This made me think that China is a superpower, and the US is also a superpower, but among these two superpowers, their working people live very miserably—because capitalism is our disaster!
Actually, it’s hard to say. Most likely, this person is just bragging. I think next time, it’s better to investigate the situation as thoroughly as possible before making any comments. Recently, his true identity was also uncovered; he is actually someone studying abroad at a community college in the United States. Although he should be bourgeois, he is among the smaller ones within the bourgeoisie, and his educational background upon returning to China isn’t considered very high.
It is like the bourgeois media, and those Chinese media are vigorously promoting it. How bad the American system is, how good the Chinese system is, and how it guarantees people’s lives. The American media, on the other hand, talks about how fifty steps are better than a hundred steps, that China’s situation is even worse, that China has no human rights, and that Chinese people themselves are still living in dire straits. Ultimately, regardless of which bourgeois media it is, they see no people in their eyes. Whether it is the lives and deaths of the American people or the Chinese people, they do not care at all. They only want to gain a favorable public opinion position in the imperialist competition, but this also only exposes their own ugliness.
Furthermore, among those who actually understand this matter, the majority are the small bourgeoisie with compassion. However, their compassion is spontaneous, and this kind of feeling for the working people is also bourgeois humanitarianism, which can vanish at any time. For example, I remember a netizen once said that he sympathizes with the American people not out of nationality, but as a “late-stage Homo sapiens” who feels distressed seeing his fellow humans being so cruelly harmed. This kind of class-detached statement ultimately can only spontaneously lean towards capitalism.
I had already heard of the term “China lock blood hang” before and felt it was ridiculous, because its definition is that although China has people so poor that they are impoverished and on the brink of death, the social security system can guarantee they do not die. This is not only untrue, but even if it were true, is that still something to be proud of? The premise is to admit that some people are destitute; since there are already people in dire poverty, how can comparing oneself to the U.S. make one feel superior? Such comparisons are excessively absurd (Xi Jinping already announced in 2020 that the country had achieved a moderately prosperous society in all respects, so promoting this again is like slapping one’s own face). This also shows that people who like to play with this meme do not really care about the lives of ordinary people, but only about whether they can “surpass the U.S.” Moreover, I think genuine poor people would not make memes describing the poor like this, because it is completely on the level of a hell joke. It seems that the little pinks are once again representing the Chinese people.
What does the kill threshold actually mean
It means that the American people are living in poverty. Once they encounter an unexpected situation or a major family crisis, they immediately go bankrupt and fall to the brink of survival.
Another version claims that this person also spread rumors involving female international students and accompanying mothers to promote the promiscuous woman logic, which caused a public outcry and has already tarnished their reputation.