December 25, 2024 – Today is Christmas Day. Mainland Chinese people have noticed a different atmosphere this year compared to the previous years when the Christmas spirit seemed to be lacking. Analysts believe that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has only relaxed commercial activities due to the collapsing Chinese economy. The population is struggling to survive, and the CCP fears that an economic crisis could evolve into a political crisis; Beijing lacks confidence in anything symbolic of Western culture.
In the past, there was a lot of resistance to foreign festivals like Christmas at this time of year. But this year, it seems like suddenly no one cares about Christmas. Mr. Wu from Guangzhou told Radio Free Asia, “Definitely the government doesn’t seem to be guiding or controlling the situation anymore, so those internet trolls and government-paid commentators may have lost interest in it.”
But why is the authority no longer openly opposing the celebration of foreign holidays this year?
Mainland dissident Mr. Chen pointed out that this is related to the country’s economy: “With the high unemployment rate and the economy on the verge of collapse, the social crisis caused by this economic crisis could easily turn into a political one.”
The economic downturn has led to sustained weak domestic demand. Official statistics for November 2024 show that China’s total retail sales of consumer goods amounted to 438 billion yuan, a mere 3% increase compared to the previous year. This marked a significant drop of 37.5% from October when the figure was 4.8%, and was 1.6 percentage points below the market’s expected 4.6%. At the same time, consumer spending in Beijing and Shanghai also saw substantial declines in November: 14.1% and 13.5%, respectively.
Furthermore, recent data indicates a rapid outflow of foreign capital from China. In November, the net outflow of cross-border securities investment amounted to a record high of $45.7 billion. Despite the CCP’s repeated calls for “opening up to the outside world,” this trend persists.
Former mainland media figure Mr. Zhao told Epoch Times that the entire Chinese economy is in a state of collapse now, with foreign capital leaving and weak domestic demand making it difficult for China to recover its previous economic growth trend.
“Whether it’s the collapse of the real estate market or major infrastructure projects, it will only lead to increasingly terrifying economic decline, and there is no end in sight. You simply cannot see any hope for its future.”
In recent times, there has been a surge in protests by the public. A report released by the human rights group “Freedom House” in November recorded 937 protest events in China in the third quarter of this year, a 27% increase compared to the previous year.
Mr. Chen believes that “the CCP is also afraid. I estimate they are like sitting on a volcano, fearing that at any moment there could be another movement like the White Paper Movement at the end of 2022, which led to the end of the CCP’s zero-COVID policy.”
Regarding the reversal in the official attitude towards Christmas this year, overseas political commentator Mr. Xing analyzed, “I think what it shows is that the CCP has softened its stance, simply not actively promoting the opposition to foreign festivals. While the media is not reporting on this aspect, local public security forces remain on high alert to prevent religious gatherings and activities.”
For instance, on December 19th, Vice Minister Xiao from the Qiu Yu Holy Covenant Church in Chengdu was summoned by the police from the Wenjiang District Public Security Bureau for inviting others home for a meal to celebrate Christmas, under the pretext of “conducting religious activities under the name of a revoked social organization.”
“So fundamentally speaking, the CCP has not fundamentally changed,” Mr. Xing said.
Since Xi Jinping came to power, the CCP has emphasized “cultural self-confidence” and the official move to resist Christmas celebrations has become increasingly common. In 2018, several Chinese higher education institutions and primary and secondary schools explicitly forbid students from celebrating or even discussing Christmas on social media. Several local governments in provinces such as Hebei, Guizhou, and Guangxi issued prohibitions against businesses displaying any Christmas decorations.
In December 2023, Radio Free Asia reported that schools and kindergartens in Guangdong, Fujian, Heilongjiang, and other provinces required students and parents to reject celebrations of Christmas and New Year’s Eve; in some regions, authorities even banned gatherings of house churches to celebrate Christmas. Some netizens cited a spokesperson from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mao Ning, stating that China did not have “Christmas Eve,” only the 73rd anniversary of the victory at Chosin Reservoir battle on December 24.
Mr. Xing mentioned that the CCP’s official resistance against foreign festivals primarily aims to block the influence of Western culture and prevent Chinese people from being attracted to it. In essence, the CCP sees it as a threat to its communist ideological values.
“This is fundamentally its fear of the free and democratic ethos of the West. Through the entry of Western culture such as foreign festivals, it creates a sense of familiarity among the Chinese people with Western culture. Therefore, they use this means to isolate it and draw a political line, making the Chinese people afraid and avoiding contact with Western culture.”
This stands in stark contrast to the United States’ recent efforts to promote a “Chinese New Year.”
For over a decade, whether it was former US Presidents Obama, Trump, or current President Biden, each year they would publicly release Lunar New Year greetings, hang large red lanterns in the White House, and share Chinese New Year gifts with their Asian-Pacific colleagues, celebrating the Lunar New Year’s Eve.
US-based political commentator Mr. Tang told Radio Free Asia, “This truly reflects a genuine sense of confidence, which is inclusivity toward different cultures.” He mentioned that true Chinese traditional culture also embodies this inclusivity, while the CCP, under the guise of “cultural self-confidence,” is actually destroying Chinese culture.
“It uses cultural self-confidence as an excuse to resist universal values or factors related to human rights. Its so-called true confidence is to defend the CCP’s own authoritarian, distorted red ideological values.”