China in crisis

China is facing its greatest economic challenge for many years, says Elliot Wilson. Journeying across the country, he finds silent factories, desolate shopping malls – and migrant workers in despair

Lu Guoyang thinks, hawks and spits into a small tin cup. His lop-sided eyebrows, half-concealed under a mop of unruly hair, wobble furiously as he speaks. ‘I’ve been home once in seven years, for a week, in 2006,’ he says. ‘That was the year my wife died. Since then I’ve just stayed in the north east, working in the day and sleeping as much as possible. In the evening I drink as much beer as I can take.’ His eyes are impish, but his expression turns sour when talk turns to toil. For the first time in eight years Lu has no job, nor the prospect of future work. Since December he has trolled the industrial cities of north-east China – Changchun, Jilin, Daqing, Benxi – asking for labouring jobs or seeking day-work in the coal mines, the most dangerous in the world.

Faced with the prospect of whittling away his wages in an alien city or becoming one of China’s 20 million itinerant migrant workers, he chose to return home. That’s where we meet, during a 30-hour train ride connecting north-east China with Xining, a desolate city in the dark, polluted heart of northwestern China.

Aged 45 (he looks 20 years older), Lu’s future work prospects are poor. What will he do? ‘Work on the farm, collect any handout I can get, and drink baijiu [a strong white spirit]. What else is there to do?’

His hardship story is replicated on an epic scale across China. In February, I journeyed across this vast country, starting in eastern Shanghai – a once-bustling export zone and China’s financial services centre – then north through Tianjin and Beijing before branching out west, to the grimy industrial cities of Wuhan, Zhengzhou and Lanzhou. I had traversed the country several times, but always when China was on the rise. Now, it faces its greatest economic challenge since the mass closure of state-owned enterprises in the late 1990s. This time, I found a country ill at ease and on the move.