China's New Weapon Against US: 'Kill Line' Propaganda

China's propaganda machine has found a new way to talk about American hardship, and it comes straight out of gamer slang. State-linked outlets and online commentators are fixating on the idea of a US "kill line"—a term borrowed from video games to describe a point of no return for a character—and repurposing it as a stark metaphor for American poverty, per the New York Times. In this narrative, once Americans slip below this invisible line, they're supposedly doomed to homelessness, crushing debt, and addiction, among other trials, with no realistic path back. The message: Americans live under a constant economic guillotine, while Chinese citizens are protected by a more humane system.

The focus on US misery isn't new in Chinese propaganda, but the "kill line" framing is, basically serving as "shorthand for what, supposedly, is wrong with America and right with China," reports the Economist. It took off after a November video on the Bilibili platform by a creator known as Squid King, who strung together bleak anecdotes from his time in the US, per the Times—hungry delivery workers, children knocking on doors for food on Halloween, injured laborers turned away from hospitals. State and nationalist media then amplified the phrase, using it to brand American capitalism's "real operating logic," citing everything from a Financial Times piece on wealth gaps in Connecticut to JD Vance's memoir Hillbilly Elegy as proof.

The campaign arrives as China faces its own economic strain: slower growth, high youth unemployment, meager rural pensions, and widespread fear of financial ruin from illness or job loss. Inequality and insecurity remain serious issues, even if visible homelessness is tightly controlled and kept largely out of everyday sight. By late December, the term had become official language, with state outlets like the Beijing Daily pushing "kill line" discussions on the Weibo social media platform, per the Times. Commentaries contrasted American anecdotes with China's basic health care and poverty programs, insisting that "China's system will not allow a person to be 'killed' by a single misfortune."

A Los Angeles resident tells Xinhua that he doesn't completely disagree with the Chinese stance. "I make about $100,000 per year, but the cost of living is so high now that my family is one paycheck away from a total disaster that could leave us homeless. We are the new working poor. It's insane," he says. More here.