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Cake day: April 30th, 2025

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  • China is communist

    Not really.

    Communist would mean the workers own the means of production. If they truely did, then they wages wouldn’t be so low while the west get to benefit from cheap labor.

    Rental properties still exist, landlords still exist. Usually the tenants are migrant workers from rural areas and the landlords are people who happened to have money to buy up few apartments in the city. (“Buy” is really a misnomer tbh, you’re buying the remainder of a 70-year lease term)

    When the tenants don’t pay, the landlord will keep calling you or put up a notice on your front door and keep nagging for you to pay. But if it last for a few months, the lanlord usually engages in self-help eviction. Waiting for the tenant to be not at home, then go in and change the locks.

    Sometimes, the public security bureau (police) will help the landlord if they have leases and can clearly show the tenant be in the wrong.

    Sometimes, they would also help the tenant retrive their belongings if the landlord didn’t give them the opportunity to get their stuff and just locked everything inside.

    Often times, the tenants would just leave before the landlord starts doing self-help evictions to “save face”.

    Court hearings for residential evictions are rare. Even most criminal issues (things like petty theft, simple assault) are settled outside of court. Things like fighting is just mediated by the public security bureau.

    This is assuming residential leases. Commercial leases would probably end in a lawsuit.

    As for what happens after evictions, I’m not sure about that. In China, most migrant workers would have an “ancestral home” that’s passed down each generation. its usually given to the eldest son, but if everyone already went to the cities to look for work, then it’d be empty and they’d just tell the elders who you were, hope someone recognize you and confirm your identity, and you then ask for the keys. If a family member is already home, then I guess you just knock on the doors and say hi. (Although, I’m not sure what happens if someone has multiple decendants and they all simultanesly got kicked out of the cities.)

    For those with Urban Hukou, I think they just have to go to a homeless shelter since they likely don’t have “ancestral homes”. Its a homeless shelter just like in the US, overcrowded and not fun to be in.

    This is anecdotes from people I know, I can’t find much news sources reporting on this. So take it with a grain of salt.

    For actual answers, internet searches isn’t gonna reveal a lot. Maybe go visit a Chinatown in the west and try to talk to a first-generation immigrant? (and bring a translator with you)