As we enter 2025, Chinese media outlets have continued the tradition of publishing op-ed pieces that pay tribute to the past year. But this year’s outpouring of vague and even confusing New Year’s pieces—most of which do not even mention significant news events that took place in 2024—have met with pushback from essayists criticizing these “tributes” as emblematic of the depressing state of reportage in China.
CDT Chinese editors have archived three recent articles, one censored, criticizing the increasingly vapid New Year’s tributes being published by large Chinese media outlets.
The first article, "Media Outlets’ Hackneyed New Year’s Tributes Show a Lack of Common Sense," was published by Xi Huajun on January 1 to the WeChat account “Professor Cao.” In it, the author notes that the most important domestic news events of the past year—including a scandal about rising natural-gas prices in Sichuan; a corpse-trafficking ring in Shanxi province; the alleged rape of a subordinate by a county Party-secretary in Jiangxi province; and the many people killed and injured in a vehicular attack in Zhuhai, Guangdong province—did not even merit a mention in these New Year’s tributes:
New Year’s Day 2025 has arrived, and when I turn on my phone, I am flooded with New Year’s tributes from major media outlets.
These New Year’s tributes dominate the headlines, bombarding the eyes and occupying the media outlets’ most eye-catching real-estate. It is impossible to escape them.
They somewhat dampened my hard-won joy at leaving 2024 behind, and lessened my desire to celebrate the new year.
These cookie-cutter tributes, with their hackneyed language and unvaryingly monotonous structure, carry more than a whiff of the formulaic "eight-legged essays" of the imperial examination system, abandoned over a century ago.
Even those New Year’s tributes that manage to cobble together a few new internet memes or online catch-phrases end up incorporating them in a way that sounds clumsy, forced, and gratuitous.
[…] What is disappointing is that over the past year, there have been so many incidents of note: the gas-meter scandal, the corpse-trafficking ring, the county Party-secretary [accused of raping a subordinate], the vehicular attack on a crowd of people outside a stadium in Zhuhai, etc. Each of these incidents should have been an opportunity for the media to guide public opinion, build consensus, and promote societal progress and improvement. The heartbreaking thing is that when these incidents occurred, the major media outlets were suddenly nowhere to be seen.
Even for as major an incident as the attack in Zhuhai, if you had read the local or national news the next day, it would seem as if nothing at all had happened.
The key point is that media coverage of such a major, shocking, and well-known event should at least have reflected societal opinion, allowed the public a glimpse of what the media ought to be, and avoided disappointing the public.
But instead the media, who have not even learned how to speak out on major news events, issued a slew of self-congratulatory New Year’s tributes.
Having read some of these tributes, I rather wish they hadn’t.
Because almost all of these tributes lack common sense, the kind of basic common sense that China as a nation has always advocated. [Chinese]
A January 4 WeChat article from “Coffee-loving Uncle” contrasts Southern Weekly’s vapid 2025 New Year’s tribute with its more trenchant and inspiring tributes from years past—commemorations that referenced important news events and recognized the hopes, dreams, and challenges that Chinese people would face in the coming year:
A friend sent me a link to Southern Weekly’s 2025 New Year’s tribute article. Even before I had read any of the article, the headline alone was enough to mystify me: "Define the World’s Algorithm by the Way You Live," it read.
Dear internet friends, can you figure out what the Southern Weekly is trying to say in this headline? It baffles even me, a relatively seasoned media professional, and makes me want to shout: “Why don’t you try making a f—ing bit of sense!”
Let’s take another look at the content [of Southern Weekly’s New Year’s tribute]:
“When a self-driving car rushes past you, when an LLM ‘writes’ your year-end roundup, when the magic of light and shadow ‘resurrects’ your loved ones, when your ‘virtual lover’ breaks up with you…”
[…] "Generative AI is iterating rapidly, and human-to-computer conversations are blurring the boundary between the self and the external world; the Nobel Prize has repeatedly favored AI, and robots have been imbued with ‘souls’; AI is being used to search for bodies on Russian and Ukrainian battlefields and in the rubble of Gaza; by modeling proteins and genetic structures, AI is helping to extend human longevity."
[…] Yes, this is the so-called "2025 New Year’s Tribute" from Southern Weekly. After reading it, many of my classmates, teachers, and friends shook their heads and said they had no idea what it was trying to say.
It is little more than linguistic trickery trying desperately to cover up the emptiness of its content.
It reflects a media outlet that has lost touch with its founding intentions and original mission.
It neglects to mention the rocky economy, and the people who are having a tough time making a living in that economy. It ignores their trials and tribulations; their blood, sweat, and hard work; their searing pain, their hope and despair, their deep sense of powerlessness. To all these things it turns a blind eye, as if those petty concerns had nothing to do with it.
It sees only machines, AI, big data, and algorithms, but no humans—no people with their flesh and blood and souls.
[…] Once upon a time, Southern Weekly showed concern for the individual and an ability to articulate the stories of people struggling to survive. This time-tested "formula for success" was the reason it resonated so deeply with the public. Southern Weekly, having lost sight of what is important and abandoned what once made it valuable, now occupies itself with pretending to be profound and engaging in verbal trickery.
"If you abandon the People, they will despise you."
"Always, there is a strength that brings tears to our eyes."
“Give strength to the powerless and hope to the pessimist."
"Each one of you is a hero."These words of wisdom from Southern Weekly’s past New Year’s tributes now read like elegies as darkness falls.
If you really can’t go on writing these New Year’s tributes, you don’t have to. Better to cease than to write such vapid and empty words.
Let’s have a moment of silence to bid farewell to Southern Weekly’s New Year tribute. [Chinese]
Lastly, a now-deleted January 6 WeChat article from journalist Lian Qingchuan (who once worked as a Southern Weekly reporter) excoriates that outlet for publishing such a meaningless New Year’s tribute at a time when Chinese citizens are grappling with anxiety and insecurity on a number of fronts:
What is there to commemorate about 2024? Our country, our society, and our era have experienced one calamity after another. Never before, it seems, have we been more vulnerable, more imperiled, or more beset by tragedy. In this dangerous world, in these dangerous times, we find ourselves buffeted by storms, with no protection or shelter.
[…] What is the purpose of these New Year’s tributes? To whom should we pay tribute? In 1998 and the many years that followed, the reason that New Year’s tributes from Southern Weekly and other media outlets were important—besides the fact that they were moving and inspirational—was because the country had promise, its citizens had a future, morale was high, and people were full of hope.
But we are going downhill. Everyone is in a panic, every industry is bleak, every field is in crisis, and every place is woeful. Only the People’s Daily has high morale, and only China Central Television remains safe, sound, and prosperous.
Southern Weekly once wrote that we must keep our finger on the "pulse of the nation" and pay attention to the people’s suffering. But as a [recent] popular saying goes: "Resist the desire to give advice; respect our national destiny." In other words, forget about keeping our finger on the pulse of the nation. As another popular saying goes, "In this era, a speck of dust landing upon an individual can weigh upon them like a mountain." In other words, we’ve given up caring about the people’s suffering.
In an era that cares nothing about the "pulse of the nation" or the suffering of its people, how dare you publish a New Year’s tribute?
In such a year, what you ought to do is to admit regression, failure, and the fact that things are getting worse, instead of publishing empty tributes or false flattery. Because only by recognizing regression, failure, and deterioration can you move toward progress, success, and improvement.
[…] There is no such thing as a middle-of-the-road, verbally gymnastic, or genuinely sympathetic tribute. All such tributes are disgraceful.
At a time when everything is going downhill, we should show some basic humanity by not publishing such "tributes." [Chinese]