When the Chinese term first emerged in popular culture in China a few years ago, the initial application was to Chinese students and young people trapped in highly competitive schools and jobs that ...

Last September, a student at Beijing’s élite Tsinghua University was caught on video riding his bike at night and working on a laptop propped on his handlebars. The footage circulated on Chinese ...

Continued involution would undermine China's ambition to move up the value chain via 'new productive forces' In economic policy documents, Beijing's leadership used the term "involution", neijuan in ...

The word “involution”, or neijuan – referring to excessive competition in social and economic life – has become a common slang term in China. Students, workers and even business leaders have been ...

For some years now, the Chinese economy has faced what has locally come to be called nêijuân, or an involution. It is a process in which rivals in certain sectors indulge in price wars, attempting to ...