On 3 August 2025, Lianhe Zaobao published an article on Chinese youth seeking other opportunities in the countryside. SMU Associate Professor of Sociology Forrest Zhang Qian pointed out that an increasing number of urban residents are actively choosing to move to the countryside in China, particularly in rural areas surrounding urban agglomerations such as the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Chengdu-Chongqing, and Beijing-Tianjin regions. He analysed that this phenomenon is influenced by both push factors from cities, such as high housing prices, employment, and living costs, as well as pull factors from rural areas, such as superior ecological environments, emerging industrial opportunities, and increasingly improved infrastructure.
