From Warring States officials to modern tech workers, Chinese workers have long battled brutal hours
A Modern Crisis With Ancient Roots
In contemporary China, the so-called 996 work culture – describing a schedule of working from 9am to 9pm, six days a week – has become one of the most contentious labour issues of the digital age. The practice was thrust into global attention in 2019 when an anonymous protest post on GitHub, the Microsoft-owned developer platform, catalogued the human cost of 996 schedules in China’s technology industry and called for collective resistance. The post went viral, generating worldwide coverage and sparking debate within China’s tech companies about the sustainability and legality of punishing overtime expectations. The schedule is illegal under Chinese law, which limits working hours to eight per day and 44 per week. Yet it persists widely in the technology, e-commerce and financial sectors, often enforced through informal pressure rather than explicit contractual requirements.
The Warring States Origins of Chinese Overwork
What historians and cultural commentators have now documented is that overwork in China is not a modern pathology introduced by Silicon Valley-style hustle culture. It has roots extending back at least 2,200 years to the Warring States period, when official Dong He worked continuously through day and night while conducting diplomatic negotiations with a rival kingdom – one of the earliest recorded instances of extreme overtime in Chinese history. Ancient records from imperial China document merchants who rose before dawn and worked into the late night, deprived of adequate sleep, and officials who were expected to be available to their superiors at all hours as a demonstration of loyalty and competence. The harshness of historical work culture was enforced by punishments that would be unthinkable in any society governed by modern labour law. Laziness was a criminal offence in some periods. Dereliction of official duty could result in corporal punishment or imprisonment.
Imperial Pressure and the Individual
The relationship between overwork culture and political authority in China is not incidental. Imperial systems that demanded absolute loyalty from officials and subjects created a structural incentive to demonstrate that loyalty through visible, excessive effort. The bureaucrat who left work on time risked being seen as insufficiently committed to the emperor’s service. The farmer who rested was exposed to the accusation of not contributing adequately to the collective good. That logic – that individual time belongs first to the collective and its rulers, and only residually to the self – is recognisably continuous with the expectations placed on employees at Chinese technology companies today, where loyalty to the company is frequently expressed in the vocabulary of patriotism and collective mission.
Why This Matters for Hong Kong
Hong Kong has its own complex relationship with work culture. The city’s remarkable economic rise was built partly on a willingness to work intensely, and long working hours remain normalised in many professional sectors. But Hong Kong also has, at least nominally, stronger labour protections than mainland China, and its workers have historically had more legal and civil society recourse when those protections were violated. As Beijing increases its influence over Hong Kong’s institutions, including its labour regulation framework, the question of whether Hong Kong workers will retain the protections that distinguish them from their mainland counterparts becomes increasingly pressing. The International Labour Organization has published extensive research on the health and productivity costs of overwork, finding that long working hours are associated with significantly elevated risks of stroke, heart disease, depression and anxiety.
The Right to Rest as a Democratic Value
The right to rest – to time that belongs to oneself, to family, to civic engagement, to recovery and recreation – is a precondition of a functioning democracy. Citizens who have no time that is their own cannot meaningfully participate in the political life of their community. They cannot attend public meetings, volunteer with civil society organisations, educate themselves about public affairs, or engage in the collective action that sustains democratic governance. Amnesty International’s labour rights programme has documented how overwork culture intersects with broader human rights deficits in societies where workers have limited legal recourse against exploitative employers. The 996 protest on GitHub was an act of digital democratic expression – citizens using the tools available to them to speak truth about their working conditions. The 996.ICU project on GitHub remains a resource documenting Chinese labour rights and worker resistance. The fact that Chinese workers felt compelled to use an international platform outside Beijing’s Great Firewall to make their voices heard is itself revealing. Free societies do not require their workers to circumvent state censorship to complain about overtime.
Sin Yu Mak
Business & Consumer Affairs Journalist, Apple Daily UK
Contact: sinyu.mak@appledaily.uk
Sin Yu Mak is a business and consumer affairs journalist with expertise in market regulation, consumer rights, and small enterprise reporting. She completed her journalism education at a respected Chinese journalism institution, where she trained in economic reporting, data literacy, and ethical standards.
Her professional experience includes reporting for Apple Daily and other liberal Chinese newspapers on consumer protection, corporate practices, retail trends, and financial transparency. Sin Yu’s work emphasizes accurate interpretation of financial data and regulatory frameworks, supported by expert commentary and verified documentation.
She has operated in fast-paced newsroom settings where financial misinformation can cause real harm, giving her strong practical experience in verification and clarity. Editors value her ability to translate technical information into accessible, fact-based reporting.
Sin Yu’s authority is reinforced by consistent publication within reputable media organizations and compliance with editorial review processes. At Apple Daily UK, she delivers trustworthy business journalism rooted in evidence, professional discipline, and public-interest reporting.
