The startling rise in unrest reflects the increasing pressures in China’s economy, particularly on low-paid workers. For decades, people have flocked from China’s countryside to booming cities to chase dreams, opportunities and incomes that could transform their lives and those of their families back home.

But as China’s development enters a new era of slower growth and the country battles “involution” – a downward spiral in the economy that means people have to work longer hours for less pay – many of those internal migrants are giving up on their big city dreams.

The pressure comes from two directions.

Firstly, struggling local governments, which collectively are estimated to be saddled with at least 44tn yuan ($6.2tn) of debt, need money for public services and to pay salaries. This incentivises local officials to seize land. Even though the property sector has plummeted the seized land can still be used as collateral to get new loans – despite their eye-watering levels of existing debt.

Secondly, another trend that has the potential to foment dissatisfaction in China’s rolling countryside is the return of migrant workers from China’s cities. While there is no official data on this trend, anecdotes abound. Hengyang county in south China’s Hunan province saw around 183,000 workers return home for this year’s Spring Festival, with more than 40,000 of them staying there, according to one recently published paper.