Empty Promises: Hainan Free Trade Port Sealed, People Left Struggling

The Hainan Free Trade Port was never designed to be a place where ordinary people like you and me could strike it rich. Yet countless people were swept up by online hype. Convinced that once customs were sealed, Hainan would instantly become a land of effortless fortune. Believing gold would be everywhere, they rushed in blindly to start businesses and invest. But here is the cruel reality few are willing to admit. Many of them are likely becoming the first wave of chives to be harvested. On the third day after customs closure, bananas in Haiku were selling for 4.68 yuan per gin. While the same bananas on the mainland cost just 1.68 yuan. That contrast alone was an early warning sign. Hiding in plain sight. To see what was really happening, we went to Yangmugang to inspect the port area ourselves. Anyone can check the data. How many foreign oil companies are actually operating here? The answer speaks for itself. What we saw was not a bustling free trade hub, but a vast construction zone still unfinished. We spoke with local residents as well, and their conclusion was simple and unanimous. Nothing meaningful has changed so far. Many people continue insisting that housing prices in Hainan are bound to rise. Don't believe it. Look at reality. Housing supply has already far exceeded demand. Young people today would rather rent than drain six family wallets just to buy a home. Prices keep sliding, yet there are no buyers stepping in. Old, poorly maintained seaside apartments sit empty, with vacancy rates exceeding 50% in some areas. Expecting these properties to rise in value is pure fantasy. Customs may be sealed, but a basic bowl of soup still costs 10 yuan, and there aren't even eggs in it. Some say Hainan will become the next Hong Kong after closure. I moved here and saw none of that reflected in daily prices. People keep asking what has become noticeably cheaper since customs closure. The answer is simple. Almost nothing. I watched the news repeatedly, and all they talked about was durian. But what actually changed on day one? Ordinary people lining up to buy durian. Is that supposed to be progress? Even after so-called discounts, durian still costs 70 or 80 yuan per jin. That is not cheap. Seven or eight yuan per jin would be cheap. In reality, prices have not come down at all. The core problem in Hainan is persistently high prices combined with crushing logistics costs. Many of the goods I sell cannot even be shipped to Hainan because shipping fees exceed the product's value. If something sells for 10 or 20 yuan, how can it survive when shipping alone costs more than that? Logistics is Hainan's structural weakness. And here is a rule you should never forget. As long as a place is a tourist city, prices will never be low. Do not come to Hainan expecting cheap living. It simply will not happen. Some people claim imported goods will become cheaper after customs closure. That idea does not survive contact with reality. There is not a single tourist city that does not overcharge none. So stop fantasizing about escaping high living costs by relocating. From the perspective of an ordinary resident, what actually changed on the third day after customs closure? The most obvious difference was this. All the street vendors near my home disappeared. Yesterday, I wanted to buy a handheld fan. None available. Cold dishes gone. The pancake stall near Xinjia Camp also gone. The streets look cleaner now, but at a heavy cost. After the trade fair, vendors were banned from operating. Some vegetable market vendors even asked me if they could rent a room. Because once the fair ended, they needed somewhere to live. Now they are not allowed to stay at all and must move elsewhere. This has dealt a devastating blow to small vendors and micro businesses. In Haiku, I used to walk just 300 meters in any direction and find pig's feet. Pig's blood soup. Hainan noodles. Or old style tea. Food was everywhere, in every alley and side street. Why? Because these vendors operated on thin margins and low prices. Once they were pushed out, that entire ecosystem vanished overnight. Food prices today are shocking. Pork belly I bought recently costs 6 yuan per jin. Yet spinach costs even more than pork. Everyone says Hainan is expensive, but now it has reached absurd levels. Two apples cost 15 yuan. Tomatoes cost 10 yuan per jin. People earn fifth-tier city wages but pay first-tier city prices. University graduates earn just 2,000 to 3,000 yuan a month, with rent alone swallowing half their income. And if you complain, people tell you, if it's too expensive, just leave. Instead of fixing the problem, the solution seems to be removing the people. Local Hainan residents largely feel indifferent toward customs closure because they have gained nothing from it. All I care about is whether tomorrow I can buy five apples instead of two for 15 yuan, or tomatoes for two or three yuan instead of 10. That is my modest wish. So what impact has customs closure really had on ordinary people? Honestly, almost none. Hainan has gone through these cycles before intense hype at the beginning, followed by silence. You do not need to listen to official slogans. Bluntly speaking, the goal has always been to turn Hainan into a zone to stimulate tourism and consumption. Yes, some taxes are waived, but prices remain stubbornly high. Take the iPhone as an example, a 256-gigabyte iPhone 17 Pro sells for 8,030 yuan at Hainan duty-free stores. Check any e-commerce platform and you will find similar prices, sometimes lower. Only high-end luxury goods show noticeable discounts. But how many people travel to Hainan just to buy luxury bags? And that hardly revitalizes tourism. We visited Hainan last year to look for new projects and business opportunities. Aside from a handful of duty-free stores, vitality was scarce. A region's economic health shows most clearly during the new year whether people gather, spend, and celebrate. Walking along Hainan's famous east coast, I felt almost no festive atmosphere at all. Look at Hong Kong today, the festive energy has faded there too. As for the Hainan Free Trade Port, it can be summed up in eight blunt words. No luck, no breakthrough, no future. Data shows Hainan has increasingly become a destination for domestic tourists to cut back on spending rather than indulge. Its economic ranking sits near the bottom nationwide, only marginally ahead of Tibet and Qinghai. Analysts describe it as a peripheral region lacking talent concentration, industrial depth, and a resilient ecosystem. The current decline feels less like a cycle and more like a prolonged downturn. Once-thriving areas such as Yixing Square are now largely shuttered. Zimaoport still looks bright at night, but inside it is empty. Formerly crowded railway zones and night markets are mostly closed. In Guimao, housing prices have dropped sharply, something that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Local business owners say conditions worsen every year. People leave because they cannot find work, and newcomers who fail to find jobs leave just as quickly. Making money has become extraordinarily difficult. People are trapped, unable to move forward, yet with nowhere left to retreat. Finding a job in Sanya has become exceptionally difficult. This is a city built almost entirely on consumption. People come to eat, relax, and spend. Most businesses revolve around food, hotels, and tourism services, but the fatal weakness is seasonality. If you can only make money for one or two months a year, can that really sustain a life? For many, the answer has already become painfully clear. This winter feels profoundly abnormal. In previous years, people began arriving in Hainan as early as October to escape the cold. This year, parking lots sit half-empty. Recreational vehicles and cars with plates from Beijing, Sichuan, and Hubei have all but vanished. Beaches that were once packed are now eerily quiet, and the streets of Haiku are lined with shuttered shops. Therefore, rent signs gathering dust. Some people wait an entire week without finding a single day of work. If there is no job, you wait because there is nowhere else to go. If you are lucky, you might have 10 yuan in your pocket today. Buy a couple of buns and survive another day. Some people sleep at construction sites because they cannot afford rent. Many are migrants from Heilongjiang and other northeastern provinces, pushed south by cold winters and empty job markets, only to find the same despair here. Even noodle shop owners say fewer customers are willing to add beef. Farmers do not know where to sell their produce. Night markets are hollowed out, with more vendors than buyers. The lights are on, but the crowd is gone. Commentator Zhai Tian has pointed out that the Hainan Free Trade Port is one of Xi Jinping's so-called face projects as China's broader economy slows. The bubble surrounding Hainan's free trade zone appears increasingly destined to burst. With tighter economic control and mounting pressure on private enterprise, and without genuine rule of law or market freedom, the Free Trade Port feels hollow much like many other failed megaprojects before it. Its outlook is dim. Hainan has lived through grand illusions before. In 1988, it became a province and a special economic zone, drawing massive capital inflows fueled by dreams of an eastern Hawaii. But the real estate bubble collapsed in the early 1990s, compounded by financial crises, and Hainan never truly recovered from that blow. Most telling of all, a massive tourism retail membership store in Sanya, launched with great fanfare in December 2023, quietly shut its doors in less than two years. Netizens remarked bitterly that even Hainan's largest duty-free store could not survive. Once again, a promised Chinese dream dissolved into a familiar nightmare, reminding investors how quickly reckless policy visions can turn ambition into a financial graveyard.