More Chinese citizens have been driven to sell their blood to survive because of China’s persisting high unemployment rate and sluggish economy, as revealed by residents in different parts of China who spoke to The Epoch Times.
Beijing resident Chen Hong (pseudonym for safety concerns), who became a scavenger after losing his job, recently told The Epoch Times that many people are unemployed and have no food. Since 2023 and 2024, he said there have been many homeless people at Beijing West Railway Station who rely on selling blood to meet basic needs.
“Because they can’t even find the most basic daily-wage work, they have no money and no food. If you go to sell blood, they will give you food. Some people even sell blood once every two weeks,” the resident said.
Yang Dong (pseudonym for safety reasons), a blood broker in Beijing, told The Epoch Times on Feb. 10 that prices vary according to blood type.
“Currently, A and O blood are 800 yuan (about $116), and AB and B blood are 700 yuan ($101). The main problem is that A and O blood are in short supply because there are many patients who need A and O blood. I can connect with all the hospitals in Beijing to help with the paperwork and blood ‘donation’ appointments,” Yang said.
“Today I’m at the 301 Hospital,” Yang continued. “This hospital is generally for people with serious illnesses.”
The 301 Hospital has also served as a healthcare base for the top leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), responsible for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases for Party leaders and for all theater commands and branches of the military, while also treating civilian patients.
An article about the Majuqiao gig economy market in Beijing that has been circulating on the internet since January by independent journalist Li Banjiang mentions that those people who were using the gig economy market but couldn’t find work were desperate. It said that selling their blood became their last means to survive, and they were shouting “blood for sale, blood for sale” in the street.
The article cited an elderly man from nearby Hebei Province who said that most of the people at Majuqiao are laid off from factories when they reach a certain age, so they can only come here to find odd jobs. If they still can’t find work, they have to sell their personal information or even sell their blood to make a living.
Ping Sheng (pseudonym for safety reasons), a 39-year-old man in Guangdong Province, told The Epoch Times that before the COVID-19 pandemic, his company had invested over eight million yuan (about $1.16 million) for expansion in October 2019. However, due to pandemic lockdowns, his cash flow dried up, leaving him more than three million yuan ($433,949) in debt. Later, he developed kidney stones but couldn’t afford the three thousand yuan ($435) needed for treatment, and he had to sell his blood to survive.
“I’ve had my blood drawn several times, earning about two thousand yuan ($290). Now I can’t sell it anymore; they told me that I’ll die if I continue to sell blood,” he said. “The hospital can’t say it’s selling blood, because selling blood is illegal; they call it blood donation,” he said.
Blood Economy
The Chinese regime has banned selling blood since its implementation of Blood Donation Law on Oct. 1, 1998, which stipulates voluntary blood donation. The subsequent blood-selling business has been conducted under the guise of “voluntary blood donation.” Those who act as intermediaries in the blood-selling business and profit from it are known as “blood brokers.”
“It’s just like going to the hospital to donate blood and going through the normal procedures,” Yang said. “When you receive money, they say it’s for nutrition expenses.” Now there are many “blood donors,” including the unemployed and many migrant workers from the countryside.
Retired doctor Gao Yaojie (R) applies medicine to a villager’s arm while helping people from neglected AIDS villages in the central China province of Henan in an undated photo. Huge numbers of villagers have contracted AIDS or HIV by selling blood for money. STR/AFP via Getty Images
In the 1990s, the “blood plasma economy”—the illegal paid blood transfusions and donations business run and backed by local CCP authorities in Henan, which made the whole province a blood farm, led to a severe AIDS epidemic in China. Based on their investigation, medical experts and whistleblowers such as Gao Yaojie and Wang Shuping pointed out that the true scale of the epidemic was far more severe than what the officials acknowledged and that the impact would be long-lasting.
In recent years, as the Chinese economy has continued to deteriorate, more Chinese have had to sell their blood to survive, according to Chinese residents.
Tang Jingyuan, a U.S.-based current affairs commentator and a physician, told The Epoch Times that illegal blood selling has existed in China for a long time, “but it was previously conducted underground, and is now a semi-public illegal business. As the number of illegal blood sellers increases, it will severely damage the entire blood products industry.”
He said this reflects the massive unemployment caused by China’s huge economic downturn, forcing many desperate people to sell their blood just to survive.
“The fact that this illegal business has become an industry chain indicates the current disorder in the management of the entire society, which has entered a ‘semi-Mafia state,’” Tang said.
“Such a social phenomenon is actually an inevitable manifestation of a regime entering its final stage, the polarization of wealth, and the loss of control over social management.”
Ning Haizhong and Gu Xiaohua contributed to this report.
