(SINGAPORE 2026.5.7) A wave of widely reported sudden deaths among Chinese tech workers in late 2025 and early 2026—most notably the case of 32-year-old Guangzhou programmer Gao Guanghui (高广辉)—has reignited national debate over China’s entrenched culture of overwork.
Gao’s case is now seen as a potential turning point after authorities reportedly ruled that his death late last year was work-related. The decision has drawn renewed attention to earlier incidents that were previously dismissed as not connected to work conditions. It may also signal a shift in how such deaths are legally interpreted and recognized in China going forward.
On a Saturday in November 2025, Gao suddenly collapsed inside the elevator of his apartment building in front of his wife, Yang Huasi (杨华思). The official cause of his death was cardiac and respiratory arrest.
What made the case especially harrowing was that, while Gao was being resuscitated, his phone continued to receive messages from clients urging him to update project progress. Yang told reporters that her husband regularly worked extreme hours. On weekdays, he was often so sleepy that he was awake at home for less than two hours a day. In the period leading up to his death, she said, he had been completely exhausted, and even his personal WeChat account had effectively been taken over by work messages.
This year, Yang received an official ruling from the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau of Guangzhou’s Huangpu District recognizing Gao’s death as work-related. The document stated that, after considering factors such as his working hours and job position, and reviewing all available evidence, the circumstances met the criteria under Article 15(1) of China’s Work-Related Injury Insurance Regulations, and the death was therefore classified as work-related.
However, there has so far been no public information on how Gao’s family will be compensated.
A human resources and social security bureau is a local branch of China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, which is responsible for labor policy, pensions, and work injury adjudication
Article 15 of China’s Work-Related Injury Insurance Regulations provides that employees who suddenly die from illness during working hours and at the workplace—or who die within 48 hours after emergency resuscitation fails—may be treated as having died from a work-related cause, noted IT Times (IT时报), a Shanghai-based publication.
In practice, however, defining “working hours,” “the workplace,” and the “48-hour rule” has been a complex task, often leading to delayed and disputed rulings. Courts have also frequently issued inconsistent interpretations, IT Times pointed out.
Some rulings have taken a broad view, holding that “working hours” may include needed short breaks during work for recovery of energy, thus treating these as a continuation of working time rather than off-duty rest.
Other decisions have taken the opposite approach. In one case, an employee died from heart attack while eating breakfast in a dormitory, and the court ruled that a dormitory was a place for personal life and rest rather than an extension of the workplace. Hence, the death could not be attributed to work.
In another case involving 26-year-old architectural designer Feng Yulang (冯宇浪), disputes also arose over the definition of “workplace.” The Human Resources and Social Security Bureau in Yulin, Shaanxi province, ruled that Feng was not “at his post” when he died in July last year.
According to his wife, Feng had been working late for most of that month, often tackling tasks past midnight. However, the bureau cited company records showing that he had been playing online games between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. on that fateful night. While he was in the office at that time, officials concluded that he was engaged in personal entertainment and had rested on a folding bed, and therefore not “at his post”.
His wife disputed this interpretation, arguing that gaming was his way to rest and recover so he could continue working. She also pointed to the design software programs opened on his computer then, which proved he had been at work. The case went to trial on April 10, 2026, and a final ruling has not yet been announced.
On December 27, 2025, 37-year-old Zhang Liang (张亮), an engineer at Beijing Fanghong Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (北京方鸿智能科技有限公司), met friends for a simple meal before returning to work. As he stood up to leave, he suddenly felt unwell, collapsed, and later died despite emergency treatment.
According to his wife, Cai Xiaodan (蔡晓丹), Zhang’s workload had increased significantly after his company secured a major project. He routinely worked late into the night—often until after midnight —and had little rest, with weekends and holidays often consumed by work. Just days before his death, he had returned from a demanding business trip involving physically taxing field test works.
In February Cai signed an agreement with Zhang’s employer in which the company promised to assist in securing a work-related death determination, provide his attendance and payroll records, and supply insurance documents. However, in March, the company informed her that its parent group did not agree that the death qualified as work-related and advised her to submit the claim herself. It also stated that it had never arranged overtime for Zhang.
Lawyer Chen Danfeng (陈丹峰) of Shanghai Zhengce Law Firm said there were facts in favour of Zhang’s family, including Zhang had been actively working that morning concerned and had continued receiving work-related messages even after his collapse. He noted that courts have increasingly accepted electronic records such as chat logs and email timestamps as evidence of overtime work.
Also, under China’s regulation, when an employer disputes a claim, the burden of proof shifts to the company. That means families only need to provide preliminary evidence and employers have to disprove their points.
Still, Zhang’s case faces challenges because his collapse occurred outside the workplace after a meal, making it hard to establish that period of time and that venue are connected to his work.
At the heart of these disputes is a broader paradox: deaths linked to overwork typically result from prolonged exhaustion built up over time, yet China’s current system often focuses narrowly on worker’s final moment before collapse.
As IT Times observed, China lacks clear referrable standards for defining death from overwork.
By contrast, Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare revised its criteria in 2001, setting thresholds linked to cardiovascular risk: more than 100 hours of overtime in the month before illness onset, or an average exceeding 80 overtime hours per month over the previous two to six months. These benchmarks became informally known as Japan’s “karoshi line” (过劳死线), karoshi meaning death from overwork.
Another proposed reform is to move beyond rigid definitions of what temporally and spatially constitute work, which should also better reflect modern labor realities such as remote work, flexible schedules, and invisible overtime.
In November 2025, China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security issued a new guidance stating that overtime, performed at home or otherwise, should be considered working hours. It also clarified that injuries that occur while working from home should not be dissociated from work solely because the employee is outside the office, and that illnesses that arise during home-based overtime may also qualify as work-related.
Lawyer Chen described these as important steps toward redefining what counts as work, suggesting that future judicial practice may increasingly add to it excessive overtime hours and many new working conditions.
In recent years, courts in cities such as Guangzhou and Changsha have begun to adopt more flexible interpretations for the term “workplace”, recognizing some after-hours illnesses and home-based overtime as related to work. Courts in Nantong have even held that employers may bear civil liability for illegal excessive overtime, even when a death is not formally classified as work-related.
These emerging precedents may prove significant for cases such as those of Zhang Liang and Feng Yulang, IT Times concluded.
