[dandare]

"Privileged" European here: it is totally beyond me how can anyone be any productive on a 996 schedule. I can't write code for more than 4-6 hours a day, 5 days per week. I would probably not be a good programmer if I was born in China.

[outworlder]

Let me tell you a secret: no one can be productive in such a regimen. It doesn't stop companies from trying.

This is not just a Chinese thing. The US is not much different.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

Which is so blatantly obvious it tells us something: long hours are not about productivity no matter how much anyone claims they are. Long hours are about power. Some people really want to own other people and in modern societies that shun actual slavery they seek it by other means.