I’m not an expert on this, but I know it’s common to use things like tranquilizers intended for farm animals.

is it the fault of my 15 year old amd fx cpu, or is it linux? I have a gtx 6700

It’s your CPU. If you are up for purchasing new hardware, a Ryzen processor (5000 series or better) will be a massive upgrade and are very prevalent on the used market.

Is there a source on this?

China barely pays their workers. Hell, they don’t even let you use services in the city you live in unless you were born there. Lots of people travel to the cities seasonally since they are prevented from doing anything reasonable where they work.

It’s not surprising they don’t want to spend, China has engineered an economy where huge portions of the domestic population have no spending power or even a stable place to live.