China's Pessimistic Generation Z Poses a Post-Covidience Challenge to Xi Jinping
China's Pessimistic Generation Z Poses a Post-Covidience Challenge to Xi Jinping
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Numerous young Chinese crowded together in the dark for a heavy metal concert the first weekend after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted last month in a modest Shanghai music venue that smelled of sweat and booze.

The zero-COVID policy had sparked the largest display of public rage in mainland China since President Xi Jinping came to power ten years prior, and young Chinese had called for this kind of freedom in protests against it in late November.

Many members of China’s Generation Z—the 280 million people born between 1995 and 2010—had discovered a new political voice after three years of isolation, lockdowns, tests, hardship, and economic hardship. They had debunked the myths that they were either nationalist keyboard warriors or apolitical loafers.

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Xi, who is just starting a record-breaking third term, faces a difficult policymaking task in trying to calm a generation that is experiencing young unemployment that is almost at a record high and some of the slowest economic growth in nearly 50 years. A government that places a priority on social stability has inherent tensions when trying to improve the living conditions of young people without giving up the nation’s export-led economic paradigm.

Surveys indicate that of all age groups in China, this generation is the most pessimistic. Although the COVID limits were quickly lifted as a result of the protests, some observers claim that Chinese young will still face challenges in obtaining higher living standards.

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The 26-year-old Alex, who would not reveal her last name out of concern for retaliation from the government, said in an interview before the Shanghai event that “if they didn’t alter the policy, then more people would protest, therefore they had to change.”

“However, I don’t believe that young people will return to believing that nothing unpleasant ever occurs in China.”

A “EDUCATED PESSIMISM”

Students led China’s largest pro-democracy revolt in 1989, which Beijing put down in a military crackdown. Young people, especially those living in cities, are frequently at the vanguard of uprisings around the world.

However, some observers claimed that Xi faces a challenge because of the unique traits of China’s Gen Z.

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The violence with which some young Chinese social media users have attacked online criticism of China, notably Beijing’s COVID regulations, in recent years has attracted attention from throughout the world. Their violent “wolf warrior” diplomats from China and the Red Guards of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution were compared to them, and they earned the nickname “little pinks,” after the colour of a nationalist website.

There is no information on the number of Chinese who hold those viewpoints. However, one commonality existed prior to the protests: rising dissatisfaction with their projected economic prospects.

Gen Z is the age group that is most pessimistic about China’s economic future, according to a survey of 4,000 Chinese people conducted by the consulting firm Oliver Wyman. In contrast, according to a McKinsey study, their American contemporaries are more upbeat than the majority of previous generations.

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According to a Wyman study performed in October and released in December, Gen Z in China expressed greater concerns than earlier generations regarding job stability (62%) and chances for a better lifestyle (56%).

According to a research published in October, 45% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 are concerned about their capacity to find work, yet they outperformed all other age groups—aside from those between the ages of 25 and 34—on McKinsey’s measure of perceptions of future economic chances.

Earlier in the Xi era, things appeared more promising.

Seven out of ten Chinese people born in the late 1980s felt positively about their economic condition, according to a 2015 Pew Research Center research. 96% of respondents thought their standard of living was higher than that of their parents at the same age.

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“This pessimism is well-informed. The facts and the reality that they are seeing serve as its foundation “Zak Dychtwald, the founder of the research company Young China Group, spoke on the attitude of young adults and trends among Chinese youth.

“I don’t believe these protests would have taken place ten years ago, but this young generation believes they should be heard in a way that prior generations didn’t,” the author says.

Despite pressure to provide “some hope and direction” to the nation’s youth at the annual legislative assembly in March, he said it was unlikely that there would be any additional unrest in the near future.

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In the long run, he warned, failure to provide such answers could lead to protests resuming.

THE YOUTH’S REFORM

Without citing the demonstrations against his zero-COVID policy, Xi acknowledged in his New Year’s speech the need to enhance the chances for China’s youth.

Without providing any additional information on future initiatives, Xi stated that “a nation will grow only when its young people thrive.”

Giving Gen Z more political clout is an inconceivable concept for China’s stability-obsessed Communist Party.

However, doing so in a weaker economy is more challenging, and some policies that might raise living standards for young Chinese people conflict with the world’s second-largest economy’s top priorities, which include maintaining the foundations of its 15-fold growth over the previous 20 years. This is according to some political analysts and economists.

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Chinese exports would become less competitive if Gen Z’s greater salary expectations were met. Making housing more accessible might entail letting a sector that has contributed to a fifth of China’s recent economic growth collapse.

Additionally, job losses and less prospects for young people have resulted from Xi’s second term crackdown on tech and other private sector businesses.

According to Fang Xu, an urban sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley, despite the government’s claims of “shared prosperity,” levelling the playing field for this new generation appears to be unattainable.

“Leveling the playing field” entails lowering the value of the housing market just enough so that young people may still own a home, yet doing so would be devastating to the older generation.

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MOVE IMMEDIATELY

Most of the protesters who participated in the demonstrations against the COVID restrictions are staying quiet due to the possibility of arrest. What their aspirations and intentions are, and how they differ, is unknown. Some teenagers, though, are motivated to pursue their goals in other places.

Due to the sensitivity of the situation, university student Deng, 19, spoke to Reuters on the condition of partial anonymity. She has little faith in her ability to succeed in China.

Online searches for studying abroad during the two-month lockdown of Shanghai’s 25 million citizens last year were five times higher than the 2021 average, according to data from internet giant Baidu. The protests in November saw a further increase.

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Deng and Alex agree that there isn’t likely to be much more disagreement in the foreseeable future.

A few days later, Alex discovered a view point among other metal fans at the Shanghai arena for the first time since COVID rules were relaxed. She listened to the music of the band Rat King while putting her worries about the future aside for the evening.