Young people waving their arms in the stands during the performance to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China at the National Stadium in Beijing on June 28, 2021.
A Generation Disillusioned with the West
On May 31, tens of thousands of young Chinese read about how the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) had spied on European leaders with the help of Denmark’s intelligence agency between 2012 and 2014.
Chinese people have always had a strong interest in national affairs, and international politics is an important topic for many families around the dinner table. Millennials and Gen Z (divided into “post-‘90s” and “post-‘00s” in Chinese discourse) are continuing this tradition, which is why they are all familiar with the revelations of Edward Snowden and the actions of the NSA.
“The United States, this master of the theft of secrets, uses ‘clean network’ as a cover, claiming to safeguard cyber security," said Wang Wenbin, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry. His remarks went viral on social media in China. People cannot understand how the U.S. can be so hypocritical and blatant in its eavesdropping, even toward its own allies.
However, this is far from the only thing that confuses young people in China. Faced with COVID-19, the performance of Western countries – as represented by the United States – has been genuinely surprising. They can’t understand why governments in these countries pour time and public resources into political campaigning while the virus continues to endanger people’s lives on such a massive scale. They also can’t understand why these nations seem either unable or unwilling to persuade their citizens to make even minor personal sacrifices like wearing face masks, let alone accept strict but temporary lockdowns. This is despite the fact that these measures could stop the spread of the virus and bring huge benefits to society as a whole. Some Chinese readers have noted that Western media tends only to mention New Zealand and Australia when discussing success stories in fighting the pandemic, even though these countries have far smaller populations than China and fighting an epidemic is far more difficult in China. They especially wonder how developed countries can be so anti-intellectual, with even the U.S. president consistently going against the advice of scientists and so many of his followers supporting him.
Reading foreign news has not been a pleasant experience for young readers in China recently. While the language is not a problem – since many young Chinese speak foreign languages very well – they struggle to understand what happened to the objectivity and impartiality so often touted by Western media. When it comes to China, the stories become so preposterous that reporters reach outlandish conclusions without ever having visited. Comments left below the line frequently say such things as: “This isn’t reporting, it’s just rumors and slander.” Many Chinese once sincerely believed that Western media was ethical, but that is no longer the case. The Western media’s image as “investigating the truth and presenting objective and balanced reports” has vanished in the eyes of many people.
Many young Chinese who have studied and lived in the West are even more disappointed by the double standards of these countries. Ignoring the skepticism and dissatisfaction of Chinese youth, the mainstream Western media has almost completely ignored the topic. On top of this, young people in China are angered by the rise in hate crimes committed against Asians in the United States.
During the 2019 furor over law reform in Hong Kong, many Chinese students overseas spontaneously organized to defend the central government’s stance. During the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 and again in 2021 when Xinjiang cotton was being unfairly maligned, even more young people banded together to criticize those slandering China. These young, open-minded Chinese expressed their anger with their actions.
The focus of young Chinese people’s anger was the large number of fabricated or distorted reports, often taken out-of-context, in Western media that depict a China which is unrecognizable to them. They believe that this treatment prevents their homeland from being given the treatment or respect it deserves in the world, or at least in the West. In terms of technology and trade, Chinese businesses and products are frequently suppressed and extorted for political purposes by some countries allied with the U.S. In terms of the progress of human civilization, this is absolutely unfair. The U.S. magazine Foreign Policy is aware of this, publishing an article titled “Young People in China Are Losing Faith in the West,” which states: “Beijing’s relative success at conquering the pandemic may have convinced many young, foreign-educated Chinese that China’s political and social values produce better outcomes than Western ones.”
A Generation Whose True Color is ‘Chinese Red’
Young Chinese are strongly patriotic – this is not an exaggeration created by the government. According to a survey of nearly 20,000 people across China conducted in April 2020 by Cary Wu, a sociology professor at York University in Canada, nearly half said that they had become more trusting in the national government since the pandemic started. Another poll in May that year, conducted by the China Data Lab at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy, reached similar conclusions, with more than 90% of interviewees saying they were satisfied with how China's national leaders managed the outbreak.
Young people in China are willing to serve their country because they believe it represents the greatest public interest. These youngsters played a key role in China’s fight against the outbreak. Among the more than 42,000 medical workers from across the country who rushed to Hubei province, more than 12,000 were post-‘90s, with many even born after 1995, or even 2000. Meanwhile, thousands more young people joined the fight on construction sites, in communities and factories, or helped by guaranteeing transportation.
“It seemed as if people’s true colors were suddenly revealed,” said Hua Yuchen, who was praised as the "most beautiful volunteer” during the epidemic response. She thinks that their true color is “Chinese Red,” or patriotism. This post-‘90s teacher was among the first batch of people to volunteer in Wuhan after the outbreak. She rushed out, driving her own car to help transport so many 25 kg cases of disinfectant, and worked as a radio host in one of the city’s makeshift hospitals.
A volunteer holds up a plastic panel reading "Thank the capital, Wuhan is not afraid because of you" to medical staff on the way to the airport in Wuhan, Hubei province, on the morning of April 15, 2020. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a total of 42,000 medical workers assisted Hubei, and the Peking Union Medical College Hospital medical team was the last one to leave.
In 2018, Liu Zhongwen, who works for a government agency in Beijing, went to a village in Hebei province hundreds of kilometers away to serve as its chief village secretary and head of its task force. The village is typical of those in northern China. It used to be home to the largest number of impoverished people in the county, and farming was just about the only way villagers could make a living. The 34-year-old took his guitar with him, travelling to the village to answer the nationwide call to create custom plans to help the locals boost their income and escape poverty as soon as possible. In a little over two years, he led the villagers in constructing roads, creating a poverty-relief workshop, building a computer classroom and water tower for the elementary school, and taught them how to sell goods online via livestreaming. In his spare time, he composed a song lamenting that although he felt sorry for his family, he didn’t want to waste his youth.
Liu is one of more than 100,000 young people who travelled to rural areas specifically to help in poverty alleviation. Hundreds of thousands of university graduates have served as “leaders” in the countryside, while almost 400,000 young people have volunteered there, providing educational, medical or other public services. They chose to go and help those most in need, just like their parents’ generation did decades ago, bringing much-needed knowledge, skills and connections with more-developed areas. Thanks to their efforts, and those of China as a whole, nearly 99 million rural residents have escaped poverty. By February 2021, with its population of 1.4 billion, China had lifted all of its people out of poverty by the current standards.
The countryside is the cradle of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Despite being founded in Shanghai, the most prosperous city in China at the time, the CPC always listened attentively to the voices of farmers, winning victory in the revolution with their help. Nowadays, a growing number of young Chinese are revisiting this history – not via textbooks or in the classroom, but by travelling to revolutionary sites. Known as “red tourism,” such trips are becoming increasingly popular in China. In 2019, more than 73 million tourists visited Yan’an, the CPC’s wartime capital, nearly double the number from three years earlier. In 2021, travelers aged 21-30 accounted for 40% of bookings and searches for “red tourism” during the May Day holiday according to data from travel platform Tongcheng-Elong.
Films and television series about China’s revolutionary history have also proven extremely popular. One example is the recent hit TV series, “Age of Awakening,” which examines the founding of the CPC. Actors from the series also interacted with citizens on the streets of Shanghai, continuing to play revolutionary martyrs in the series, and creating dialogue with young people of today. According to an April survey, 70.2% of people asked which ways they were most looking forward to learning about the CPC’s history responded chose “watching movies, documentaries and performances.” Meanwhile, 74.7% agreed that studying the history of the Party and the country will help young people better understand China’s present situation and develop a strong sense of mission.
“Young people nowadays are more proud and confident and identify more strongly with our nation and country," Zhang Yiwen, a young woman from China’s southwestern Sichuan province, told CNN. “They want to learn how China grew from a poor country to what it is today.”
The Chinese are willing and good at drawing wisdom and strength from history. The country has perhaps the most detailed historical records in the world, and its cultural heritage allows young people today to read documents unearthed thousands of years ago with relative ease. History lives on in the lives of the Chinese people: The Old Summer Palace, in the northwest of Beijing, was a large imperial garden built during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) which was sacked and burned down by British and French troops in 1860. Today it has been turned into a memorial site, and like the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre, the silent ruins are a reminder of China’s experience of colonial oppression since 1840.
Some Western scholars worry that these historical narratives will fuel nationalism, although such thinking does not correspond to the reality in China. Nationalism is new to China, with the country more familiar with the concept of diverse and inclusive culture of “tianxia” – or “all under heaven.” The Chinese people attach great importance to introspection and reflection, and greatly admire the Confucian concepts of “cultivating one's morality, regulating one’s family, governing the country and pursuing world peace,” rather than embarking on foreign wars and expanding territory. The Chinese people have a natural aversion to military expeditions, as typified by the line from a poem: “Few men return from their faraway expeditions.” Chinese philosophy stresses “equilibrium” and “harmony,” which is expressed by ordinary people in the saying "amiability begets riches.” These idioms show that traditional culture retains a strong vitality in today’s China. Generations of Chinese have been brought up under this gentle and silent influence, and Gen Z is no exception.
A Generation Getting Stronger
As “internet natives” who have grown up seemingly attached to their phones, young Chinese are strangers to adjectives like “closed-minded” and “conservative,” just like other members of Gen Z around the world. Decades of rapid economic growth mean that they have unparalleled spending power, with China overtaking the U.S. in 2019 to become the world's largest fashion market, according to management consulting firm McKinsey & Company. This growth has also contributed to the rapid rise of Chinese brands like Li Ning and Anta, which are challenging the market dominance of Nike and Adidas.
“When the granaries are full, the people will know propriety and moderation; when their clothing and food are adequate, they will know the distinction between honor and shame.” This old Chinese saying is as well-known in China as Shakespeare’s “To be or not to be” is among English speakers. When Chinese people’s material needs are taken care of, reading becomes their go-to choice. Like some Western businesspeople, wealthy Chinese also enjoy donating to educational charities. These traditional concepts have acquired new meaning in the new era. Statistics from China's Ministry of Education show that in 2020, the completion rate of compulsory education in China was 95.2%, and the enrollment rate for higher education was 54.4%, both reaching the average levels of high-income countries. The government, social organizations and businesses offer scholarships and loans to students so that they do not need to worry about tuition or living expenses once they receive a university offer. In 2018, almost 200 million Chinese students were studying foreign languages, which represents the largest group of foreign language learners anywhere in the world, while that year alone, 660,000 Chinese students went overseas to study.
Almost every Chinese person has engineering in their genes. The parents of Gen Z members are fond of saying: “If you study math, physics and chemistry, you’ll never have any worries.” And Gen Z students have followed their advice. China has more engineers than any other country, and is the only country to obtain all the industrial categories listed in the U.N. industrial classification. These industries absorb large numbers of people and allow a wide variety of young people to find employment, no matter their university major or interests. Many have long been the backbones of their industry. They are hailed in China as “Great National Craftspeople” and frequently appear in the media, becoming celebrities in their own right.
Zang Tiejun is just 24 years old and works as a welder at CRRC. He has completed nearly 250,000 meters of flawless welding, becoming the youngest senior technician in the company’s history. Meanwhile, the design team behind the Fuxing – China’s newest model of high-speed train – includes 136 young designers under the age of 35.
Zou Bin is almost the same age as Zang, but his job seems somewhat less high-tech. A construction worker from the countryside, his main responsibilities included mixing mortar, sifting sand and laying bricks on construction sites. But that didn’t stop Zou from making a name for himself. In 2014, he won first place in a bricklaying competition organized by his company. The next year, he won China’s first medal in bricklaying at the 43rd WorldSkills Competition held in Brazil. Nowadays, Zou has been promoted to the position of quality controller and is also a member of the CPC.
A Generation of Entrepreneurs and Innovators
Zhang Songhao, 26, is an only child and the head of technology at a gazelle company which has achieved several “firsts for China.” More than 70% of its 100-plus employees were born in the 1990s.
The company is based in Hefei, home to the University of Science and Technology of China, which is one of China's top universities for sci-tech and often referred to as “China’s Stanford.” The city has also spawned “China's Silicon Valley,” being home to the country’s leading R&D clusters, and where Tesla's arch-rival, Nio, a Chinese electric-vehicle manufacturer, has its factories. Last September, Hefei was ranked among the world’s top-20 cities in the "Nature Index – Science Cities 2020" published by the British magazine Nature.
Young people in China are no less enthusiastic about entrepreneurship than their American counterparts. Since 2014, the number of college graduates among newly registered market entities reached over 3.7 million, with many unicorn and “gazelle enterprises” emerging led by young entrepreneur teams. In 2015, Bloomberg reported that China was in “pole position” when it comes to entrepreneurship, with 4,000 startups being created every day. Meanwhile, in the first half of 2020 alone, an average of 64,000 market entities were set up daily in China.
Local governments across China are fiercely competing to attract these youngsters, and are willing to invest in them. “Shenzhen gave me a lot of space and assistance. When the Shenzhen Youth Federation learned about our business needs, it immediately helped show us how to handle the necessary matters. Every street has a 24-hour self-service administrative service station – all you have to do is scan your ID card. It’s really convenient.” In 2019, Ding Zhengkai – a 23-year-old singer from Hong Kong – gradually shifted his life and work focus from Hong Kong to Shenzhen. With the support of local authorities, he finally set up a performance venue for his band in the city.
Behind this upsurge in entrepreneurship is the pressure of a large number of young people entering the job market. China is setting new records yearly for its number of college graduates, with almost 9.1 million entering the labor market in 2021 alone. The Chinese government is keeping a close eye on the worrying youth unemployment rates in certain countries, and working hard to mobilize all necessary resources in order to address any issues preventing young people from finding jobs. Fortunately, the country’s booming mobile online economy has created millions of new jobs. China’s top young talent are joining its big three tech companies of Alibaba, Tencent and Meituan – known as “ATM” – or their competitors including Bytedance, Xiaomi and Pinduoduo. Many more are entering the wide range of startups, becoming esports players, online writers or working in the takeaway and express delivery industries. The total number of workers in the sharing economy reached 78 million in 2019. Although these jobs are hard and the pay is not always ideal, they do allow a certain amount of independence.
Many other young people are choosing to become online hosts, with some even becoming celebrities, while livestream e-commerce has become a new economic growth point. In 2018, the city of Zhuji, Zhejiang province – the largest producer of freshwater pearls in the world – invited over a hundred web celebrities to take part in livestreams to sell the city’s most famous product. Online sales totaled more than 10 million yuan in just two hours. Many web celebrities have also decided to help poor rural areas by directly selling their local specialties. In December 2020, Li Jiaqi, China’s most famous “livestream salesman,” sold 400,000 kg of rice from Inner Mongolia in just five seconds, also selling out walnuts from Anhui province in five seconds and 120,000 packs of handmade noodles from Hebei province in seven seconds, thereby helping more than 1,100 farmers earn a total of nearly 4.4 million yuan. Weiya, another well-known influencer in China, sold out 1.3 tons of coffee from Yunnan province in just two seconds of her live broadcast.
A Generation Engaged in Eco-Protection and Volunteering
The mobile internet has had a huge economic impact, but its social impact also cannot be ignored. It has greatly helped solve many problems affecting Chinese society, with environmental protection being the most prominent example. During a live broadcast last November, livestream seller Li Jiaqi suddenly encouraged his viewers to leave the live chatroom and join a campaign to recycle carboard boxes at the 70,000-plus courier stations and outlets across the country. The disruption cost him millions of yuan in potential sales, but the social benefits were incalculable.
This reflects the change and progress in Chinese social values. The younger generation of Chinese are pursuing healthier, more eco-friendly lifestyles and showing an unprecedented enthusiasm for creating a more sustainable future, which has started to influence national policymaking. Young internet users in China are outraged by the destruction of the rainforests and concerned about the fate of the herd of migrating elephants in Yunnan province. Their quest for low-carbon lives has also spawned a host of bike-sharing startups, creating an unexpected revival of the “Bicycle Kingdom.”
The enthusiasm of young people coincides with China’s national strategy. In October 2020, President Xi Jinping pledged to make the country carbon-neutral by 2060. Along with his speech, China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) outlines a comprehensive set of steps to achieve green development and reduce carbon emissions, while the term “carbon neutral” has quickly become a buzzword among people from all walks of life.
From state-owned enterprises to private tech giants, Chinese companies have responded by setting their own energy conservation and emissions reduction targets. Ant Forest, an app that rewards users for reducing their carbon footprint launched by tech giant Alibaba in 2016, has attracted more than 500 million users and planted 223 million trees. Meanwhile, Tencent announced its own plans in January to go carbon neutral, focusing particularly on the energy efficiency of its data centers.
Thousands of young people have volunteered to plant trees and grasses in western China’s deserts, or help encourage residents to separate their rubbish for recycling. The vast majority of these volunteers are students. Young people in China are more inclined to protect the environment by taking practical action rather than just parroting slogans.
They also use technology to empower environmental protection. In 2017, while still a student at Tsinghua University, Liu Jichen developed an app called Clean Plate. Users can take a photo of their plate and the app will identify whether there is any food waste and then reward them with points which can be donated to charity. In order to improve the app’s recognition efficiency, Liu and his colleagues visited a dozen cities over half a year and collected 100,000 images. Finally, they launched the official version of Clean Plate in October 2018. Two years on, the app has gained more than 2 million users and recorded more than 9 million “clean plates,” the equivalent to saving more than 340 tons of grain. In September 2020, Liu Jichen was appointed as a youth leader for the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals.
According to a report released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in December 2018, a total of 38.2% of Chinese people aged 18-69 have worked as volunteers, while 25.5% have taken part in volunteer activities during the past year – deeming them as “active volunteers.” This means that nearly 400 million Chinese aged 18-69 have taken part in volunteer work. The report also found that the most popular volunteer services for Chinese people are – from more to less popular – elderly care, environmental protection and working with children. From the post-‘50s to the post-‘90s, the younger the generation, the higher the proportion of active volunteers. Close to 6 million young people are providing voluntary services caring for young people with disabilities and “left-behind children” in the countryside whose parents are working in the city; almost 5 million youth volunteers took part in disaster relief efforts following the Wenchuan and Yushu earthquakes; and many millions more participated in such major events as the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 Shanghai World Expo and the G20 Summit in Hangzhou.
More and more young people in China are realizing their power to bring about social change, whether by traveling to remote villages to help locals or providing masks for those in need during the pandemic. This confidence to better themselves, better society and better their country is a powerful force.
A Generation Putting People First
Of course, young people in China also have their own minds, with some influenced by such movements as environmentalism, feminism and new consumerism. They also have no shortage of followers on social media platforms – such as the influential Twitter-like Weibo. However, more believe that existing channels are sufficient for solving their problems.
In November 2020, Chen Siyi, a student at Renmin University of China, wrote a letter to her principal requesting that more portraits of female figures be displayed in the library. At the time there were portraits of Kant, Hegel and Descartes, but not a single woman.
Ten days later, Chen received a reply from the principal explaining why there were no portraits of famous women, adding that there were plans to include those of Marie Curie, Helen Keller, Bing Xin, Li Qingzhao, Wu Jianxiong and Ada Lovelace. Not recognizing the last name, Chen immediately looked it up. She was surprised to discover that Lovelace was the world’s first “computer programmer” – a profession that has traditionally been male-dominated. On March 8, 2021, International Women's Day, after a campus-wide vote, a total of 16 women were selected for addition to the list of portraits, which are currently being painted.
Stories like these are not just taking place on university campuses. Chinese people have their own understanding of democracy: They believe that consultative democracy and whole-process democracy conform to China’s traditional value of “the people being the root of the nation and its most important and valuable element,” by providing various channels for participation in government decision-making, public consultation and public scrutiny, and are both more meaningful and useful than the arguments, personal attacks and vote-based decisions in parliamentary democracies. As early as the Second Sino-Japanese War, Mao Zedong put forward the idea of “serving the people,” which remains at the heart of China’s capital city and is regarded by the Communist Party of China as its fundamental purpose.
“Serving the people” is also the mantra of countless Chinese people today, which shows that it is not just a slogan, but rather an important principle in Chinese political life. For example, the “12345 hotline” is a service platform for all levels of government in China. Citizens can speak with a customer service agent 24/7 to report or seek help with anything from sudden power outages to residential areas having fallen into disrepair, to community kindergartens not having sufficient places.
No matter who makes the call, after filing a complaint, someone will contact them within a few hours to enquire about the specifics. Within a few days, the complainant will also receive follow-up calls to ask if the situation has been resolved and whether they are satisfied with the service. If they feel the service has not been satisfactory, they can also call another hotline to complain. On the other side of the phone, the public officials are under considerable pressure since not only is another department monitoring their problem-solving, but the number of complaints and resolved problems each month are publicly disclosed. If the resolution rate fails to reach 100%, the pressure will be even greater. Serving the people, of course, also brings great pride: Chinese citizens present special velvet banners with gold lettering to public institutions that provided them with help as a sign of gratitude and appreciation.
A Generation that Believes ‘Happiness Comes from Working Hard’
Just like young people around the world, social media is where young Chinese feel most at home. In addition to social networking sites similar to Twitter and Facebook, young Chinese also have a platform called Bilibili. Dubbed the “Netflix of China,” it has a unique “bullet screen” feature that allows viewers to send real-time comments while watching videos, which can even end up covering the entire screen. Talented and enthusiastic web users create videos on trending topics – similar to online talk shows – which are watched by millions. Young people can express their thoughts and feelings here, although watching these videos sometimes needs strong nerves. On Youth Day this year in China, the chief PR officer of Tencent took to Weibo to complain that young people nowadays are sleeping too much, only to have his account inundated with tens of thousands of angry comments and reposts.
The executive’s experience is an example of how sensitive modern Chinese youth are to accusations of being lazy. Compared with their parents, China’s Gen Z are under no less pressure. With rapid social development and industries facing strong competition, similar memes like “Buddha-like” and “lying flat” are used by some young people to poke fun at themselves and vent their feelings. However, this doesn’t mean that they really are “lying flat.”
Words can have different meanings depending on the situation. The younger generation in China, most of whom come from single-child families, are more self-centered and sensitive to pressure than the elder generations. In comparison with their parents – who consider struggle, endurance and sacrifice as real virtues – they prefer to relieve pressure by temporarily “lying flat.” On closer examination, however, such comments show that this is just a phrase: Although Millennials and Gen Z in China claim to be big fans of the “lying flat philosophy,” they admit that they view it only as a taking a short rest and that, “It’s no use running away – sooner or later you have to ‘stand up’ and face reality.”
“The outlook displayed by young Chinese is really far from depression,” said Sun Wenwen, HR officer at Kuaishou, one of the most popular short video sharing platforms in China. “In our office, for example, although a lot of young people might say they want to quit their jobs and live off their parents, they don’t actually do it. Despite their stressful jobs, they continue to actively move out of their comfort zones and take on more responsibilities.”
After all, young people in China are well aware that changing trends in globalization mean young people all over the world are facing more severe challenges, and China is continually trying to create a better environment and provide more channels and platforms for their development. Surveys show that many young people are aware of China’s development goals for 2035 and 2050, not just because of what they’ve read in the media, but because of the growth of this generation. The years from 20 to 50/60 years old – the golden age of life – inevitably coincides with the realization of these two goals. Therefore, their personal development is intricately linked with the nation’s prospects. They will personally witness and realize the goal of “building a great modern socialist country in all respects.” By witnessing China’s development and through the experiences of those around them, they have come to the conclusion that “happiness is achieved through working hard.”（Yuan Ye）
