Despair is a powerful force. It’s the complete loss of hope. Without hope, there’s no meaning in life and no reason to go on living. That’s where the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has led China’s latest generation.
The Young and the Hopeless
This is more than just the flippant response of a young man despondent at the totalitarian lockdowns, surveillance, and state intrusion into his life. When police told him that his attitude and lack of cooperation in going to a quarantine camp would affect his family for three generations, the man replied, “This is the last generation.”‘996 Culture’ Exploits a Generation
Typically, the generation of Chinese who are in their 20s and 30s today are the only child of their parents as a result of the CCP’s decades-long one-child policy. They may be married, with two sets of parents to take care of, but many are not married and live alone. Often as not, they have no children and may own an apartment that has fallen in value due to market manipulation by the state. Many cannot afford to buy an apartment, scrimping and saving just to get by.A National Mental Health Crisis
What’s more, in the pandemic era, the state has become all-powerful and intrusive. Frequent testing, invasive monitoring by police, a constant barrage of instructions over loudspeakers, and a lack of communication with peers have impacted the psyches of a generation.Today’s generation has seen the country go from global leader in industry and even pandemic control to global pariah with a totalitarian government that has complete control over them.
Run for Your Life–Out of China
In response, a new trend has emerged among the young known as “runxue” or the “run philosophy.” Its message is as simple as it is damning—it tells the young to run away from China for a better and safer life.That new philosophy is as understandable as the “last generation” sentiment. After all, young people need an opportunity to try new things, spread their wings, try, fail, and then try again without the stifling and constant pressure of the CCP’s boot on their necks and its presence in their minds.
A Dystopian Present and Future
Even with government tax and income incentives to persuade the young to have up to three children, the idea of bringing a child into the dystopia that is modern China isn’t appealing to the very generation on which the policy depends.As one might expect, an aging population with below-replacement birth rates doesn’t bode well for the future of China or the CCP. That’s a separate topic, of course, but suffice to say the CCP’s policies over the past several decades have created a generational and societal wasteland of which the consequences are only now beginning to be felt in the Party.
Of course, the CCP has handled such a devastating and apparently deep-seated mood among many of its young people much like it approaches all the problems it faces: by stifling public discussion.
Naturally, the “last generation” is now censored across China’s social media channels. Apparently, the CCP’s thinking is that since it can’t be seen or expressed on social media, or any other media, the whole thing has gone away. The Party can confidently and officially declare that there is no more despair among the young.
Except, of course, that there is despair among the younger generation. It’s borne of–or at least most identified with–the CCP’s extensive and cruel lockdown policies, but its roots are much deeper than that. What’s more, this deep despondency is rampant. Business crackdowns, lockdowns, and a collapsing economy have only made China less livable and the state more intimidating and aggressive toward its people.
Back in the early 1990s, when China was ascending rapidly, the promise of material wealth was on the lips of China’s leaders and the minds of the young generation. A popular saying at the time went, “I’d rather cry in your BMW than laugh on your bicycle.”
Today, much of China’s young generation is beyond tears, beyond numb, and perhaps irretrievably broken by their cruel government and are refusing to legitimize it by having children.
That’s a multidimensional problem for which the CCP lacks any empathy or real answers.