Four years ago, many young Chinese people liked to use the hashtag #Amazing China. Two years ago, they said Beijing was the best student at controlling the pandemic and urged the rest of the world, especially the United States, to “copy China’s homework”.
Now, many believe they are the most unlucky generation since the 1980s, as Beijing’s persistent pursuit of a “zero Covid” policy is wreaking havoc. Jobs are hard to find, frequent Covid-19 tests dictate their lives, the government increasingly imposes restrictions on individual freedom, while pressuring them to marry and have more children.
“I can’t stand the idea that I have to die in this place,” says Cheng Xinyu, 19, a writer in the southwest Chinese city of Chengdu who is considering migrating to another country before the government’s iron fist seizes her. She also can’t imagine having children in China.
“I like children, but I don’t dare have them here because I won’t be able to protect them,” he explained, citing concerns such as pandemic control officials breaking into apartments to spray disinfectant, killing pets and demanding that residents leave the house. key in the lock of the house door.
Cheng is part of a new trend known as “escape philosophy” (or “runxue”), which preaches fleeing China in search of a safer and happier future. She and millions of others reposted a video of a young man reacting to police officers who warned his family would be punished for three generations if he refused to go to a quarantine camp. “This will be our last generation,” he said.
The answer became a meme that was later censored. Many young people identified with the sentiment, saying they were reluctant to have children under the increasingly authoritarian rule. “Not bringing children into this country will be the most charitable action I could do,” wrote one Weibo user, a sort of local Twitter handle, under the hashtag #thelastgeneration (the last generation), before being censored. “As ordinary people who have no right to individual dignity, our reproductive organs will be our last resort,” wrote another Weibo user.
The “philosophy of escape” and the “last generation” are the rallying cry of many Chinese in their 20s and 30s who despair about their country and its future. They are entering the workforce, getting married and deciding whether to have children in one of China’s darkest moments in decades, being censored and politically repressed.
This is a big change for members of a generation once known for its nationalistic leanings. They grew up as China became the world’s second-largest economy, scoffed at critics of Beijing’s human rights record and boycotted many Western brands for disrespecting their homeland.
Sometimes they complained about grueling work hours and lack of social mobility. They were less sure of their personal future, but they were confident that China would be great again, as their leader promised.
It is now increasingly clear that the regime cannot deliver on its promises and that the state has different expectations for their lives.
A new survey of more than 20,000 people, mostly women between the ages of 18 and 31, has found that two-thirds of them do not want children. The regime has a different agenda, pushing people to have three children to rejuvenate one of the fastest aging populations in the world.
Doris Wang, a young professional from Shanghai, says she never planned to have children in China. Living through the tough lockdown for the past two months confirmed her decision. Children are supposed to play in nature and with each other, she says, but they are locked in their homes, undergoing rounds of Covid testing, hearing screams from pandemic control officials and harsh warnings from loudspeakers in the streets.
“Even adults feel very depressed, hopeless and unhealthy, not to mention children,” he says. “They will definitely have psychological issues to deal with when they grow up.” Wang says she intends to migrate to a western country where she can have a normal life and dignity.
To compound the frustrations, the newspapers are full of bad news about jobs. There will be more than 10 million university graduates in China this year, a record. But many companies are laying off or freezing headcount as they try to survive lockdowns and regulatory restrictions.
For Chinese youth, the increasingly tight social controls are just as depressing. It is impossible to measure how many of them were disillusioned with the regime’s iron fist in the last blockades, which affected hundreds of millions of people. Beijing has complete control over the media, the internet, textbooks, schools and almost every aspect that can touch the brainwaves of the Chinese public.
But the growing disenchantment online is unmistakable. And people will always find ways to escape repression. In “1984”, Winston kept a diary. In “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, Tomás and Tereza move to the countryside.
“When you discover that as an individual you are not capable of fighting the state apparatus, your only way out is to run,” says Wang.
