China’s Generation Z Isn’t Lying Flat Anymore
The discontent that led many of the nation’s youth to give up on the rat race is now reemerging in street protests.
Demonstrators hold blank signs during a protest in Beijing.
Source: Bloomberg
Over the weekend, members of China’s Generation Z stopped lying flat and joined the protests targeting Covid lockdowns. It’s an abrupt shift for a cohort that, only a few months ago, was widely viewed as giving up and doing the bare minimum to get by as China's economy strained under the pandemic. But discontent was festering even before Covid, and now it’s breaking out as public protest on some of China’s most elite university campuses. Addressing that anger will require the government do more than end lockdowns and incessant testing. It requires a commitment to repair the economic damage done to a young, educated generation that had higher hopes for itself.
Born between the late 1990s and early 2010s, China’s Generation Z grew up amid some of modern China’s frothiest and most optimistic years, economically. Jobs were plentiful; urban real estate was relatively affordable; and the private sector was expected to lead China into the vanguard of developed nations. By the time Xi Jinping became China’s top leader in 2012, expectations were that this next generation, too, would succeed like their parents and grandparents.