China's Youth Rise to the Challenge
For many of China's college students, who were just babies, or not even alive at the time, Wednesday's 19th annivesary of the Tiananmen Square Incident passed with little recognition. Much of the student-led political activity in China is a far cry from the student activists in 1989, but today's young people are hardly apathetic.
Both the Chinese government and multinational corporations are well aware of the power possessed by China's young generation. Today there are over 300 million Chinese under the age of 30, and by 2015 that figure will rise to 500 million.
To some degree, the activism of China's youth hasn't manifested itself in a way that many in the West would have expected. For years, the overriding theory was that increased capitalism and economic openness would precipitate Chinese democracy. In his book, The China Fantasy, James Mann describes this thinking as "the soothing scenario."
Instead, China has proven that at least for the time-being, that economic prosperity can exist in a society governed by the Communist Party. While the Communist Party has changed its image and adopted its political philosophy over the past few decades, it's definitely not a pinnacle of democratic governance.
At the same time, especially after the earthquake response, the Chinese leadership has endeared itself to the nation's young people. Premier Wen Jiabao, a very hip 65-year-old, has almost 50,000 friends on his Facebook page. He's the sixth most popular, and his Facebook star is quickly rising. He has beaten out other politicians like George W. Bush by tens of thousands of fans.
Last year Time Magazine dubbed China's young adults "Generation Me" in an article last July, on the grounds that many of China's young people are more interested in making money and having a luxurious lifestyle than political activism. While it's true that Chinese young people enjoy a higher living standard, and more designer products than the generations before them, the increasingly cosmopolitan lifestyles are only part of the equation.
China's young people might live more lavishly than their parents, but they're also volunteering their time and resources in unprecedented ways. Although the vast majority of China's young people aren't challenging the status quo, they're incredibly patriotic and active in their communities.
A staggering 1.2 million young people applied to be Olympic or City Volunteers during this August's Olympics. Even those not selected are eager to help direct visitors and represent their country to the world, and to help out within their local communities.
Granted, the heavy recruiting at China's top universities definitely accounts for such a tremendous volunteer applicant pool, and many of those selected have received high volunteer positions based on their Communist Party affiliations, in addition to high test scores.
On the other hand, the concept of volunteering in general, in capacities far less glamorous than the Olympics, has become increasingly popular. The response to the earthquake has been a salient example of China's volunteer spirit.
People waited for hours to donate blood or to just get an application to be an earthquake volunteer. When those lines were too long, others just took matters into their own hands to volunteer unoffiicially. As the relief efforts continue, more students will take volunteer trips to Chengdu.
While China's young people have risen to the challenge of earthquake relief, as they provide national leadership in the coming years, balancing China's international economic and political interests will be a daunting task. In recent years, the Chinese government has been able to maintain their authority and social stability while opening wide the doors of international trade and capitalism.
How will the next wave of leadership strike the same balance? We won't be able to answer this question definitively for a few decades, but the response of young people to the continued relief efforts could be quite revealing.