How China Went Woke: Beijing Should Be Freaking Out

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they dive deep into the alarming trends shaping China's future. This eye-opening discussion covers:

* Shocking statistics revealing Chinese citizens' growing disillusionment with their economic system

* The rise of "lying flat" and "last generation" movements in China

* How the CCP is desperately trying to maintain control through surveillance and intimidation

* The potential collapse of China as a global superpower

* Implications for U.S. foreign policy, especially regarding Taiwan

* The unexpected cultural shifts occurring in Chinese society

This video provides crucial insights for anyone interested in geopolitics, economics, or the future of global power dynamics. With exclusive data and expert analysis, you'll gain a deeper understanding of the challenges facing China and how they might reshape our world.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Simone! Today we're going to be doing a stats heavy episode that I know our fans always love, where I can find some interesting and counterintuitive stats to tell us about where the world is going. Okay. Episode is going to be on internal Chinese politics the economic situation in China and how the Chinese population is becoming more and more You know, we use the title woke here, but it's not exactly woke because they're not exactly split among the types of of, uh, political demographics that we have in the U S there isn't the same like Republican Democrat party that you would have in the U S.

But the views of the Chinese people are definitely changing and in a way that should make the Chinese government very, very nervous.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: So let's start with a quote here. These are the clear findings that emerged from quantitative research by Stanford professors Jennifer Pan [00:01:00] and Ying Qing Xu. Survey data collected through a variety of channels and methodologies by Pan and Xu over several years show that Chinese urban residents are more liberal than expected and more liberal than the official positions of the government.

Moreover, the political views of respondents remained relatively stable over time and were correlated. across issues in ways comparable to those in democratic countries. It is important to note, however, that policy views in China do not align neatly along pro slash anti regime spectrums, or what might be considered a typical left right divide as they do in the United States and many other democracies.

Instead, they cluster around preferences for market versus state intervention in the economy more versus less democracy in the government and more versus less nationalism. So, one faction wants less nationalism and less government intervention in the markets and more democracy. And another group wants more [00:02:00] intervention, less democracy and more nationalism, which makes sense as natural clusters.

Using surveys conducted from 2012 and 2014 and separately at 2018 and 2019, Pan and Zhu show that Chinese correspondents have coherent policy preferences that are bunded in predictable ways. For example, those that hold politically liberal views are more likely to also support free markets and oppose nationalist foreign policy.

Those who support authoritarian political institutions are instead more likely to support state intervention in the economy and a nationalistic foreign policy. And I'll put a figure on screen here. So that's actually really interesting because that's different than the, at least older historic political alignment that we had here in the U.

S. Which is the more free market people are also the more politically or socially progressive people

Torsten: and

Malcolm Collins: the less free market people are the so you have a true tanky faction there that is very you know, pro nationalism, pro state control but also [00:03:00] pro more socially illiberal views. Do you have any thoughts on that before I go further?

Simone Collins: No, tell me more. I just want to dig into this.

Malcolm Collins: All right. So , the surveys carried out between 2004 and 2014 indicate that most respondents had positive views on the system's ability to deliver opportunities in the future, and that effort and hard work were rewarded.

So now we're going to look at some graphs. These findings were notable because, as I mentioned, below, And note I'm pulling from several different articles here. So these aren't all from the same article. These findings were notable because as mentioned above inequality increased rapidly after 1978 and has remained stubbornly high since the two thousands in China.

Perceptions as to the drivers of inequality are Are central to the population sense of fairness and belief in the efficacy of China's economic and political systems. The latest round of surveys, which were conducted over the course of 2023 through an online app. So this is all just important to note when you're looking at this data are so recent that the Whitney team has yet to publish them in [00:04:00] related academic articles.

So you are getting this stuff first. It's clear that there have been significant changes in how people view inequality and opportunities in China economy signaling. Less and less responsibility to themselves and more and more to the economic system. So now we're going to talk about some of these results and I'm going to put some on screen.

So, do you want me to share these with you Simone or do you want me to just describe them to you?

Simone Collins: Describe them.

Malcolm Collins: All right. So here I have put a graph on screen today. It shows in 2004 attribution of why people in China are poor. So this is why are some people in China poor? The number one reason that people gave in 2004 was lack of ability.

In 2023, that has fallen to the number six reason. The, the number one reason in 2023 that people said so was unequal opportunity. That was six back in 2004.

Simone Collins: Oh, so we're moving from an internal to an external locus of control [00:05:00] here, which is kind of scary.

Malcolm Collins: Exactly. You look at 2004, you had high ranked things like lack of effort.

However, lack of effort is ranked fairly low in 2003.

Simone Collins: But

Malcolm Collins: if you look at an unfair economic system, that was all the way down at eight in 2004, that was ranked at number three. Keep in mind, number three in China, where you can get unalive for saying things like this. So there is a cost to signaling these sorts of things.

Then they asked why are people in China rich? And it used to be in 2004 people would say ability and talent was the number one reason that some people were rich in China.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: In 2023 that had moved down to number four. What was number three back in 2004 connections that was ranked number one in 2023.

That was, so it used to be, they said ability and talent now it's connections. And, and you had a drop across the board in things like high education used to be number two as to why some people were rich. Now it's ranked all the way down at number [00:06:00] seven below even an unfair economic system. Hard work also dropped.

Simone Collins: You would think that the CCP, I mean, especially in a nation where there's more control over media and what people were, people are allowed to see, I, as a government official would have worked harder to make sure that memes like this. That switch people toward an external locus of control. Don't spread.

How is this, how is this happening in a nation t