In China’s economic growth period, the adult generation is rather less favorable to liberal democratic values than the previous generation, a study has found. This is noteworthy as it reverses existing predictions from the West and academia, which have expected that China’s economic development will expand support for democratic values.
Citing a recent study published in the Hyundai China Journal, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on Sunday that Chinese people born after 1990 are less likely to support democratic values than older generations despite their higher economic stability and higher level of post-materialist values. Co-authors of the study include Chen Zhi of the Hong Kong Chinese University of Science and Humanities in Shenzhen and Narisson Huhe of the University of Strathclyde in Britain. The researchers set 1996 as the starting point for China’s rapid economic growth. According to the World Bank (WB) data, China’s per capita GDP almost quadrupled over the next 10 years. The researchers set 1990 as the period dividing the two economic periods. It is based on the judgment that those born in 1990 may have experienced changes in their lives and economic environment from the age of six. The researchers stressed that the democratic value index used in the study is different from the so-called “Chinese-style democracy” put forward by the Chinese authorities to explain that China’s political system is more effective than Western-style election democracy.
The study measured a number of variables, including support for electing national leaders in free and competitive elections, an attitude to respect and protect individual rights, and recognition of the importance of civil responsibility. The study found that the generation had stronger post-materialist values, which are defined as more emphasis on autonomy, self-worth, and self-expression, consistent with the changes predicted in the West.
According to the Western political science theory, such value changes should lead to strengthening support for democracy and liberalism. However, the researchers said that the prediction did not apply to the younger generation in China, which defined it as “post-take-off generation.” Their support for democracy was significantly lower than that of the generation before the economic leap.
The researchers analyzed that the younger generation “did not extend enhanced post-materialist values to democratic support, nor did it link dissatisfaction with life to motivation to promote democratic change.” Regarding the results of the study, the researchers added, “China’s continued economic development seems to go head-on against the expectations of Western political leaders and Chinese observers, especially that it will strengthen public support for political liberalization.”
Western expectations were that support for democratic freedom would be strengthened, which in turn would promote a political change to a progressive but stable liberal democracy over time. Speculation has been widespread in Western policy and academia, particularly centered on the United States, that Chinese citizens who grew up in a more economically free society would embrace Western values with freedom and democracy as their core. The hope publicly expressed by then-U.S. President Bill Clinton in the early 2000s was that these changes would eventually lead to a fundamental transformation of the Chinese social system. This is also a scenario that the Chinese authorities have been strongly attempting to block. President Clinton admitted in a speech at Johns Hopkins University ahead of China’s membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) that membership itself does not guarantee China’s political reform. However, she said, “But the process of economic change will make the need to make the right choice even stronger.”
The researchers said it cannot be determined whether the decline in democratic support for the “post-departure generation” is due to post-materialist values or a more pessimistic perception of economic well-being. Research has shown that older generations of Chinese reported higher life satisfaction, which the researchers interpreted as the result of the long experience of deprivation making economic growth more valuable.
The higher the satisfaction with the current social and economic conditions, the higher the support for liberal democratic values, but the younger generation in China is more strongly dissatisfied with the status quo, the survey showed. It is also possible that the political indifference of the younger generation is the influence of ideological education, which the Chinese authorities strengthened to prevent the recurrence of large-scale protests after the Tiananmen incident in 1989.
SAM KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
