Evan Osnos talks China
China faces a struggle between the power of individual ambition and the power of authority according to Evan Osnos, former China correspondent for the New Yorker. Osnos, who spoke at the University of North Florida on Tuesday night, believes Chinese cultural reforms have highlighted the role of the individual in society.
Chinese youth have been migrating from rural communities to the cities in recent decades. This population shift has allowed younger generations access to education and careers away from the farms of their parents and grandparents.
“This is the period that I call the ‘age of ambition,’” said Osnos.
During the post-Mao era, China experienced a political revolution that spawned a new economic age. Citizens became able to hold private ownership of businesses and even build their own as entrepreneurs.
This left young people seeking new opportunity, perhaps influenced by Western, materialistic ideals that were also sweeping the nation.
The combination of education and opportunity is allowing young citizens to take new control over their lives. Through this, the traditions of past generations were abandoned and new lifestyles were forged.
Osnos recalls the story of a woman he befriended in China who realized her idea of marriage and a husband were drastically different than the plans her parents had for her. Upon realizing the difficulty in finding a person she personally preferred, she started a matchmaking website.
The website took off due to the large number of Chinese youth that were in a similar situation of breaking away from tradition and seeking individualism. The site made its creator a millionaire.
While this new sense of individualism has created opportunity for younger generations, it has put them at odds with the fundamentalists currently in power. Chinese youth are questioning authority more than ever before in a quest to seek out knowledge and truth.
“They can no longer afford to be uninformed,” stated Osnos, referring to the constant demand to access informative data.
This quest for knowledge in the digital age has landed some Chinese youths in trouble with government officials. Osnos tells the story of a young man who found himself becoming more outspoken on Chinese nationalism than the communist party was willing to accept. The man was later jailed for his actions.
“I think it’ll be interesting how Chinese millennials will affect the political structure of the country,” stated St. Augustine ‘tech-nerd’, Ryan Halverson.
China’s rapidly changing culture has already begun to shift the landscape of the nation’s society. Recent declines in the country’s economy further raises the question of how younger generations might seek to spark change.
“He (Osnos) didn’t go much into the current economic problem there (China) but I’d say that’ll really feed into how the young kids view their leaders,” said local retiree, Ed Atwood. “Their going to realize it ain’t working much.”
Evan Osnos spent eight years living in Beijing where he worked as a bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune before joining the New Yorker. Osnos is currently based in Washington D.C. and continues to write for The New Yorker, contributes to NPR and PBS, and is a fellow at the Brookings Institution.
