As the Chinese economy continues to deteriorate, young people may rise up in rebellion, an analyst predicted.
As China’s ailing economy increasingly faces headwinds, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping has again called on young Chinese to look for work in the countryside.
The CCP’s official media reported on May 3, the eve of China’s “Youth Day,” that Xi sent a letter to a group of volunteer teachers at a remote boarding school in the Xinjiang region.
Xi allegedly said that “there have been more and more young people in recent years going to rural or border areas to serve.” He called on young people nationwide to “go to where the motherland and the people need you most to shine and give your best.”
Xi and Party authorities have repeatedly urged young Chinese to seek work in rural areas amid poor prospects for them in the general economy.
In a letter to college students in 2023, Xi encouraged young people to go to the countryside, as the unemployment rate among Chinese urban youth aged 16 to 24 reached a historic high of 21.3 percent in June that year, with 11.58 million college graduates entering the job market.
That same year, the Guangdong Provincial Communist Youth League Committee planned to organize 300,000 young people to move to the countryside over the following three years. The announcement evoked sensitive memories for many Chinese people.
From 1968 to 1978, about 17 million Chinese college and high school students, known as the “sent-down youth,” were forcibly sent to the countryside to be “re-educated by poor and lower-middle peasants.”
Many of these students were the Red Guards, who were active at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. The Red Guards, comprising college and high school students, formed militant groups across the nation. Then-CCP leader Mao Zedong mobilized them to attack officials whom he deemed not revolutionary enough. Their mission also included eliminating all remnants of traditional Chinese culture and purging society of all supposedly bourgeois elements through violence from 1966 to 1968.
In the process, they destroyed temples, artifacts, and historical buildings, and subjected officials, intellectuals, and others to beatings.
After Mao regained full control of the regime from his political rivals within the CCP through the movement, the large number of Red Guards, having lost their usefulness, became a potential threat to the regime. That situation arose as schools had been closed during the Cultural Revolution, leaving them unemployed amid an economic recession and widespread poverty. Consequently, Mao forcefully relocated them to the countryside and remote areas.
This year, the number of college graduates is anticipated to reach 12.22 million, setting a new record, while China’s college graduates unemployment crisis continues from previous years.As the United States has imposed hefty new tariffs on China, many Chinese export-oriented companies have seen a sharp drop in orders, leading to factories suspending production. Tens of millions of jobs could be lost in China if the tariffs are not soon reduced significantly, putting more pressure on an already bleak job market.
With a record number of college students graduating this summer, analysts have said that Xi’s push for young people to go to rural areas for work is for the communist regime’s political stability and to cover up the persisting unemployment difficulties in cities.
Sheng Xue, a Chinese Canadian writer and activist, told The Epoch Times on May 4 that the CCP sees a large number of unemployed young people in the cities as a potential threat to its regime.
“Xi Jinping’s advocacy of young people going to the countryside for work is essentially using the methods of the Mao Zedong era to solve the current political and economic crisis,” she said.
Sheng said that besides covering up the unemployment crisis in cities, the authorities are trying to maintain the regime’s stability by pushing young people to the countryside to “disperse, absorb, and isolate” them. She said a large number of unemployed young Chinese are deemed “potential destabilizing factors” by the regime.
Independent current affairs commentator Cai Shenkun told The Epoch Times on May 4 that China’s exports are stalled across the board, domestic economic demand is weak, and college graduates can’t find jobs, “so the authorities can only take this approach to divert young people to the rural areas.”
“But this is a temporary solution,” he said.
Cai said that if Xi had not gone against much of the world and had not followed Mao’s path, China’s economy would not have encountered such big problems.
Sheng said that when China’s economy deteriorates further, the pressure of basic survival increases, and oppression intensifies, it may prompt young Chinese to rise up against the regime.
“If the number of awakened citizens is large enough, it will lead to a new social movement,” Sheng said.
But she pointed out that “it also requires the grassroots people, the working people, the intellectual group, those with conscience within the CCP’s system, as well as overseas forces and the international community, to form an alliance to end the CCP’s tyranny.”
Tang Bing and Luo Ya contributed to this report.