“Generation Z ‘overconfident about China, sees west as evil’” | SCMP

I’ve said something along these lines for years — that Chinese youth are hyper-nationalist and so, xenophobic. But it’s one thing for me to say it, sitting here, foreigner in Hong Kong. It’s another, and remarkable, for a senior academic at Tsing Hua University China, to say it. 

As Chinese youth have become more pro their government and policies, so the West views of China have become more negative. Yet the Chinese youth believe the opposite: that the West has a positive view of China. Not so. 

Both trends — Chinese yoof despising the West and the West hating on China — are pretty dangerous. Not just for the future, but, like, now. Xi Jinping’s government has fanned the anti-west feelings and is now incentivised to play to it, a nasty vicious circle. While what Trump started four years ago, seems to be working for Biden, Blinken & co.