Who are the Millennials of China, and why are they impacting the entire world to the great extent that they already have and will continue to do so in the coming years?
Clayton Dube, executive director of the US-China Institute at the University of Southern California, discussed these questions at the luncheon meeting of the US-China Peoples Friendship Association of Long Beach on Saturday, March 4, at the local Forbidden City restaurant.
The term “millennials” refers to people born in the ’80s and ’90s, a group even larger than the “Baby Boomers.” Of China’s estimated total population of 1.3 billion people, about 413 million, or 32 percent, are Millennials. In comparison, in the United States, 87 million of a population of 330 million are Millennials, approximately 26 percent. From a demographic perspective, because of the vast size of the generation, they are a huge marketing demographic, will influence consumption trends and will be responsible for the care and maintenance of China’s older generations; so business and educational institutions are trying to identify their salient characteristics.
Many of China’s Millennials come from one-child families, so there are circumstances of favoritism and elitism. Other characteristics seen in Millennials are that they are more worldly and less naïve than those in other generations; they are more materialistic and even consumption-orientated; and they seem to be more nationalistic or patriotic. They are better traveled and more educated than older generations and will likely demand more of their government than prior generations in terms of transparency and accountability.
Challenges for Millennials include: economic inequality between those born in urban versus rural areas; problems of heavy pollution affecting the health of many workers; advent of robotics in the workplace displacing workers; and even competition of education between the rich and the poor with the wealthy going overseas for advanced education and thereafter acquiring the better-paying jobs back in China. However, some of the challenges may be overcome with the high-tech entities coming from the country: Ten-Cent, Bai-du and Ali-baba, all to compete with American entities such as Google and Apple.
Interestingly, when asked what they like best about the U.S. governmental system, they answered that they appreciated the U.S. system of checks and balances through our three separate levels of government. Therefore Western-style democracy for China may be many years in the future, but there is hope.
Hazel Wallace
Signal Hill
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Ban the ban
President Trump’s decision to rescind his Jan. 27, 2017 travel ban confirms what we all knew: the travel ban was unconstitutional and un-American. It represents a major victory for the thousands of lawful permanent residents and visa holders in California, as well as all those across our nation who cherish our Constitution, diversity, tolerance and fairness.
My team is carefully reviewing the legality of the Administration’s revised ban. We will do everything in our power to make sure the revised ban respects our Constitution and our way of life. No one will or should soon forget the Trump Administration’s multiple, public promises to ban Muslims from the country.
Xavier Becerra
Attorney General
California
