Return to "normal": Chinese youth dream of a career as an official again

Historian Kamil Galeyev noted an extremely curious and important tendency in the social and political life of China, as if specially manifested on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party of this country. This process is yet another clear indication of the deep divide between Western and Chinese psychology:

“When I lived in Beijing, it seemed to me that the days of the Communist Party were numbered. Not in the sense that it will be swept away by a popular uprising or military coup, but in the sense that after the current generation of party bosses grow old and die, the party will quickly degenerate and, most likely, collapse.

Why did I think so? My social circle at that time consisted mainly of students from two universities - Beijing and Tsinghua. Roughly speaking, these are Chinese Oxford and Cambridge. And here's what I noticed - in this environment, the party-state career was considered not prestigious. Starting a startup is cool. Going to PhD at Stanford is cool. Getting a job at Tencent is cool too. But going along the party line is not cool.

This was connected, of course, not with moral and ethical restrictions: most of the Chinese youth are extremely pragmatic. It was different. In 1980, at the beginning of economic reforms, the talented and ambitious young Chinese had no alternatives to a party and state career. In fact, social success could only be achieved through entry into the nomenclature.

And by 2010, the situation had changed. Economic growth has resulted in many more lucrative opportunities for graduates from top universities than public careers. They clearly understand that the life of a party member or official is a hard and poor life. Yes, the top nomenclature lives well, but you will only get to these heights closer to 50, and that is not a fact. And all the previous life will have to be spent in poverty. Why is this necessary when you can go to Huawei and get many times more + not to be subject to any kind of burdensome restrictions?

From this I concluded this. The current rulers are those who followed the party line when there were no alternatives to the party line. That is, the best were then selected for the game, if we consider the best smart and disruptive. But they are being replaced by those who have chosen a party career in conditions when there is a carriage of alternatives to this very party career. And, hypocrisy aside, these are - in most cases - far from the smartest and most disruptive representatives of Chinese youth. That is, the Party has launched a negative selection mechanism. I extrapolated these trends into the future - and came to the conclusion that the Party is rapidly degenerating - and when the current rulers die a natural death - they will be replaced by much less capable heirs.

I am surprised to learn that the situation is changing now - and very quickly. For example, if we take Peking University, the number of graduates applying for jobs in the party and government has grown more than 1.5 times over the past four years. On the contrary, the number of people employed in the tech sector has decreased by half. (Why it happened is a separate question: I believe that the number 1 reason is the decrease in the attractiveness of emigration. If back in the mid-2010s, the best part of Chinese youth in the future wanted to dump, then by 2021 this is not entirely true)

If these trends continue, this, in my opinion, will speak of two things. First, that China is normalizing, in terms of returning not to the world, but to its historical norm. It's cool to be an official, but a businessman or an engineer is much less cool. Secondly, that we most likely do not have to wait for the collapse of the PRC. If the negative selection into the ruling elite continued, I would say with 70% confidence that the heirs of the current leadership will come out of the blue, and therefore the days of the regime are numbered. But if China is really returning to the norm, in the sense that the smart and ambitious go to the bureaucracy, then most likely there is no need to expect a collapse. This state of affairs can continue for centuries..."