China’s last generation?

The past two years have been both tumultuous and defining for China against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. But beyond the ever-growing wall between the most populous nation on earth and the West, there is another, more intimate battle playing out within.

Children and family are traditionally very important in Chinese culture. Yet for the first time in decades, the country has record-low birth rates and faces a decline in population. This trend has grown in the midst of extremely harsh COVID controls in place across the nation.

A Shanghai family’s story went viral as the police sought to force them into a quarantine camp by threatening punishment on generations of their offspring, only to be told that they “are the last generation, thank you.”

The response spread and resonated with many young Chinese who no longer see bringing children into the world as an option. They choose not to do so for practical reasons in the midst of devastating lockdowns, and as a form of resistance against an otherwise sovereign government.

Despite relaxing its controversial one-child policy in recent years, the government isn’t seeing the birth or marriage rates it expects. Young Chinese are witnessing the frailty of their life and liberty under an authoritarian government and are making their choice accordingly.

Actions taken by the Chinese government under the zero-COVID policy have even included separating parents and young children for quarantine measures, as well as requiring tenants to surrender keys to their private residence so health workers can carry out checks and sanitization.

It is easy to see how the average Chinese citizen in the COVID-19 era may feel powerless over even the most basic aspects of daily life in the country, particularly when witnessing the severity of the government’s actions in China’s most progressive city, Shanghai.

With even basic privacy a thing of the past, disillusionment amongst young Chinese is on the rise. Chinese media at times even struggled to contain expressions of dissent, although activity relating to the hashtag “Last Generation” has now also been censored.

As the shadow of a population crisis grows, tension rises between the government and young Chinese fed up with the state of their lives and society. And in a country where resistance is so largely suppressed, the glimpses of this dissent are far from insignificant.

Bottom line: While China seeks to encourage a new generation of loyal citizens, its harsh response to the pandemic has revealed a willingness in the current population to resist the regime through one of the only areas in which they still have power—their reproduction.