Why China’s Zoomers and Millennials crave for change
A movement has taken shape that illustrates the ‘passive resistance’ to the ‘official Chinese Dream’ narrative
Foreign spies are being blamed for China’s “lying flat”, or tang ping, craze that swept across China in 2021. The phenomenon gripped Zoomers and Millennials amid rising unemployment among the educated young before official data started to disappear.
It came after Zhang Dandan, of the prestigious Peking University, claimed in 2023 that the real jobless total for those aged 16 to 24 was as high as 46%. Officially, statistics showed it was at a record 21.3%. So, Beijing simply changed the process before canning the stats.
Three years later, China came up with another implausible explanation. It denounced “hostile anti-China forces abroad,” according to the State Security Ministry. “Young people have become a primary target for ideological infiltration,” the spy agency stated last week.
Yet this was merely a knee-jerk reaction by the Communist Party amid threats to its right to rule after nearly 77 years in power. As the “China Miracle” frays at the edges, Zoomers and Millennials are crying out for change in a government packed with ideologically gray old men.
“The accusation that external forces are deliberately promoting this development shows just how sensitive the issue has become and the importance attributed to it for social stability,” China Business Spotlight reported last week.
[It] questions consumerism and careerism.
China Business Spotlight
Figure it out:
- For the record, official youth unemployment was running at 16.9% in March.
- Back in August 2025, it was 18.9% as the AI and automation revolution intensified.
Delve deeper: “Lying flat is what it sounds like – instead of grinding and hustling in an increasingly difficult job market, it’s just … lying down, not unlike the American social media meme version of ‘bed rotting,’” Katie Notopoulos wrote for Business Insider.
Big picture: But the roots of disillusionment run deep for Chinese Zoomers and Millennials. “Since the start of the decade, a movement has been taking shape that deliberately turns its back on the official vision of the ‘Chinese Dream,’” China Business Spotlight reported.
Bottom line: “[It] questions consumerism and careerism. While the political leadership continues to focus on achievement, advancement and prosperity, more and more young people are opting for withdrawal and minimalism,” the social media site said.
China Factor comment: In short, the “movement” and its online appeal are just internet echoes of “passive resistance.” Issues that threaten the draconian rule of Xi and his cronies.