As is well known, in the 1990s, a hypothesis became popular among Western politicians and social scientists: if the West supported China’s Reform and Opening-up policies and bolstered China’s economic growth through expanded economic ties, the resulting expansion of the middle class would lead to demands for greater civil rights. This, in turn, would lead to the rise of civil society and eventually steer China toward liberal democracy. This set of hypotheses is also known as Lipsetian Modernization Theory.
Another theory popular in Western academia—one that is mutually exclusive with Lipsetian theory—is what might be called the “Chinese Social Contract.” In short, the rulers and the people entered into a contract: the rulers promised to support economic development and improve living standards, while the people promised not to demand civil rights. However, what would happen if economic development stagnated remained unknown.
Lipsetian Modernization Theory has clearly failed in China, and the “Chinese Social Contract” theory, even if it still holds meaning, appears to have lapsed. Why is this the case?
The “Conservative” Post-00s Generation
Paying attention to another phenomenon may help us think more deeply. Most people who remember the last twenty years in China would likely agree that the “Post-00s” generation (those born between 2000–2009) is generally more conservative in mindset than the “Post-90s” generation. They are less willing to leave their home provinces, more inclined to accept parentally arranged blind dates, and more likely to seek a job “within the system” (tizhi nei, meaning government or state-owned enterprises). This is the problem of the “Three Mountains” that I have previously discussed. While it is too early to judge the collective mindset of the Post-05s and Post-10s, there is no reason to believe they will be more open than the Post-00s.
When discussing the middle class in the abstract, the archetype that often comes to mind is a family already raising children—specifically the parents—rather than the youth. Theoretically, young people should be more open-minded than the middle-aged, but in reality, the youth led by the Post-00s are not that open. The conservative turn in the youth’s mindset is more noteworthy than the conservatism of the general middle class because there is no reason to believe they will suddenly “open up” their spiritual world upon reaching middle age.
The question I want to discuss next is why the mindset of Chinese youth has become conservative over the last decade. This is not to say that the same group of young people grew conservative with age, but rather that as the Post-00s replaced the Post-90s as the main force of youth, “the youth” as a category became more conservative. This issue shares similarities with Lipsetian theory and the “Social Contract,” yet it is different. It is a more foundational issue: while a more open mindset does not necessarily mean a desire for greater civil rights (in fact, it usually doesn’t), a more conservative mindset certainly implies a total lack of interest in them.
The Great Firewall and the “Meme” Escape
There are many reasons. It is generally believed that the Chinese internet is a significant factor. China is one of the few countries in the world to have established a National Great Firewall, blocking the highest number of websites, and its domestic censorship is among the strictest globally. Yet, even if the Chinese internet is indeed an echo chamber, it could theoretically still circulate voices of an open mindset. During the “Public Intellect” (Gongzhi) era, this was exactly the case.
When I was in junior high school, Google was still directly accessible; some Post-00s, however, may have never seen Google’s homepage. Anyone accustomed to Google search finds Baidu’s ugly, misleading, ad-filled page design unbearable. Today’s kids grew up on Douyin (TikTok) and Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book). They are certainly familiar with trendy internet slang, “memes,” or various subcultures—sometimes I find it difficult to communicate when they use these “hip” terms—but these things have nothing to do with an open mindset.
Readers who have seen the film Life Is Beautiful might remember the German doctor. When faced with the reality of the Holocaust and Germany’s impending defeat, he withdrew his spiritual world into solving riddles to escape reality and suppress his discontent. Chinese youth are likely doing the same: withdrawing their psychological energy into internet memes to escape reality and suppress dissatisfaction.
It is apt to use terms like “Information Cocoons” to describe the Chinese internet or the entire Chinese information landscape. However, the “Little Pinks” (nationalist youth) have built a powerful psychological defense mechanism. They use “projection” to bounce back criticisms of being in an “information cocoon,” avoiding the fact that they are in one themselves. For example, they claim foreigners are prejudiced against Chinese people and are the ones trapped in “cocoons.” They also constantly invest psychological energy into the few remaining products that “save face” for them, such as cultural fast-food like the movie Ne Zha 2, domestic New Energy Vehicles (EVs), or even patently absurd theories like “Western Pseudo-History” (the claim that ancient Western history was faked).
The “Civil Service Exam Fever”
However, simply blaming the internet for this conservative mindset might be hasty. Cultural reasons are certainly more critical, but the more foundational a culture is, the more constant it remains. China has historically been a “Government-Centric” (Guanbenwei) culture. Yet, in the 1990s and the early years of this century, civil service and other jobs “within the system” were generally not seen as desirable. After that, “Civil Service Exam Fever” (Kaogongre) suddenly emerged and has persisted to this day. Therefore, “culture” alone cannot explain the sudden explosion of this fever.
A popular theory is that the economic downturn fueled the fever—a typical symptom of a conservative mindset—because in unstable and depressed times, securing an “iron rice bowl” that pays regardless of the weather seems like a wise move. This is the opposite of the 1990s trend where people resigned from civil service to “plunge into the sea” of business (xia hai), because that was an era of economic opportunity.
However, this theory only explains recent years and fails to account for the more distant past.
The Coming Winter and “Ruguanology”
By now, almost every Chinese person has felt the breath of the “economic winter.” When did this winter begin? It’s hard to pinpoint a single date. While the COVID-19 pandemic is the recognized tipping point (especially the 2021 Evergrande debt crisis), many Chinese people didn’t see it that way in 2020–2021. In their eyes then, Western countries were falling into chaos due to the pandemic while China was “secretly laughing.”
The ridiculous “Ruguanology” (Ruguan-xue, or “Entering the Pass-ism”) rose in 2020. Its followers compared China to the Jurchens and the US to the Ming Dynasty. This essentially meant they viewed themselves as “barbarians” and the US as the “civilized world,” waiting for the barbarians to knock down the gates of Shanhai Pass, enter the Central Plains, and establish a New World Order. Of course, the idea of a “New World Order” isn’t new; Hitler shouted this slogan, and Hideki Tojo shouted a “budget” version called the “New Order in East Asia.”
The economic reality from 2022 to the present has turned “Ruguanology” into a total pipe dream. “Ruguanology” relied on economic growth as its backbone; after all, “entering the pass” referred not to military conquest, but to reshaping the world order through China’s economic mass. However, in 2025, when Trump announced “trade rebalancing” and used tariffs as a threat, it became clear who actually has the power to reshape the world order. Martin Jacques once promoted the rise of the Chinese economy on TED; during the same period, there was the Taiwan commentator Sisy Chen who touted “prosperity in only one corner,” and later, a “Swiss scholar” whose name rings loud (Zhang Weiwei). Now, all these people have fallen into obscurity.
In the TV series Game of Thrones, “Winter is coming” was frequently teased from the very first episode, but the winter didn’t truly arrive until the tenth episode of the sixth season. Before winter comes, some people must see the omens. Visionaries find them early; those who are slow to realize find them late. Long before the pandemic, many had already sensed the coming chill. I remember a day in 2018, having dinner with two friends at a Hunan restaurant. One asked, “In what direction is the current economy heading?” The other replied, “Toward the direction of not being able to afford food.” At that time, the US-China trade dispute, P2P lending collapses, and local government debt were hot topics, yet some people were still aggressively buying property in big cities, thinking the value would keep rising.
Today, a few people I know who work “within the system” literally cannot afford to eat—they are burdened with heavy mortgage and car payments while their salaries are pitifully low. They have simply cut out lunch, calling it “weight loss” for the sake of appearances. Strictly speaking, the “economic winter” is from 2022 to the present—how long it will last, I do not know.
Long-term Structural Post-effects
It is worth noting that the “Civil Service Exam Fever” formed much earlier than any reasonable time one might have smelled the economic winter. In 2013, People’s Daily Online ran a report titled “How to Break the ‘Iron Rice Bowl’—Looking at Civil Service System Reform through the ‘Civil Service Exam Fever’.” That year, the national exam’s applicant-to-job ratio exceeded 100:1, far higher than the 86:1 ratio in 2025. In 2010, Economic Information Daily ran a report titled “The Cooling of ‘Civil Service Fever’ is Far from Enough,” because the 2011 registration numbers were 30,000 lower than the previous year—though this was only temporary. Even in 2010, media articles were already reflecting on the fever; one article in The Economic Observer mentioned: “The continuous increase in civil servants and the crowding of elite talent into the civil service is nothing short of a reactionary move for social development.”
Taken together, the “Civil Service Exam Fever” likely formed around 2008, well before the years when the Chinese economy entered a systemic crisis. This means that during the era of high economic growth—even when the GDP growth rate was in the double digits—the fever had already formed. Some say the 2008 financial crisis pushed the first wave, but the term “Civil Service Exam Fever” appeared even before the crisis. Furthermore, in terms of national economic confidence, the financial crisis only brought temporary panic; by 2010, slogans like “prosperity in only one corner” and “When China Rules the World” were in vogue. However, compared to the “Ruguanology” of 2020, the voices of 2010 were relatively rational and refined.
Thus, the fever has existed in both the era of high growth and the current era of systemic crisis. How do we explain the relationship between this fever and economic factors? Clearly, the popular theory—that economic downturn leads to conservative career choices—might explain the last three years, but it cannot explain the period around 2008.
My theory is that the “Civil Service Exam Fever” is the result of long-term structural factors and short-term cyclical factors working together. Long-term economic growth allowed middle-class families to accumulate wealth, prompting their children to enter the civil service—a profession perceived to have high social status. Meanwhile, the precursors of the current systemic crisis prompted people to seek an “iron rice bowl” for stability. But ultimately, the long-term factor is more fundamental. This is still a consequence—or more accurately, a sequela (side effect)—of past economic development.
Under the backdrop of China’s economic growth since Reform and Opening-up, the newly formed middle class accumulated wealth rapidly. Coupled with the One-Child Policy, most middle-class families raised only one child. Since, according to Chinese tradition, most middle-class parents provide economic security for their adult children—which often involves career “advice” or even coercion—they might induce these children to prioritize civil service. These positions may have low pay (excluding potential “gray” or illegal income), but in the eyes of the parents, they carry social status. At the end of the 18th century, George Staunton, in his account of his embassy to the Qianlong Emperor, wrote:
“The Chinese, in general, are very simple in their style of living, and are satisfied with the mere necessaries of life, without any desire of accumulating wealth. The idea of employing new methods for the purpose of producing any article on a large scale, with a view to profit, does not seem to have entered into the minds of any, except perhaps a few individuals in the great maritime cities.”
This observation remains largely correct today. I would add to Staunton’s observation: once parents reach a middle-class economic level, they may encourage or even force their children to enter “the system” to bring glory to the family name.
Economic growth did not bring a middle class calling for civil rights, but rather “State Worship” like “Ruguanology.” This phenomenon cannot be explained by economic factors alone; it must be attributed to cultural issues. As I discussed in another article, in a country lacking true religion and where the common people generally lack agency (subjectivity), they will inevitably invest their psychological energy into celebrities or the State.
Conclusion: The Individual Breakout
We can reasonably predict that when young people no longer have economic support from their parents, when they must face urban living costs alone or as a family unit and find it unsustainable, and when their parents’ control weakens, the civil service will no longer be a popular choice. The “sequela” of Civil Service Exam Fever brought by economic development will gradually fade. Whether this happens depends on the future direction of the macroeconomy. Will China really suffer the systemic economic crisis feared by economists like Paul Krugman? Or will it avoid it through structural reforms or other events? No one can give a credible prediction, but a long wait usually yields only disappointment and further loss of confidence.
Those who mistakenly believed Lipsetian Modernization Theory would work in China failed to consider China’s unique psychological and cultural factors. However, the deepest problem remains psychological, rather than cultural, social, or economic.
On one hand, there is the factor of group psychology. When Gustave Le Bon wrote The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, he described a nation as a “crowd.” In the late 19th century, a national group was still relatively abstract; today, thanks to the internet, a nation acts more like a concrete crowd than ever before. And a crowd seems naturally conservative. As Freud said: “The individual feels incomplete if he is alone; but a group rejects everything that is new and unusual.”
On the other hand, there is the factor of individual psychology, which is the most important. As long as you can break the intergenerational control your parents have over you, and as long as you do not fall into state worship, the macro-conclusion that economic development leads to a conservative youth mindset will not apply to you. You can still maintain an open mindset. Ultimately, it depends on the individual.
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