Among the many revelations of China's weekend protests are that young Chinese—GenZs and Millennials—aren't what people in the West (and even Chinese themselves!) thought they were.

I think we're witnessing the emergence of a new political consciousness or nationalism. 🧵0/11 In the past few days, protesters, many young students and professionals in their 20s and 30s, attended their first protest in one of the most dangerous places to do so in the world.

Many described an overwhelming mix of emotion: terror, empowerment, catharsis, and patriotism. 1/

How to protests under 21st century authoritarianism. A thread 🧵 China's has such strict censorships rules that many in recent days have used creative methods to showcase their anger at zero-Covid policies.

The most popular being to hold up blank sheets of white paper. 1/

Panicking buying resumes in Shanghai as half of the city goes back into lockdowns 1/ A supermarket in Pudong /2

Shanghai is cosmetically back to normal, but I've found the psychic state of a post-lockdown city to be something like resigned perseverance.

It's a mix of fatalism and survivalist pragmatism, a forced apathy drawn from experience.

"No choice but to carry on," many said. 1/ Why was no one angry? I wondered.

For most of my life, I lived in societies with a protest culture. My immediate response to injustice is anger

But I've realized this to be a kind of privilege.

Anger is like a fire: it's natural, but it needs certain conditions to grow.

2/

I recently wrote for @JoinPersuasion about the resonances between Shanghai, April 2022 & Beijing, June 1989 (Tiananmen). A thread.

persuasion.community/p/shanghais-la… The piece^ covers other topics including China's political v. technocratic failure, covid-zero policy, etc. so I wanted to extend the comparison in this thread. 1/

A new buzzword has entered the Chinese lexicon.

bailan 摆烂 “to let things rot.” 

What does it mean? 1/7 2021 was the year of tangping 躺平.

One by one, Chinese youths began to opt out of a system where additional effort no longer tracked additional rewards. In fact, the system was so overheated, rewards often decreased with added effort.

They called it "involution" 内卷. 2/7

For years, I've lived & studied in two very different political systems: A & B.

Lately, I've found it harder to see them clearly b/c the words we use are so antiquated and fuzzy: democracy, authoritarianism, etc.

So let me save you time. Here's 8 new ways to think about them. The Boogeyman:

Each system is built adversarially against some notion drawn from its past.

A was optimized against the idea of tyranny.
B was optimized against the idea of chaos.

Shanghai is now sending entire compounds to quarantine facilities after a single positive case.

Why? Policies are now a "military order" with very specific targets: Each district must "kill" X number of cases a day.

The result has been a paralyzing climate of fear. Residents are locking doors in refusal. The result:

I’ve never witnessed this level of badassery: 95-year old grandma in Shanghai tests positive for Covid. About to get sent away but fends off SIX workers in haz-mats with her cane until they give up. Later in the day they seal her apartment with steel plates, she RIPS them off, and takes a stroll around the neighborhood…

Harrowing diary of a Shanghai neighborhood committee worker (call her Mary) who just quit after being on pandemic prevention duty since March 18. “I cannot keep going" she starts. A🧵 March 17

The director of the SH Municipal Health Commission holds a press conference. Mary says she's optimistic about the city's prospects and relays it to her WeChat friends. An emergency meeting is held at night to prepare PCR tests for her entire district on 3/18 & 3/19.

Here's what I know so far about the economic fallout of Russia's sanctions on China, courtesy of conversations w/@ProfGuthrie, @vshih2, @AhnOnEcon, and others. 2/China's direct exposure is small. While China is Russia's largest trading partner, but Russia is not even in China’s top ten. Bilateral trade will continue as well, since Russia’s trade surplus vis-a-vis China ensures that Chinese exports keep flowing until trade nets out.

OMG Newsweek Japan Dec. 7 issue 😱 TL: As Xi Jinping spearheads his 21st century Communist movement, he is pushing ideological conformity and moving society toward a state of alienation. What exactly does the dictator have in mind?

One underreported theme of Xi’s “Common Prosperity” campaign is just how much China's leaders link economic/political problems to cultural ones. Recall how Beijing regulators banned “effeminate men” on TV, and ordered broadcasters to promote more “masculine” role models. 1/ The reason has much to do with the lessons China's leaders drew from the West’s own culture wars. In 1988, Wang Huning, China’s most powerful theorist, wrote a Tocqueville-esque memoir called America Against America. 2/

Here's a running list of all the "crackdowns" going on in China so far (note: we're way beyond "tech" now):
1. Ecommerce companies
2. Social media companies
3. Fintech companies
4. Fan clubs (organized online and promoted by TV) and celebrity culture 1/2 2/2
5. High-income individuals who avoid taxes, or make “excessively high incomes”
6. Tutoring and education companies, private schools
7. Gaming companies
8. Ride-sharing, car-hailing, bike sharing, and powerbank sharing companies