Westernised but Not Yet Pro-democracy: The Younger Generations in China and Implications for Future Leadership

The social values and political attitudes of China's younger generations are important in an understanding of the country's political future. This article argues that the values of Chinese youth are products of interaction between socio-economic modernisation and the Party-state's ideological control. Survey data analysis and case studies in this article have shown that, as predicted by the modernisation theory, China's younger generations are evidently more Westernised—with a higher level of individualistic orientation and stronger self-expression values. They have not, however, developed a greater preference towards democracy. Instead, among them, there are politically active groups that are nationalistically oriented or are upholding Marxism. These interactive effects of modernisation and Party-state control would mean that China's future development is far more complicated and also full of possibilities.