On Friday last week, tens of thousands of young Chinese took part in a bike ride overnight from Henan Province’s Zhengzhou (鄭州) to the historical city of Kaifeng in search of breakfast.
The night ride became a viral craze after four female university students in June chronicled their ride on social media from Zhengzhou in search of soup dumplings in Kaifeng.
Propelled by the slogan “youth is priceless,” the number of nocturnal riders surged to about 100,000 on Friday last week. The main road connecting the two cities was crammed with cyclists as police tried to maintain order. That sparked alarm among Chinese authorities who are wary of young people seeking a sense of liberation in pressured times.
The next day, the city governments and police took action by banning cycling in the main streets, and three major bike-sharing companies announced that rented bikes would be prohibited from leaving the city and would be locked remotely if riders attempted to do so.
Several universities in Zhengzhou prohibited students from riding bikes or leaving campus, with some saying it was a necessary measure as the “night riders” might have been incited by foreign forces.
The night rides are an innovative way for young Chinese to have fun, but such a large gathering has obviously touched the government’s nerves. Authoritarian governments are ever-wary about such gatherings being used to express dissent.
Last month, law enforcers in Shanghai restricted people from wearing Halloween costumes — with police searching people wearing constumes and ordering them to remove their costumes — fearing that they could be subversive or used to mock government officials.
For the Chinese government, university students are seen as a particularly sensitive demographic and a driver of social movements, such as the Tiananmen Square democracy protests in 1989 and the nationwide “white paper” movement protesting Beijing’s zero COVID-19 policy in 2022.
With the Chinese economy in the midst of a painful deceleration, the nation’s young people are facing deteriorating job prospects. Youth unemployment hit a record-high 21.3 percent in June last year. After suspending publication of the data and fiddling with its methodology for six months, youth unemployment was still about 18.8 percent in August.
A record 11.8 million university graduates entering the workforce this year face unemployment and economic insecurity.
A long-term survey conducted by Harvard University and Stanford University academics showed that the ratio of Chinese feeling pessimistic about the future rose from 2.3 percent in 2004 to 16 percent last year, and Chinese who believe that “effort is always awarded in China” dropped from more than 60 percent in 2014 to just 28 percent last year.
There is growing discontent among the Chinese public. Data compiled by Freedom House’s China Dissent Monitor showed an 18 percent rise in reported protests in China in the second quarter of this year compared with the same period last year, mostly driven by economic grievances.
With the Chinese government’s suppression of the night ride — which was a rare moment of escape for young Chinese from the anxiety and uncertain future they face — intended to silence any possible dissent, Taiwanese can see more clearly the difference between living under authoritarianism and democracy.
This is sound evidence as to why Taiwan could never be a part of autocratic China.
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