China's Got A New Bag: Religious Awakening and Political Demands Trump Materialistic Ideals

There’s some tea brewing in China and it’s hot! With rampant development and a burgeoning middle class there is an air of dissent bubbling just below the surface. Ongoing protests in Hong Kong have been in the news lately and right on time the book Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China, by Evan Osnos, is reviewed by John Osburg, for the journal Foreign Affairs. In Osberg’s article Can't Buy Me Love: China's New Rich and Its Crisis of Values, he discusses the rift between the haves and the have not’s in China as well as how the bottom seems to have dropped out of the pragmatic ideology so firmly held by the people of China in the recent past. This ties into the motivation behind the protests in Hong Kong very well. In the past thirty years or so, China has seen a large boom in economic development which according to Osnos, has created a very materialistic consumer oriented society. Yet, he points to signs that the Chinese populous wants more now, more stability, dignity and more freedom to pursue religious endeavors. These ideals seem to be concurrent with the protests and one may extend those wants to include a more democratic governing body especially when it comes to Hong Kong. When you look at the information provided by John Osburg in regards to Osnos’s book it is stated that there is a high likelihood that the children of the newly-minted middle class will see the end of the prosperous economic boom their parents experienced due to corruption and nepotism/cronyism. It seems that the protests in Hong Kong are a sign that the youth are aware of this and want to hold the Chinese government accountable for creating a democratic Hong Kong. This would help create a system where people could set up a government that would be able to deal with the large aging population without having staggering effects on the economy or put the whole of china in a place where a large part of their population goes without care in old age. Plus, if the protests are successful one would hope that a free democratic election in Hong Kong will give the rest of China’s citizens an infusion of hope to see similar changes in their mainland governance.