Values, identity and activism – Individualism reigns in China—and with it, more social responsibility | Special report | The Economist

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Young people are testing the limits of a regime that has long been suspicious of citizen-led movements A T THE GoZeroWaste workshop in Suzhou, a canal town near Shanghai, a dozen young people learn to hand-sew face masks. The single-use, surgical sort are hardly in short supply, as no country makes more masks than China. […] To elders, taught in the Mao era to renounce individual dreams for collective goals, young people seem eccentric and headstrong. […] That is a source of particular anxiety for young men, because home-ownership is often seen as a prerequisite for marriage. […] Young people are testing the limits of a regime that has long been suspicious of citizen-led movements.

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