權威學者稱中國Z世代過度自信，認為西方“邪惡”

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

China's Gen Z overconfident and thinks West is 'evil', top academic says

South China Morning Post - Yan Xuetong

Fri, January 14, 2022, 1:30 AM

China's Generation Z is displaying a high level of overconfidence in the country's power and hostility towards Westerners, a prominent Chinese academic on US affairs has warned.

"Post-millennial students usually have a strong sense of superiority and confidence, and they tend to look at other countries from a condescending perspective," Yan Xuetong, director of Tsinghua University's international studies institute, said at a conference in Beijing last Saturday.

"[They] look at international affairs with a make-believe mindset, thinking it's very easy for China to achieve its foreign policy goals. They think only China is just and innocent, while other countries, especially Western countries, are evil and thus have natural hatred towards Westerners."

He added that students tended to divide the world into China and the rest, viewing all other countries as the same.

Published by his university's website on Monday, Yan's remarks were made at a conference it hosted about political science and international relations education, attended by more than 100 professors and researchers from dozens of universities and institutes.

The warning from Yan - one of China's leading experts on American affairs - came amid intensifying political headwinds from the US and its allies and rising nationalism in China.

He said heightened nationalism among people born after 2000 was driven mainly by key opinion leaders on the internet, with students being heavily influenced by conspiracy theories and economic determinism.

Yan suggested that his fellow lecturers on international affairs should try to focus on hard facts so that students did not develop overconfidence in the country.

"[We should] help students recognize the diversity of the world and rid them of the assumption that the world is just divided into China and the outside," he said. "[We should] strengthen the students' logical and critical thinking to lower the influence of key opinion leaders."

Chinese internet regulators are strict on content related to China, but have generally turned a blind eye to conspiracy theories and fake news about foreign governments and societies.

Conspiracy theories, especially those related to the United States, had a massive audience online in China, not least among Generation Z, said Wei Xing, a Shanghai-based journalist and founder of China Fact Check, which focuses on fake international news on Chinese-language sites.

 "They tend to understand many issues through the lens of these conspiracy theories," he said. "Fact-checking doesn't work very well with them - it's like you can't wake a person who pretends to be asleep.

Negative views continue to dominate China's global image, survey finds

"These theories win good traffic, and are highly deceptive and difficult to debunk with fact-checking, and thus deemed safer to spread."

Nationalism has also grown against the backdrop of the state's considerable efforts to warn the country of espionage and infiltration, especially from Western nations.

A high level of skepticism towards the West is shared by Chinese leaders. In one speech in 2014, President Xi Jinping told the country's security officials that the West, led by the US, was "intensifying their efforts to Westernize and split China" after seeing the balance of power shifting in China's favour.

Public perceptions of China in developed economies have plunged to new lows in the past two years. A Pew Research Centre survey from March found that 89 per cent of American adults considered China a "competitor or enemy" of the United States.

Meanwhile, opinion polls also suggest a high level of distrust of the US among Chinese, especially among the young. In a survey published in November by the Carter Centre's US-China Perception Monitor, 62 per cent of Chinese held unfavorable views of the US, rising to 63 per cent among those aged 16 to 24.

In the same poll, 78 per cent of respondents said they believed China was viewed favourably internationally, with 84 per cent of 16- to 24-year-olds expressing that view.

Translation

一位研究美國事務的中國著名學者警告說，中國的 Z 世代對國家的力量和對西方人的敵意表現出高度的過度自信。

清華大學國際研究所所長閻學通上週六在北京的一次會議上說,“後千禧一代的學生通常具有強烈的優越感和自信，他們傾向於以居高臨下的角度看待其他國家”。

“[他們]以無實據支持的心態看待國際事務，認為中國很容易實現其外交政策目標。他們認為只有中國是正義和無辜的，而其他國家特別是西方國家是邪惡的，因此自然地對西方人抱有仇恨。”

他補充說，學生傾向於將世界劃分為中國和其他國家，將所有其他國家視為相同。

閻的講話是週一由他所在大學的網站發布，是就該校主辦的一場關於政治學和國際關係教育的會議而發表的，來自數十所大學和研究所的 100 多名教授和研究人員出席了會議。

閻是中國在美國事務方面的主要專家之一, 在中國面對美國及其盟國日益加劇的政治逆風, 和民族主義抬頭之際，發出警告。

他說，2000 年後出生的人的民族主義情緒高漲，主要是由互聯網上的主要輿論領袖推動的，學生們深受陰謀論和經濟決定論的影響。

閻建議他的國際事務講師應該盡量關注確鑿的事實，這樣學生就不會對國家產生過度自信。

他說： “[我們應該]幫助學生認識世界的多樣性，擺脫世界只是分為中國和外部的假設”;  “[我們應該]加強學生的邏輯和批判性思維，以降低當紅意見領袖的影響” 。

中國互聯網監管機構對與中國相關的內容非常嚴格，但通常對有關外國政府和社會的陰謀論和假新聞視而不見。

專注於中國語的China Fact Check 的創始人, 上海記者 Wei Xing 說，陰謀論，尤其是那些與美國有關，在中國有大量的網絡受眾，不单只是 Z 一代。

他說, “他們傾向於通過這些陰謀論來理解許多問題”; “核查事實對他們來說沒有什么効用 - 就像你無法叫醒一個假裝睡著的人。

調查發現，負面觀點繼續主導中國看全世界

“這些理論贏得了好的流量，並且具有高度欺騙性，很難通過事實核查來被揭穿，因此被認為更可以安全地把它流傳” 。

在國家大力警告該國有間諜和被滲透，尤其是來自西方國家的間諜活動和滲透的背景下，民族主義也在增長。

中國領導人也對西方持高度懷疑態度。在 2014 年的一次演講中，習近平主席告訴該國安全官員，在看到力量平衡向有利於中國的方向轉變後，以美國為首的西方正在“加緊西化和分裂中國的努力”。

過去兩年，發達經濟體的公眾人仕對中國的看法跌至新低。Pew研究中心 3 月份的一項調查發現，89% 的美國成年人認為中國是美國的“競爭對手或敵人”。

同時，民意調查還顯示，中國人，尤其是年輕人對美國的不信任程度很高。卡特中心的美中認知監測機構 (Carter Centre's US-China Perception Monitor )11 月發布的一項調查顯示，62% 的中國人對美國持負面看法，在 16 至 24 歲的人群中，這一比例上升至 63%。

在同一項民意調查中，78% 的受訪者表示他們認為中國在國際上受到好評，其中 84% 的 16 至 24 歲的人表達了這種看法。

         So, a majority of the young people in China hold unfavorable views of the US, and nearly 80% of them believe that China has been viewed favorably internationally. As early as in 2014, CCP leaders believed that the West, led by the US, had been "intensifying their efforts to Westernize and split China". It seems that there is a cultural war going to decide which political system is better: democratic or authoritarian.

Note:

 According to its web-site, Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research.