China’s Burnt-Out Gen Z Finds an Unlikely Hero in an Anthropologist

When a 54-year-old academic attracts packed auditoriums and live-streamed crowds usually reserved for pop icons, the underlying system is clearly failing its young. Biao Xiang, an anthropologist who now directs the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany, has emerged as an unlikely guide for a disillusioned generation. Young professionals and graduates, exhausted by intense societal pressure and a stalling economy, are abandoning traditional rat-race ambitions to seek clarity in his lectures.

The phenomenon stems from a stark economic reality. After decades of rapid growth, the standard state-promoted formula of hard work, a university degree, and homeownership no longer delivers stability. Youth unemployment reached 21.3 percent in mid-2023 before official data publication was halted, leaving educated young people scrambling for dwindling corporate and public sector positions. Many live in fear of the so-called curse of 35—an arbitrary age threshold in job advertisements beyond which career prospects plummet. Toxic office culture and exhausting hours have fueled widespread despair, popularized by terms like lying flat, where individuals opt out of traditional ambition altogether, and involution, which describes intense competition that yields negligible rewards.

Into this vacuum steps Xiang, offering precise structural diagnostics rather than standard institutional platitudes. He describes the daily struggle to survive in a stagnant market as floating, likening overworked citizens to hummingbirds frantically flapping their wings just to stay in place. He also diagnoses their growing alienation as a loss of the nearby—the immediate local community and human connections neglected between personal self-absorption and abstract global affairs. Addressing an audience of 500 mostly Chinese listeners in Singapore, Xiang argued that measuring personal worth strictly through state and institutional approvals is inherently destructive, urging individuals to seek understanding through direct human interaction instead.

Xiang directly attributes this societal malaise to deep structural flaws, notably a distorted property market backed by land-dependent local governments and an over-expanded university system that forced millions into the exact same narrow race. While official leadership acknowledges the mismatch between public expectations and uneven national development, heavy censorship leaves little room for open political discourse. Frustration consequently spills into online debates over university exams and living costs. Though some academic peers accuse Xiang of chasing public influence, his popularity reflects a simple reality: when central economic planning produces burnout instead of prosperity, young people will naturally look elsewhere for answers.

Written by Martina Kirchner martina.kirchner@alpineweekly.com