First, there was the century of humiliation, in which China was subjugated by western powers. Then there was the era of reform and opening up, where China’s rapid economic development paved the way for what was supposed to be the Chinese century. But now, according to social media users , China is in another epoch worth naming: the garbage time of history.
In recent weeks, Chinese chat groups and WeChat feeds have been buzzing with discussion of whether China has entered a period of economic stagnation or regression in which failure is all but inevitable, called a “garbage time of history”.
The sentiment can be summed up by a graphic, widely shared on social media – and since censored on Weibo.
Entitled the “2024 misery ranking grand slam”, it tallies up the number of misery points that a person might have earned in China this year. The first star is unemployment. For two stars, add a mortgage. For a full suite of eight stars, you’ll need the first two, plus debt, childrearing, stock trading, illness, unfinished housing and, finally, hoarding Moutai, a famous brand of baijiu, a sorghum liquor.
“Some people say that history has garbage time,” wrote one Xiaohongshu user who shared the graphic, along with advice about self-care. “Individuals don’t have garbage time.”
The phrase is inspired by – and has been misattributed to – the Austrian free market economist Ludwig von Mises, who argued against government intervention in the economy.
In February, Ma Xiangyang, an author for The Economic Observer, a business publication, wrote an article that some analysts interpreted as being a coded reference to the Xi era. “As far as Chinese history is concerned, the Ming dynasty opened by Zhu Yuanzhang is a typical ‘historical garbage time’. He started his empire dream with severe punishments and harsh laws and wanted to protect the family name for generations. Objectively, it only extended the length and depth of this period of darkness,” Ma wrote. Zhu was the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty in the 14th century.
Ma added that the ghost of “garbage time” was starting to return to “the heart of Asia”.
The phrase has since caught on among Chinese people disappointed with China’s flagging economy, who are feeling increasingly hopeless about the so-called “Chinese century”. In recent years, other phrases such as “lying flat” or “involution” have become similarly trendy among young people who feel that society is no longer rewarding their efforts.
State media and certain influential commentators have not taken kindly to the latest viral phrase.
Last week, Wang Wen, executive dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, a thinktank at Renmin University, wrote an article lambasting the “falsification of academic concepts”.
“A closer look at this pseudo-word reveals that it is more dangerous than the ‘lying flat theory’ in recent years,” Wang wrote, referring to the “historical garbage time” phrase. “It completely denies China’s current development situation and attempts to create public expectations that the country will eventually fail”.
Beijing Daily, the official newspaper of the Beijing branch of the Chinese Communist party, also recently responded to the trend, with an article entitled: “‘History’s Garbage Time’? True or False?”
“Is there any ‘garbage time’ in our history? This is a false proposition that is not worth refuting,” the Beijing Daily writer declared in the 3,000-character piece refuting the proposition.
The Chinese authorities have become increasingly concerned about negativity dragging down the country’s recovery. Social media users have been instructed not to “bad-mouth” the economy. Qiao Liu, dean of Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management, recently gave a commencement speech, in which he warned graduating students to reject “narrative traps” about China’s economy having peaked. The “garbage time of history” was one such trap, he said, according to a translation published by Pekingnology, a newsletter.
But some social media users are sanguine about being online in such an era. One Weibo blogger, who feared his account might soon be deleted because of a post he made about a recent food safety scandal, wrote a farewell to his followers. “No matter what happens, I am very happy to spend the garbage time of history with you”.
Additional research by Chi Hui Lin