Our treasured illusions about how Xi will react to his country sinking are about to unravel
China’s Spring Festival has huge demographic and political significance.
It’s the last surviving relic of a past world, where extended families gathered at their home villages to share respectful greetings to the old, wishes for prosperity (“Gong xi fa cai” in Mandarin) among the younger generation, and joy at the births of new heirs and descendants.
Nearly 40 years of the coercive One Child Policy, not to speak of uncounted deaths from Covid-19 among the elderly last Spring Festival, has taken an irreversible demographic toll on festival jollity.
