A few days ago, the CCP’s official media began to focus on criticizing a term – the garbage time of history. From Xinhua News Agency to Beijing Daily, and then to other media, they published articles claiming that there is no such thing as the garbage time of history, and that now is the moment of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. The garbage time of history is a deliberately misleading statement that does not conform to the process of historical development.
The CCP’s official media sometimes play a role in reverse propaganda. Many things were not originally known to many people, but once criticized, they instead created an effect known to all. This is similar to Hu Xijin, the ‘hawk’ who defends the CCP. In the past, the incident of Zhang Gaoli, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, sexually assaulting Peng Shuai. Peng Shuai wrote an article on Weibo, which was quickly deleted, and not many people knew about it. But once Hu Xijin got involved, many people knew that Zhang Gaoli had slept with Peng Shuai, and it was rumored that his wife was guarding the door. Hu Xijin played a role in reverse propagation through his defense.
Similarly, the official media’s criticism of the garbage time of history aroused my curiosity, so I studied this topic. The garbage time of history can be traced back to two articles. One was written on September 21, 2023, by Hu Wenhui, a media person from Guangdong, titled ‘The Garbage Time of History, the Long Holiday of Culture’. He believes that the course of history is sometimes like a sports game, with garbage time. For example, although the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, it had already entered garbage time when it invaded Afghanistan in 1978, and Gorbachev’s appearance only accelerated this process. There are similar situations in Chinese history, such as the Ming Dynasty, which perished in 1644, but had already entered garbage time when Emperor Chongzhen killed Yuan Chonghuan in 1630.
The second article was written in November 2022 by an author under the pen name, ‘How to Spend the Garbage Time of History’. He further explained the garbage time of history based on Hu Wenhui’s article, believing that when a period of history seriously violates the economic laws of history, even if individuals work hard, they cannot change the course of history, and this period is called the garbage time of history. He pointed out that Europe developed modern institutional civilization through the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, while China went from the Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, moving towards the historical process of dynastic cycles.
The official media’s criticism of the garbage time of history believes that this is a veiled criticism of the present, expressing dissatisfaction with reality, and therefore began to focus on criticism. The official media’s critical logic is based on cyclical theory, while the garbage time of history carries the meaning of determinism. The communist system itself is a kind of determinism, believing that historical development does not depend on human will. However, when the official media now criticizes the garbage time of history, it adopts cyclical theory, indicating that the official narrative system has abandoned the narrative system of communism.
So, does the garbage time of history exist? Is China now in the garbage time of history? I think the garbage time of history exists, especially in the dynastic periods of Chinese history. The characteristics of the rise and fall of Chinese history are the cycles of dynasties. After a dynasty is established, it goes through a period of prosperity, then declines, and finally chaos, and a new dynasty rises. When a dynasty enters its final years, there are peasant uprisings, natural and man-made disasters, warlord divisions, which eventually lead to great chaos and then great governance.
There are many historical works that explain the dynastic cycles of China. Jin Guantao’s ‘Prosperity and Crisis’ talks about the rise of unorganized forces and the cycles of dynasties. When a new dynasty is established, it destroys the unorganized forces of the past, and there is vitality, but as time goes on, land annexation, the self-service of the aristocracy, and the slow response of the bureaucratic system, social contradictions accumulate, and eventually, the displaced people gather, forming new forces, destroying the old dynasty, and establishing a new dynasty.
There are also climate theories that explain dynastic changes, such as the Little Ice Age at the end of the Ming Dynasty, which led to crop failures, displaced people, and Li Zicheng’s destruction of the Ming Dynasty. There are two models of dynastic changes in China: the peasant uprising model and the military coup model. The peasant uprising model is a sharp social contradiction caused by a financial crisis, and the military coup model is the power change within the ruling class, such as the rise of the Sui Dynasty and the Chenqiao Mutiny of the Northern Song Dynasty.
The demise of the Qing Dynasty can also be seen as a military coup. The Wuchang Uprising led to the demise of the Qing Dynasty, but the last few decades of the Qing Dynasty can hardly be called garbage time, because there was no financial crisis, the country looked prosperous, the political system implemented constitutional reform, education abolished the imperial examination, and established new schools, the military trained new armies, and the economy implemented the Westernization Movement, without deep social crises. Therefore, the demise of the Qing Empire was a matter of chance, not a necessity.
The garbage time of history exists. Is today’s China in the garbage time of history? According to the standards just mentioned, I don’t think China can be called the garbage time of history. First, there has been no serious financial crisis. Although the economy is deteriorating, it has not yet reached the point of serious financial bankruptcy. Second, the power struggle within the ruling class has not threatened the rule of the Communist Party.
But I think today’s China has entered the period of historical debt. The period of historical debt is relative to the period of dividends. In the past 40 years, China’s reform and opening up has seen rapid economic development, which is the period of historical dividends. Deng Xiaoping’s reform and opening up happened to coincide with China’s demographic dividend, with a large number of young and middle-aged people entering the labor market, and China caught up with the process of urbanization from rural areas. At the same time, the industrial transfer of international division of labor, the transfer of labor-intensive industries from the United States, Japan and other developed countries to China, the honeymoon period between China and the United States, China’s accession to the WTO, the factors of time, place and people combined together, formed the period of dividends for China’s economic development in the past 40 years.
In the period of historical dividends, the decision-makers have a large margin for error. Even if the decisions are wrong, the mistakes can be turned into correct decisions through development. For example, Beijing built T1 and T2 airports, which soon became insufficient, and T3 was built. In the period of historical dividends, decisions will be covered by development, and it doesn’t matter much if the decisions are wrong.
However, now we have entered the period of historical debt. The real estate market has entered a downturn, investments are facing the risk of losing everything, property not only does not appreciate but shrinks, and opportunities for career competition and social mobility are decreasing. In the period of historical debt, the population is entering decline, the economy is entering decline, and investment is entering contraction. Individual efforts are difficult to reverse the direction of historical progress. The efforts of individuals in the period of historical decline are similar to the garbage time of history, and it is difficult to change the course of history no matter how hard you try.
Today’s young Chinese people are entering the period of historical debt, and choice is more important than effort. In the period of historical dividends, effort is greater than choice. Now, once the choice is not good, no matter how hard you try, it will be useless, and may even become a negative effect. It is crucial to see the direction of historical progress, distinguish the general trend, and choose the right industry. The arrival of self-driving cars makes being a taxi driver a miserable choice, and effort is meaningless.
In the period of historical debt, each of us must sharpen our eyes, enrich ourselves through learning, better face the changes of the times, and make good choices. This is the prerequisite for our efforts to protect ourselves in the period of debt.
Thank you for watching today’s program.
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