Opinion: As U.S. loses lustre among Gen Z, Canada must pounce
The U.S. is declining, and future Gen Z leaders clearly see it. How do I know? Over the past year, I’ve had a front-row seat as a Schwarzman Scholar.
At Tsinghua University in Beijing, I recently completed a master’s degree alongside the leaders of tomorrow, many of them the children of prominent academics, business leaders and government officials, mostly from the U.S. and China.
These bright young minds include multimillion-dollar startup founders, emerging public servants and talented young scientists. Some are already operating in government, venture capital and diplomacy, and are poised to shape policy, markets and institutions in the decades ahead.
Here’s what I observed:
At the start of the program, the American students looked proud: their country, they knew, was seen as fair, forward-looking and stable.
Many non-Americans, including children of Chinese Communist Party officials, appeared envious of America’s rule-based governance versus what they were accustomed to in their own countries. To be sure, they knew the U.S. had its flaws, but they believed America represented the best the world had to offer.
Today, however, it’s clear to me that most of them are deeply skeptical of the American system as it stands.
At the start, nearly all my Chinese classmates were looking forward to graduate studies or internships in the U.S., convinced that American democratic ideals were something they could one day carry back to China. Yet as the year progressed, admiration gave way to ambivalence and, increasingly, distrust.
That shift was compounded by the Trump presidency’s attacks on America’s own leading universities, which prompted several students to decline their offers of admission, most reluctantly.
This erosion of U.S. confidence among future Chinese Gen Z leaders reached a nadir with the ICE protests in Minneapolis, the horrors of the Epstein files and the aggressive rhetoric against Greenland.
The consequences of this cognitive restructuring among global Gen Z minds can be profound if American soft power is no longer assumed and must now compete on the world stage against other liberal democracies.
The perceptions that these young people form now — about which countries are stable, fair and trustworthy — can shape decisions on trade, research collaboration and crisis co-operation, potentially for decades to come.
Meanwhile, a U.S. withdrawal from the minds of Gen Z across the world creates an opportunity for Canadian soft power. However, time is of essence. If Canada does not act, the vacuum will eventually be filled by other middle powers or even China’s own institutions.
The world is changing at lightning speed, and as Prime Minister Mark Carney said in Davos, we cannot expect the old world order to come back. It is time for Canada to realign its priorities and market itself as a strong, open and democratic alternative to Trump’s America.
One starting point would be to promote Canada to Gen Z talent across the world, especially from unexpected places like China. While human rights violations must be called out when they occur, moral clarity shouldn’t hinder strategic engagement on issues that serve Canadian interests.
Canadian universities, governments and businesses must invest astutely in building sustained institutional bridges with Chinese Gen Z, typically born between 1997 and 2012. This could be done through increased academic exchanges, joint research degree programs in areas not vital to national security, and increased cultural dialogues, where Canadian culture and values are shared.
The world is recalibrating into a new world order, and young people are seeing it with their own eyes. Moments like this do not come often, and Canada has an opportunity to play a quiet, but important role.
This, however, would require predictability, openness and the confidence to engage pragmatically while remaining principled. If we are deliberate, then we can position ourselves as a trusted reference point for a rising generation of global leaders.
The question now is not whether this realignment will occur, but whether we are prepared to act before the moment passes.
Zhida Shang is a medical student at McGill University and a 2024-2025 Schwarzman Scholar.