Consumer credit culture boom a slippery slope into enslavement (2)

Changing attitude

Despite these optimistic growth projections, China's cash-centric consumer culture and traditional beliefs about personal finance have meant that consumers are resistant to change, thus slowing the adoption of electronic payment methods.

Many of these cultural beliefs stem from Confucian values, which see borrowing as shameful because it means living beyond one's means, and which state that a good person always saves for the future. Indeed, studies have shown that the majority of Chinese consumers remain uncomfortable about borrowing for daily consumption.

However, Western consumption-driven lifestyles are finding their way into China, especially among the youth.

This is demonstrated by the materialization of a new class of yue guang zu, those "with no savings at the end of the month." This group includes young urban students and professionals under 35, largely in first and second tier cities, who have begun to abandon some of the cultural taboos surrounding borrowing money in order to fund their modern, highly consumerist lifestyles, in some cases spending well beyond their means.

Many of these changes in the cultural attitude toward credit have been driven by aggressive marketing by banks issuing credit cards, which offer rewards, discounts and lucky drawings to encourage spending.

Greedy banks

A number of banks now make it very easy to obtain a card, even for young consumers with no income. Some bank customers have even reported receiving in the mail high-limit credit cards for which they never applied.

A Jiao Tong University study also examined attitude factors that drive credit card use, concluding that "social power," the desire to display material wealth, played a significant role in the willingness to take on debt. These findings point to the adoption of western consumer-centric attitudes and the shedding of traditional reluctance to take on debt among young, urban Chinese.

As consumption plummeted in Western countries in the wake of the financial crisis, the Chinese government realized

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