The geopolitics of the Lunar New Year

The Simpsons has a classic joke where Chief Wiggum scoffs at Chinatown’s claims that those February fireworks are for the new year. The joke isn’t about Chinese New Year, but rather the West’s blissful obliviousness to a festival marked by almost two billion people.

So to ensure you can laugh even more smugly at that joke next time it hits your feed, let’s dive into some intriguing details, starting with…

1. What’s in a name?

The calendar’s technical term is lunisolar — months follow the moon’s phases, while the overall year is adjusted to match the sun’s cycle. Today (Tuesday) kicks off the new year.

But once you wander beyond that technical language, you risk treading on a political landmine: it’s typically described as Chinese New Year across China, referring to traditions and festivities more specific to Chinese culture.

Elsewhere across the region, folks often opt for a more neutral Lunar New Year, with their own festival dates, festivities, and names (🇲🇳 Tsagaan Sar, 🇻🇳 Tết, 🇰🇷 Seollal).

And in today’s charged world, you can imagine how that quickly becomes a ✌️Thing✌️.

Eg, a Beijing state outlet just ran a story dunking on a Taiwanese association for using Lunar New Year in its English-language promotions, accusing it of “forgetting one’s ancestors“. It plays into the broader spat of China claiming Taiwan as a renegade province, versus the reality of Taiwan’s own modern identity.

But of course, it took Taiwanese netizens like 5 seconds to point out China’s own foreign ministry and ambassador to the US have also used “Lunar New Year”.

Still, it’s worth keeping in mind the risks depending where you are: eg, China-based Intriguer and marketing guru Olivia Plotnick has shared some of the ways consumers are tracking brands seen as obscuring versus honouring the holiday’s Chinese origins. 

2. Hit the history books

If you get yourself cancelled anyway, take comfort you’re joining a long and storied tradition: Sun Yat-sen, that rare figure revered by both the mainland and Taiwan for his role ousting the Qing dynasty and proclaiming the Republic of China in 1912, immediately adopted the Western (Gregorian) calendar in an attempt to modernise his new nation.

But folks kept celebrating Chinese New Year anyway until Chiang’s nationalists tried banning it as a feudal relic in 1929. Popular pushback forced him to hit repeal in 1934 until Mao’s communists tried a similar banning stunt as part of his brutal ‘cultural revolution’, pumping up his Revolutionary Spring Festival as an acceptable alternative.

So whether from a revolutionary, nationalist, or communist perspective, three famed 20th century leaders variously viewed this ancient tradition as a threat to their own power.

China’s communists eventually started tolerating Chinese New Year through the 1970s, embraced it from the 80s, designated the full ‘Golden Week’ a holiday from the 90s, then milked it for economic and political gain from the 2010s — these days, President Xi uses the occasion for big domestic tours and unity messaging. And that brings us to…

3. The markets 

While share markets close, Chinese New Year is a major economic driver across…

• Travel: Folks head home to see family in the world’s largest annual human migration, with ~9.5 billion inter-regional trips over a month or so, spending ~$100B in domestic tourism just during the specific 8-day holiday.
• Retail: Households tend to splurge around the festive season, accounting for up to a fifth of China’s entire annual fast-moving consumer good (FMCG) sales. And…
• Entertainment: 190 million movie-goers spend ~$1.3B at the box office, or roughly a sixth of the entire annual US box office in just eight days.

Unsurprisingly, every local embassy’s economic section therefore tracks those figures for any potential insight into the health of the world’s second-largest economy, a little like how we might see pre-Christmas spending (or even Amazon Day) as a straw in the wind.

Oh, and with all this talk of the new year, we should mention which year we’ve now entered: the Chinese zodiac has 12 animals and five elements resulting in 60 unique combinations that rotate annually through six decades, and we’ve just entered the Year of the Fire Horse. It’s meant to produce strong-willed and confident kids destined for success, so keep an eye out for any bump in China’s birth rate.

The last time China had a Year of the Fire Horse (1966), those babies included Wang Chuanfu (founder of EV giant BYD), Zhai Zhigang (China’s first space-walking astronaut), and Bai Ling (legendary actress). So let’s check back in, say, 30 years and see what this next batch of fire horses gets up to?

Intrigue’s Take

The main thread we want to pull here is the historical point above, and the way every modern generation of leaders has seen China’s new year celebration as something to either suppress or harness. And either way, they’ve all implicitly recognised its power.

So as we hurtle into an era of de-globalization and revived nationalism, our gut is these kinds of traditions (whether in China or beyond) will only become more powerful: like anchors for cultural identity and unity amid a storm of political and technological change.

From a government perspective, you can already see the way China’s ruling communists have evolved from purging the traditional new year to now framing themselves as the festival’s guardians. And ditto, our gut is we’ll see more of that, as the party’s traditional source of legitimacy (growth) falters, and Xi leans more into identity to fill the gaps.

Anyway, now you know why wishing someone a happy Chinese versus Lunar New Year might inadvertently be the diplomatic stance you weren’t quite prepared to make. Maybe it’s best to just, you know, learn how to say Happy New Year in all ~30 relevant countries in their ~500 languages. The Year of the Horse seems auspiciously good for such flexes.