As Xi Jinping captures larger amounts of power, he’s catching the attention of greater numbers of people, not only nervous neighbors in nations such as Japan and Vietnam but also restless Chinese at home.

The increasingly powerful 64-year-old ruler of China is promising a new era, with more wealth, to 1.3 billion Chinese. But millions of young people across the nation still aren’t sure they will have enough. They feel new pressures in a rapidly modernizing society.

In their drive to make more money, how can young Chinese settle down and have a family?

According to China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs, the number of new marriages in China is decreasing steadily. In 2016, the number fell to 11.4 million. Four years earlier, it was at 14 million.

As young Chinese increasingly put off marriage, their leader grows more concerned.

Xi Jinping knows that young people who get married, and later start families, spend more money than those who do not. Newly married couples, then, are critical to Xi Jinping’s efforts to transform the Chinese economy from one based on heavy industry to one based on consumption.

In his drive to re-structure the economy, how can Xi Jinping inspire young people in China to put aside money worries and get married?

The problem is that the Chinese leader, in his latest attempts to inspire broad segments of society using heavy doses of communist party propaganda, has not proven effective in connecting with young people.

When Xi Jinping recently mobilized the communist party apparatus to make a series of big-budget, nationalistic films, featuring cutting-edge special effects and China’s most famous movie stars, he watched as the productions failed miserably at the box office. Young people chose to watch, instead, martial arts and romance movies.

These days, young Chinese are captivated by the charms of capitalism. They look longingly at all of the new products they can buy, but they realize they need to make more money to buy them.

China’s young people want better economic opportunities. They are watching China’s leaders closely.