Chinese Nationalism - Modern Times

Modern Times

The end of the Cold War has seen the revival throughout the world of nationalist sentiments and aspirations. In China, the rapid decay of communist ideology had led the CPC to emphasize its role as the paramount patriotic force and the guardian of the national pride in order to find a new basis to sustain its role. However, nationalist sentiment is not the sole province of the CPC. One truly remarkable phenomenon in the post-Cold War upsurge of Chinese nationalism is that Chinese intellectuals became one of the driving forces. Many well-educated people-social scientists, humanities scholars, writers and other professionals-have given voice to and even become articulators for rising nationalistic discourse in the 1990s. Some commentators have proposed that "positive nationalism" could be an important unifying factor for the country as it has been for other countries.

As an indication of the popular and intellectual origins of recent Chinese nationalist sentiment, all coauthors of China Can Say No, the first in a string of defiant rebuttals to American imperialism, are college educated, and most are self-employed (a freelancer, a fruit-stand owner, a poet, and journalists working in the partly market-driven field of Chinese newspapers, periodicals, and television stations).

In the 21st century, notable spurs of grassroots Chinese nationalism grew from what the Chinese saw as marginalization of their country from Japan and the Western world. The Japanese history textbook controversies, as well as Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni Shrine was the source of considerable anger on Chinese blogs. In addition, the protests following the 2008 Tibetan unrest of the Olympic torch has gathered strong opposition within the Chinese community inside China and abroad. Almost every Tibetan protest on the Olympic torch route was met with a considerable pro-China protest. Because the 2008 Summer Olympics were a major source of national pride, anti-Olympics sentiments are often seen as anti-Chinese sentiments inside China. Moreover, the Sichuan Earthquake in 2008 sparked a high sense of nationalism from Chinese at home and abroad. The central government's quick response to the disaster was instrumental in galvanizing general support from the population amidst harsh criticism directed towards China's handling of the Lhasa riots only two months ago.