The next day, a photo appeared on an Internet forum for Chinese students with a photo of Ms. Wang and the words "traitor to your country" emblazoned in Chinese across her forehead. Ms. Wang's Chinese name, identification number and contact information were posted, along with directions to her parents' apartment in Qingdao, a Chinese port city.
Chinese nationalism is a nasty thing. Like all nationalisms. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Like all nationalisms.
I fear this nationalism would get much nastier without that dictatoral government.
that is an extremely complicated assertion to unpack. i think i understand -- and agree with -- this statement. but could you spell out in more detail what what you mean? A language is a dialect with an army and navy.
First, while the PRC government is fanning the flames of nationalism, they didn't create it. It got strong at least since the Boxer Rebellion (but we could go back to the Ming takeover or further). And I think their play with nationalism is less a calculated diversion than trying to ride its waves -- not unlike the regimes in many East Block countries.
Moreover, the PRC government is managing the outward expressions of Han nationalism: sure they aren't comfortable with mass events that could go out of hand since 1989, and sure enough they limit anti-Western protests. (Here I see some parallels to neocon claims about Arab regimes that supposedly are behind anti-Western, anti-Israel sentiments.) They also have to reconcile nationalism with other elements of their ideology.
Thus, what if the current dictatorship would be toppled? Based on East Block experience, I think the first new government would be a clear and unlimited nationalist one, be it democratic or not, but especially if democratic. Nothing would limit big anti-Western, anti-Tibetan, anti-Japan etc. protests, also with much greater hance of violent action. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
in part i think we were thinking of similar issues, but you go farther back than what i was thinking, which was more just post-Communist Revolution.
i may be naive, but i think if Chinese people did not have such a nationalist education since 1950 (including media, political propaganda, etc. not just school), we wouldn't be seeing the same nationalist diarrhea that we're seeing today. inevitably, with the resurgence of one of the (supposedly) longest, most influential, and accomplished sociocultural entities the world has seen, there would be a significant upswing in national pride. but as childish as such national pride would be, it would not necessarily have been as twisted and poisoned as the sort we're seeing now, had the people of this country received more liberal and free education and open access to information, even if it were just on the order of what most of us get in the West. A language is a dialect with an army and navy.
That's a big if, I think. I think the alternative would have had nationalist education, too.
The reason I went further back, and think it is essential, is this: the Communist Party had to establish its power against the Kuomintang, which was decidedly nationalist. Establishing that power thus involved, beyond the use of the means of military power and social services, 'Proving' that they are the proper representatives of the people (and no Russian stooges) for a popularly widespread nationalist mindset, too. This is what I mean by riding, rather than creating nationalism. (Again there are parallels elsewhere in the East Bloc.)
as childish as such national pride would be, it would not necessarily have been as twisted and poisoned as the sort we're seeing now
I think nationalist pride is always twisted and poisoned :-)
I think here, the crucial question is history: whether the research of alternative takes on past events and more broadly, research of any events - including those with less than stellar action on the side of the state/nation - is free, unhindered in both active and passive ways, and gets broad publicity. Europe (and I'd argue the USA too) has plenty of examples that even a more liberal and free education in a democracy can fail on this front. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
well, i was thinking really hypothetically, independent of Communist vs. Kuomintang. but anyway...
the Communist Party had to establish its power against the Kuomintang, which was decidedly nationalist.
that had not occurred to me. it's definitely plausible, but it doesn't follow automatically: just because the Kuomintang was nationalistic, why would the Chinese masses necessarily care whether whoever vanquished them were just as nationalistic? possibly they might have cared more about not getting killed filling their bellies rather than whether China could hold its head up high among nations, after so many years of hell on earth.
i said national not nationalist pride. they both are childish, but the latter is nasty and childish. like a retarded sadist.
i definitely hear you on your last point. of course our liberal and free education does not meet the ideal. but i tell you what, as limited and stilted as education and conventional wisdom may be in the West, it has one huge superiority over the situation in China: and that is, the alternative, minor key views are accessible if you want to find them. here, IF you manage to get access to them, you probably get marked. and if you express them publicly, hordes of demented brutes start threatening to burn you alive with oil. A language is a dialect with an army and navy.
the Communist Party had to establish its power against the Kuomintang, which was decidedly nationalist. that had not occurred to me. it's definitely plausible, but it doesn't follow automatically
that had not occurred to me. it's definitely plausible, but it doesn't follow automatically
Just my two cents on this, but the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution that followed it hardly showed that power was worried about appeasing supposed traditional values in order to maintain itself. So, indeed, "it doesn't follow automatically" that the CP felt it needed to ape nationalism. Perhaps one may wonder which classes (and which ethnic groups) shared nationalistic feelings in the '50s and '60s.
I have two basic problems with this.
First, I claimed the adoption (not mere aping) of nationalism into Chinese communism to appease and appear genuine to existing nationalist feelings at the time of establishing power, not later -- thus how strongly it was made use of over the following decades, and what other means of exerting control were deployed, is less relevant. (I also admit I would liked to have discussed those after a certain other ET member turns up.) I'm not disputing that there were periods when nationalis played little role, but Deng Xiaoping's "Communism with Chinese characteristics" didn't come out of nothing.
Second, I'm not sure how to read "traditional values". If you just mean nationalism as a pre-existing sentiment, OK. But if more broadly, nationalism is not necessarily traditionalist, see French Revolution and a couple of others.
With the above said, my thoughts on those two big disasters brought by Mao:
During the 1960s and 1970s, Chinese nationalism within mainland China became mixed with the rhetoric of Marxism, and nationalistic rhetoric become in large part subsumed into internationalist rhetoric. On the other hand, Chinese nationalism in Taiwan was primarily about preserving the ideals and lineage of Sun Yat-sen, the party he founded, the Kuomintang (KMT), and anti-Communism.
Sino-Soviet split - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Also contributing to the split was Chinese domestic politics. The Great Leap Forward had failed to meet its objectives and resulted in millions of deaths. For this, Mao's rivals in the Communist Party, Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, who held the positions of State Chairman and Communist Party General Secretary, respectively, plotted to remove him from a position of power. The opportunity of a split with the Soviets allowed Mao to portray his rivals as agents of a foreign power, mobilising Chinese nationalist sentiment behind his leadership.
All nationalisms invoke the past, that includes the French revolutionaries. All nationalisms invent, distort, and appropriate traditions and past events for their own purposes. That shouldn't be read as lying in any conscious sense - they're generally quite sincere and in fact take great exception when the above is pointed out to them. The big difference in this area between 'progressive' nationalism, e.g. French republicanism or the liberal nationalisms of the early and mid nineteenth century in Europe vs. the reactionary ones is that the former tend to place an emphasis on modernity and its associated aspects as basically a good thing, while the reactionary ones tend to hate it. One sees itself as incorporating the best national 'traditions' in its own version of modernity, the other recreating an imagined better, simpler past with modern technological accoutrements.
By "traditional values", I was thinking of the enormous engineering carried out to change social structures, feudalism, land ownership patterns, gender relations. I wasn't at first thinking of most of the following elements that I came across while taking a look at Wikipedia:
History of the People's Republic of China (1949-1976) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Landmark changes in the early 1950s included the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar and the abolition of political era names, women's rights were embedded into law and the abolition of polygamy, and the adoption of a horizontal left-right method of writing.
The changes in calendar and historiography, as in writing, one might have thought, were hardly flattering to nationalist sentiment, since they involved bringing China into conformity with foreign ways.
On the GLF, perhaps you have evidence of nationalism in the project of transforming an agrarian society into an industrial one? That may have been the case -- but, arguably, the catastrophic failure of the GLF can hardly have boosted national(ist) pride. The same could be argued of the CR, where, as you say, there was not much role for nationalism. And, as the Wikipedia entry you cite states, nationalistic rhetoric become in large part subsumed into internationalist rhetoric.
This is not meant as an argument against what you say, but more as questioning. What evidence is there of the use of nationalism by the CCP in the '50s and '60s?
Again, I was speaking primarily of the time leading up to the creation of the PRC. In this sense:
The Yanan era (1935-1945) [...] Under Mao's leadership and through a combination of popular nationalist and social revolutionary programs, the Chinese Communists won enormous popular support, especially among the peasantry of north China, the essential basis for their eventual victory over the Nationalists. During the Yanan era the distinctive Chinese variant of Marxism-Leninism (canonized as "Mao Zedong Thought") crystallized as a formal body of doctrine. It was an ideology marked by powerful nationalist, populist, and voluntaristic impulses that greatly modified the inherited corpus of Marxist-Leninist theory. (Oxford Reference Online)
(Oxford Reference Online)
There is a non-Soviet-inspired theory for this, also involving the Japanese threat (I was probably also influenced by works inspired by it):
Chalmers A. Johnson. Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolutionary China 1937-1945. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962. Johnson argues in this book that the primary cause of the CCP's success in North China during the Anti-Japanese War and its subsequent assumption of leadership of the national state was neither participation in an international Communist conspiracy nor the overwhelming appeal of its economic program, but its ability to provide experienced leadership and a nationalist political orientation to a population newly mobilized in response to Japanese invasion and misrule. He points to the Jiangxi Soviet experience of the 1920s and 30s as evidence that land reform policies and Marxist-Leninist ideology are inadequate to politicize rural populations and gain the broad-based popular support required to triumph in the contest for political primacy. Johnson considers his 'peasant nationalism' to be a variety of the more general 'mass nationalism that became so significant in the first half of the twentieth century. This nationalism, he contends, was different in kind from that of the Guomindang, which appealed mainly to intellectuals and the inhabitants of the treaty ports. It was this nationalism that allowed the CCP to expand in North China in the period following the Long March and, following victory in the civil war, to establish a government with not only power but authority. He posits two requirements for the appearance of mass nationalism. The first (following Karl W. Deutsch and E. J. Hobsbawm) is social mobilization. The second is a national myth. In his analysis, the social mobilization of peasants in Northern China was provoked by the Japanese invasion, whereupon leadership from the Communist base areas provided them with organizational assistance and the ideological "instruments for helping the rural masses attain a political understanding of the war to serve as a gloss on their personal experience" (p. 3). Johnson compares the situation in China to that in Yugoslavia, where the German invasion provoked a social mobilization among peasants that made them receptive to nationalist leadership provided by the Yugoslav Communist Party. He points out striking similarities both in the strategies employed by the competing resistance movements in the two countries and in the places assumed by their post-war socialist states in the diplomatic world of international socialism. (Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power)
Chalmers A. Johnson. Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolutionary China 1937-1945. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962.
Johnson argues in this book that the primary cause of the CCP's success in North China during the Anti-Japanese War and its subsequent assumption of leadership of the national state was neither participation in an international Communist conspiracy nor the overwhelming appeal of its economic program, but its ability to provide experienced leadership and a nationalist political orientation to a population newly mobilized in response to Japanese invasion and misrule. He points to the Jiangxi Soviet experience of the 1920s and 30s as evidence that land reform policies and Marxist-Leninist ideology are inadequate to politicize rural populations and gain the broad-based popular support required to triumph in the contest for political primacy.
Johnson considers his 'peasant nationalism' to be a variety of the more general 'mass nationalism that became so significant in the first half of the twentieth century. This nationalism, he contends, was different in kind from that of the Guomindang, which appealed mainly to intellectuals and the inhabitants of the treaty ports. It was this nationalism that allowed the CCP to expand in North China in the period following the Long March and, following victory in the civil war, to establish a government with not only power but authority. He posits two requirements for the appearance of mass nationalism. The first (following Karl W. Deutsch and E. J. Hobsbawm) is social mobilization. The second is a national myth. In his analysis, the social mobilization of peasants in Northern China was provoked by the Japanese invasion, whereupon leadership from the Communist base areas provided them with organizational assistance and the ideological "instruments for helping the rural masses attain a political understanding of the war to serve as a gloss on their personal experience" (p. 3).
Johnson compares the situation in China to that in Yugoslavia, where the German invasion provoked a social mobilization among peasants that made them receptive to nationalist leadership provided by the Yugoslav Communist Party. He points out striking similarities both in the strategies employed by the competing resistance movements in the two countries and in the places assumed by their post-war socialist states in the diplomatic world of international socialism.
(Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power)
I find (also in the rest of the above link) & submit the theory is apparently rather dated:
Chalmers Johnson's 1962 book Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power argued that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came to power by harnessing popular anti-Japanese nationalism. In The Yenan Way in Revolutionary China (1971), written in part as a response to Johnson, Mark Selden countered that it was the CCP's socio-economic reforms, a kind of peasant populism, that garnered them mass support. Selden's research focussed on the main Communist base area, the Shaan-Gan-Ning border region in remote western China, with its capital at Yenan. Research on other wartime bases has since shown that Shaan-Gan-Ning was not very representative, and that CCP local leaders elsewhere were highly flexible in their quest for popular legitimacy. (Two Revolutions: Village Reconstruction and the Cooperative Movement in Northern Shaanxi, 1937-1945 | Canadian Journal of History)
(Two Revolutions: Village Reconstruction and the Cooperative Movement in Northern Shaanxi, 1937-1945 | Canadian Journal of History)
As for the subsequent second phase of the Civil War:
Chiang Kai Shek attempted to eliminate the CPC in the North by using troops belonging to northern warlords who had sided with Chiang during the Civil War and then switched sides to join the Japanese during the invasion. This strategy backfired as the effort to suppress the CPC who the peasants remembered as the enemies of the Japanese by using troops who had assisted the hated invaders further eroded any base of popular support which Chiang might have hoped for. ...their low morale hindered their ability to fight.
However, the adoption of nationalism arguably extended to everyday symbolism, paralleling India:
Nationalism in dress Long after Sun Yat-sen's death, popular mythology assigned a revolutionary and patriotic significance to the Sun Yat-sen suit, even though it was essentially a foreign-style garment. The four pockets were said to represent the Four Cardinal Principles cited in the classic Book of changes and understood by the Chinese as fundamental principles of conduct... The Mao suit: ideology expressed through dress Mao Zedong recognised the power of dress to project nationalism and ideology. On 1 October 1949 at the grand ceremony in Beijing marking the founding of the People's Republic of China, he wore a modified form of the Sun Yat-sen suit. Mao had worn this style of suit since 1927 but it was only after 1949 that it was adopted by the majority of the Chinese population. It is known in the West as the Mao suit. (Evolution and revolution: Chinese dress 1700s-1990s - Mao suit)
The Mao suit: ideology expressed through dress Mao Zedong recognised the power of dress to project nationalism and ideology. On 1 October 1949 at the grand ceremony in Beijing marking the founding of the People's Republic of China, he wore a modified form of the Sun Yat-sen suit. Mao had worn this style of suit since 1927 but it was only after 1949 that it was adopted by the majority of the Chinese population. It is known in the West as the Mao suit.
(Evolution and revolution: Chinese dress 1700s-1990s - Mao suit)
On "traditional values", I repeat that nationalism is not necessarily traditionalist, it can also be modernist, see Marek's comment, and again see the French Revolution. And early Mao:
Mao's first published article appeared in 1917, A Study of Physical Culture, which combined an ardent Chinese nationalism with a no less ardent rejection of traditional Chinese culture--in this instance an attack on the Confucian separation between mental and manual labor. It was a uniquely modern Chinese combination of nationalism and cultural iconoclasm that very much reflected the radical spirit of the times and one that was to remain a prominent feature of the Maoist vision. (Oxford Reference Online)
arguably, the catastrophic failure of the GLF can hardly have boosted national(ist) pride.
In the end, yes. But while it lasted?
What evidence is there of the use of nationalism by the CCP in the '50s and '60s?
I gave examples connected to the border conflict with the Soviet Union and tried to explain the GLF in terms of modernising nationalism, so now I try to find sources that do that better. I found one article that does it throughout. First let's play semantics.
It is important to note that the term nationalism (minzu zhuyi) was not used by the government because of the danger that it would alienate the minority ethnicities. Instead, the concept of patriotism (aiguo) was constantly evoked by the ruling party to justify policies, most often in the context of external threats. Thus the nation and citizenship were defined primarily by political - not ethnic--criteria. Political allegiance and territorial integrity were the primary rules used for determining the composition of the people and therefore the nation. (Chinese Nationalism 1949-1980 [M$ Word!])
(Chinese Nationalism 1949-1980 [M$ Word!])
Now, the same article gives a good wording of my idea of the modernising, homogenising and "anti-imperialist" nationalism of a communist dictatorship:
Shortly after coming to power, the CCP instituted a political view of the nation that sought to define China as a unitary multi-ethnic nation. This was clearly viewed as the best means to create a strong country and maintain an aggressive stand against imperialism. When examining nationalism during the early years of the PRC, the dominance of the government in creating and instituting nationalist policy is evident: It was the decisions of the CCP that promoted new ways of thinking about the nation and the means by which to implement those ideas. ...As indicated, communist ideology, and Mao Zedong's writings in particular, provided a new answer to the continuing narrative surrounding the "century of humiliation." This rhetoric of the Chinese fall from great nation status continuously provided legitimacy for the modernization efforts of the PRC.
...As indicated, communist ideology, and Mao Zedong's writings in particular, provided a new answer to the continuing narrative surrounding the "century of humiliation." This rhetoric of the Chinese fall from great nation status continuously provided legitimacy for the modernization efforts of the PRC.
(I note the rhetoric about "foreign imperialists try to crush our socialist country" was universal in East Bloc propaganda.) Another passage of the article places an element of Chinese nation-building I bemoan sometimes in this early PRC era:
While the nation was defined by political criteria, the leadership also tried to promote ideas of a single Chinese civilization that would unify the various ethnicities within the country. The concept of "Chinese nationalism" (zhonghua minzu) became crucial to thinking about the Chinese nation. To this end, the CCP directed the academic establishment to construct a myth about the cradle of Chinese civilization and archeological evidence of multiple origins of the "Chinese" nation was suppressed. The theory surrounding the concept of zhonghua minzu presented a picture of the Chinese nation, originating in the Yellow River basin, which had mixed with various ethnicities over time, yet retained its essential cultural character. This theory promoted the notion of a unified yet diverse nation that was able to adapt and evolve over the centuries despite interaction with many different ethnic groups.
Specifically on the GLF and the Cultural Revolution:
the Great Leap Forward ... Although this was an elite-defined national modernization project, the citizens supported the idea of making China a strong, state that would cast off the century of humiliation and retake her rightful place in relation to other states. However, the Great Leap Forward failed to modernize China's economy and in fact resulted in an estimated 20 to 30 million dead due to famines. ...The Cultural Revolution called for students to overthrow the four olds: old ideas, customs, traditions and habits. Students were encouraged to demonstrate their commitment to Mao specifically and the nation more generally by eradicating the things that made China vulnerable to foreign aggression during the century of humiliation, namely tradition.
...The Cultural Revolution called for students to overthrow the four olds: old ideas, customs, traditions and habits. Students were encouraged to demonstrate their commitment to Mao specifically and the nation more generally by eradicating the things that made China vulnerable to foreign aggression during the century of humiliation, namely tradition.
On internationalist rhetoric:
Mao adhered to the rhetoric of international communist solidarity, but it was tinged with clear nationalist overtones. In the initial years of the PRC, Mao advanced an international communism, which placed China at the center of the third world's struggle against capitalism. He perceived China as a leading communist country in the fight against international capitalism, which was responsible for China's weakness. Yet the nationalist overtones of this message also implied that China's domestic modernization took precedence over international solidarity. This tendency created friction between the USSR and China, and ultimately led to a spit between the two communist countries...
(I'd argue that the PRC was not alone in this kind of my-communism-is-better, national-liberation-modernisation-via-communism nationalism.)
Since we got into this via another outgrowth of the Tibet question, I quote other passages on the one-nation idea:
...Although minority groups were eligible for certain benefits from the government, they were not encouraged to consider self-determination. Instead, Mao envisioned China as a state of many nationalities slowly being incorporated into the Han ethnicity. ...In addition to creating a new history, the CCP encouraged assimilation through the adoption of Mandarin as the official language, mandatory education, and migration of Han Chinese to "minority" areas. ...The term Han originated in the late 19th century as a relatively modern national construction. It simply refers to the children of the Han dynasty, which symbolized China's classical greatness. Within the narrative of a multi-ethnic zhonghua minzu, the Han were always the most advanced and civilized. This helped justify an assimilationist policy during the early years of the PRC that sought to integrate minorities into the Han.
...The term Han originated in the late 19th century as a relatively modern national construction. It simply refers to the children of the Han dynasty, which symbolized China's classical greatness. Within the narrative of a multi-ethnic zhonghua minzu, the Han were always the most advanced and civilized. This helped justify an assimilationist policy during the early years of the PRC that sought to integrate minorities into the Han.
:: :: ::
I close with Wikipedia's fitting description of recent popular nationalism:
Chinese nationalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Detractors, however, disparage populist nationalism in China today, especially that expressed on the Internet, as a "hooligan culture" in which "Internet Red Guards" hurl obscenities not only against foreign "devils," but also against moderates and liberals who warn of the excesses and dangers that nationalism could pose to China's modernization. Chinese nationalism has recently found an outlet in anti-Japanese sentiment. Populist nationalism is a comparatively late development in Chinese nationalism of the 1990s. It began to take recognizable shape after 1996, as a joint result of the evolving nationalist thinking of the early 1990s and the ongoing debates on modernity, postmodernism, postcolonialism, and their political implications -- debates that have engaged many Chinese intellectuals since early 1995.
Detractors, however, disparage populist nationalism in China today, especially that expressed on the Internet, as a "hooligan culture" in which "Internet Red Guards" hurl obscenities not only against foreign "devils," but also against moderates and liberals who warn of the excesses and dangers that nationalism could pose to China's modernization. Chinese nationalism has recently found an outlet in anti-Japanese sentiment.
Populist nationalism is a comparatively late development in Chinese nationalism of the 1990s. It began to take recognizable shape after 1996, as a joint result of the evolving nationalist thinking of the early 1990s and the ongoing debates on modernity, postmodernism, postcolonialism, and their political implications -- debates that have engaged many Chinese intellectuals since early 1995.
That's too passive a view. Even massively repressive regimes, unless relying on foreign support, need some support or acquescence from significant parts of the populace (not necessarily a majority) when establishing power, or else their opponents would get that support, or there would be spontaneous local rebellions and mutinies. At the very least, such a regime-to-be needs millions of recruits. And being seen as agents of the Russians would have been bad for the recruitment drive and the morale among the already recruited.
i said national not nationalist pride.
I don't see a qualitative difference here: every nation is the creation of a nationalism. I only see a gradation on blind spots (no nationalist sees himself as a retarded sadist) and connected nastyness.
as limited and stilted as education and conventional wisdom may be in the West, it has one huge superiority over the situation in China: and that is, the alternative, minor key views are accessible if you want to find them.
Be aware that my frame of reference here is not necessarily that far West :-) I'd argue that that difference is not at all a huge one when my last nuance in my history-matters sentence, wide publicity, is considered. Pogroms and genocides permeated by own-nation and the un-truth of false history covering up such may be known only to a few historians and a few thousand liberal intellectuals.
Turning back to my previous point on gradation, in my judgement, Chinese nationalism as I read of it and as you describe it is worse than French or American nationalism. Whether it's worse than Polish or Kosovo nationalism, I'm less sure. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Or even if their power rests on foreign bayonets.
"Marxism is now a national ideology, not a class ideology" Wladyslaw Gomulka, 1945. (Secretary General of the PPR - i.e. the Polish Communist Party). Quoting from memory here, too lazy to look up my notes. Anyone interested in a quick outline diary of how the Polish communists both struggled with and coopted nationalism?
I think the right ting to do would have been to attempt winning over people without becoming nationalist, or at least limit the means of maintaining public support/acquescence for the Party's rule to not include nationalism after the takeover.
yes, but nationalism -- and its corollary, vilifying enemies -- are just too politically easy, and powerful, not to pass up. especially when you're laying waste to the country with Great Leaps Forward and Cultural Revolutions.
what was it the man said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel"? A language is a dialect with an army and navy.
nowadays, i hate to say it, but i am surprised by how widespread national pride blending into nationalism is among Chinese people. its the resurgent country syndrome. the South Koreans started to think they were the shit when their country started rising up. the Japanese certainly thought they were the shit in the 80s. the Serbs so much thought they were shit that they thought they could give NATO the middle finger and get away with it. now Poland thinks it's the shit. it takes a while and a few smacks and recessions beat them back into a reality-based view of things. but China isn't like any other country, and "reality" with respect to China is not quite the same either. in other words, "reality" may in fact may correspond with China's exceptionalist self-image more so than any other country's delusions of grandeur.
this is going to sound borderline racist, maybe it is, but my rational side knows better: at bottom Chinese people people, period. maybe i have not been here long enough, but for the first time in my life, i find myself suffocated with astonishment at an ability to connect on some very basic level with many people here, due to cultural incompatibility. you know Jedi mind tricks don't work on Jabba the Hutt, because his brain is wired differently? it's kind of the same feeling. like you recognize the common human elements, you know they're there: you see the same instincts, weaknesses, proclivities. but the overlying mesh of values and norms and thinking processes: it's jarring. square in hole.
if you want to get a sense of this, listen to the On Point broadcast from Shanghai series, especially Young China, Dissent: China's Third Rail, and The U.S. and China. You can hear host Tom Ashbrook get progressively more exasperated by the very unanticipated disconnect he experiences. I wanted to shout out to him: "That's right, buddy, welome to China. You're not in Brookline anymore."
So in short, all elements of Chinese society today are sensitive to nationalist feeling: kids because they're getting force fed the stuff in school; adults because they are force-fed the stuff on the news and on their controlled internet; and the older ones because they remember the unholy hell that foreigners laid on them and their families years before -- plus they watch silly anti-Japanese war movies every night on TV. and most urbanites see the mirage of steady progress and material comfort every day confirming China's greatness.
well, this message cut got off because of my bad connection. hope it goes through this time. A language is a dialect with an army and navy.
nowadays, i hate to say it, but i am surprised by how widespread national pride blending into nationalism is among Chinese people
its the resurgent country syndrome.
What would interest me is how inclusive the nationalism really is: does it apply mainly a single ethnic group or is it more widespread?
Nationalism is such a primitive, brutish sentiment. It just did not fit my pre-conception of the Chinese outlook. I would very much like to visit Taiwan to see if there is some kind of Han nationalism there that is related to the nationalism so palpable on the mainland. I am guessing not, based on what I know of my friends of Taiwanese origin.
No, it's China: huge and ancient.
Which is part of what I meant by '"reality" may in fact may correspond with China's exceptionalist self-image more so than any other country's delusions of grandeur.'
That is a really, really good question. Based on the very little I know, I would guess that Chinese nationalism does not extend to the ethnic minorities. It is a dicey subject here -- I hear pretty blunt comments about some ethnic groups and their reputation as pickpockets and cheats from Chinese friends who are very "internationaized" (speak perfect English, hang out almost exclusively with foreigners and/or fellow cosmopolites, date/married to foreigners). Such conventional wisdom is jut taken for granted. Then again, Han Chinese from one city will talk shit about Han Chinese from another city a half an hour away by bus.
Getting back to ethnic minorities, assuming that they are discriminated by Han more than Han discriminate against each other, you would imagine that they see the One China Under Heaven rhetoric as pure bull. But that is just a guess. The ethnic minorities do get LOTS of privileges. I believe they are able to carry, what was it, either guns or certain kinds of knives, with the right licens, whereas Han are not. Also, policemen are not allowed to manhandle ethnic minorities in cases of trouble. So they supposedly have a surprising amount of impunity. If so, you could perhaps imagine that they would develop some allegiance to the Chinese state. This is all coming from Han friends, so to be taken with a grain of salt. But one of my friends' father is a police chief, so I imagine she knows what she's talking about. Still, I take everything I hear here with dollops of salt.
Naturally, you don't casually ask folks from ethnic minorities, "So, how do you feel about China? What's your allegiance to the state? Do you think the Tibetan demonstrators were wrong? How about those Brits and Frenchies?" And even if I did know people from the ethnic minorities well enough to ask them such questions, (1) I think they would be very leery of telling me what they really thought, and (2) even if they honestly answered in pro-China fashion, it would not mean that their allegiance to China was above their "allegiance" to their ethnicity.
But that is indeed an interesting question, I will try to keep my eyes and ears open to learn more about it. A language is a dialect with an army and navy.
It just did not fit my pre-conception of the Chinese outlook.
It seems to me that there is a long history of Chinese disdain for the rest of the world that would easily turn into nationalism.
I can't tell if this is really the case, but this sounds very much like the crude racist anti-liberal myth active around the world. In my region, this is about the Gypsies. In major towns of Russia, it's Chechens and some other Caucasians (I believe we heard some of these sentiments from lana). I note such sentiments can deeply permeate police itself, even though they should be the ones to know the law. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I'd say Taiwan is Taiwan; the Kuomitang's Han nationalism long ago tempered by the fact of de-facto exile status in a relatively recent Chinese conquest with significant local identity and non-Han ethnic element, and a 60-year history of simultaneously being a de-facto US satellite and weakening power/transfer into democracy. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I'd say Taiwan is Taiwan...
Is this based on talking to Taiwanese people? A language is a dialect with an army and navy.
I'm not sure if the above means that you are impressed that I could deduce this much from news reading only, or sarcasm that I'm pontificating without direct knowledge.
Either way, I only wanted to protest that Taiwan is a special case and not a model for an entire China under the Kuomintang, and I think cursory knowledge from news reading can be enough to state such a negative. (For real impressive knowledge on Taiwan, methinks we'd need Metatone in the discussion.) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Some interesting posts posted to Nicholas Kristof's blog about this article, Grace Wang and Chinese Nationalism. A language is a dialect with an army and navy.
you are the media you consume.
If so, how so? A language is a dialect with an army and navy.
As for the supposed nationalist lens, I think you're really too prompt to see that. The frame by which I was looking at those post 9/11 events was one of horror to see what was happening to America. A country, culture, and people for which I used to have a great deal of attachment, and still have some.
