I was just reading a great article by Chen Zhimin on Chinese nationalism and foreign policy. This sounds boring but is really telling in terms of modern day China, its culture, behavior and beliefs. Basically nationalism is an unhealthy form of patriotism or a fanatical belief in ones country or desire to defend it. In the article, he states that since the 20th century China has consciously utilized nationalism to further the goals of the reigning government. in other words, the use of nationalism is a form of manipulating the people that everyone is against you if you disagree whatsoever with their beliefs or policy. (kind of like the GW philosophy). What really struck me was how readily this concept is embraced/accepted by the typical citizen. The modern nationalism seems to be that since China is older, that it must somehow be a world leader, thus they invoke nationalism in the sense that if you disagree or do not see the merits of this logic, then somehow you are against China. Regarding the widespread embrace of nationalism; it seems that the two main reasons for the acceptance of nationalism are historical beliefs on China being the ‘center of the world’, and a history of foreign invaders into China.
The first idea is that there was a historical belief that China was the center of the world or universe (China in Mandarin is Zhong guo or center country.) Thousands of years ago, the Chinese had developed considerably in comparison to the rest of the world, and according to Chen Zhimin, considered the rest of the world to be barbarians. Thus in China, the belief was that there was ‘us and them’. The key was that, initially ‘us versus them’ was not based upon race, but acceptance of Chinese ideologies based upon thousands of years of history. As they had one of the oldest histories, they claimed the others inferior. All was not lost however, for the barbarians, one could ‘China-ize and rise to a non-barbarian status. If a country was relatively new, they only had to agree with Confucian ideologies and such and could be accepted.
Of course this was thousands of years ago, but this fundamental belief can still subtly be found in China. For instance, there is a common reference to her history, as if by saying that one invented chopsticks negates the power and contributions of the rest of the world over the past 200 years. In the literature and communication, there is the subtle hint as if to say, “yeah you (the rest of the world) have done a bit as of late, but we have the history, in reality we lay claim to be the ‘center country’ based on our history and early development of society and culture. Ironically China is somewhat silent regarding the pyramids of Egypt, Macchu Picchu, and Teotihuacan in Mexico, or their advanced societies. One gets the sense that this notion of ‘center country’ and something akin to being chosen or leaders of the civilized world is alive and well in the thoughts and actions of modern day China.
The impact that many today in the west miss, is the on-going attempt to relegate fewer things to barbarian status by China-izing them. For instance, the Chinese government does very little in the international venue with disclaiming that it will be obeyed, but will use Chinese considerations. For instance, they may consider China not to be an open market, but a socialist one with free market considerations which best serve the country. Basically this works as a disclaimer that they will do it the Chinese way, as being the center country, they have this right. Or when they won the Olympic bid, although they agreed to many concessions, freedom of the net, not to delay the broadcast etc, few of these were followed. The party line was that due to national security issues, they would not comply with all they had promised. After living here, I am not surprised. This is another form of saying that the son of the heavens knows best and will do as he wishes.
The second reason for the intense nationalism is more logical. China is basically a peaceful country. by this i mean, historically China is not war like. They seem to be happy to contain thier people, promote harmony and not act aggressively toward other countries.
Unfortunately, they have been invaded and attacked quite a few times and the amount of people, form of control etc. have made this difficult to avoid. Thus, China has quite a bit of ammunition to fire when speaking about hostile invaders and how they must love the mother land, promise allegiance etc. to avoid this in the future. Consider this, the Chinese government controls the distribution of ALL TV, Movies, Magazines etc. sold legally in China. Nothing you will see on TV has not received the blessing of the government! The impact of this governmental control is that if one watched TV here, one is constantly forced to view some savage conflict, usually with the Japanese, that appears to me to spark feelings of angst and keep the nationalism alive.
Of course, the basic China man is no different than we are. The majority of the educated ones can see through this veil, but the problem is that there are so many of them. The issue if that when one is traveling here or doing business, that these issues will always be there. They may not be obvious, but they are present…
still loving Beijing…
Understanding China, One Blog at a Time 