Explanation:
:: Nationalism in China emerged through historical experiences of greatness
and humiliation. Until the 19th century, the Chinese were proud of its civilization
and considered themselves as the centre of the world. Humiliation in the wars with
Britain and Japan created new feelings of nationalism in China. The nature of the
nationalism changed according to variation in its relation with western countries.
This paper analyzes four stages in the development of nationalism in China, i.e. socialist-oriented state control nationalism, liberal nationalism, Patriotic Nationalism
and cyber-nationalism. It analyzes major features of each stage, and the causes
lead to change from one stage to another. It examines top-down and bottom-up
aspects of the development of nationalist feeling and concludes that even though
The Communist Party has a major role in creating a civic nationalism through its restriction on media and education system, the Chinese people show highly nationalist feeling even abroad where they can access international media.traditional Confucianism, Marxism and Western liberalism. It has been affected by internal and external actors. Wars, civil wars, relations with western countries, leaders and intellectuals have a role
in the development of Chinese nationalism. Even China has a history of thousands of years, Chinese
nationalism is a new phenomenon emerged by “Century of Humiliation”. Defeats in opium war and
war with Japan awakens Chinese from long sleep or ignorance. Chinese civil war was a struggle between two ideas of nationalism because CPC promoted left-oriented state nationalism, and
Kuomintang argued for Han-centric ethnic nationalism. So after the Civil War, Chinese nationalism was
more inclusive state nationalism rather than exclusive ethnic nationalism.
Nationalism after 1949 can be classified in a broader sense into four stages or waves. The first one was
leader (Mao) centric state control nationalism (1949–1976). The second stage (1976–1989) was
more pro-western liberal nationalism. It represented a thirst to “learn from the west”. The third
stage starts from the Tiananmen Square incident and lasts until China was elected to host the
Olympics. It was an anti-west pragmatic nationalism. In the last stage of nationalism, the internet became
a tool for this generation to express their nationalist sentiments.
In the first part of my paper, I will summarize the historical context of the origin of nationalism in
China. I will describe the different stages of nationalism in post-revolutionary China and will
explain the reasons for these changes and special characteristics of each stage. Then I will analyse
the different aspects of Chinese nationalism by examining bottom-up and top-down aspects and
importance of ethnicity in Chinese nationalism.From mid-1800s, Chinese people suffered a series of military confrontations with the West and Japan. The
The following period of hundred years was a period of humiliation. Before these defeats, Chinese people
considered themselves as the centre of universe and foreigners as barbarians. Loss in opium
wars precipitated China’s economic and military decline. Before these difficult times, China had neither an official name nor a real national flag nor did it exhibit any of the elements that normally symbolize a nation state (Jiang, 2012, p. 48). Liang Qichao wrote “nothing makes me more ashamed
than the fact our nation has no name” Liang (1959, p. 35) and Hsu (1956, p. 69) observed that
Chinese people had no conception of what a nation-state might be until their defeat in Sino-Japanese
war (Ibid., p. 48). These events awakened them from “great dream of four thousand years.”
After opium war defeats, Chinese elites began to develop a “saving the Chinese” and of “rich nation and strong army” mindset among people (Lijun & Kia, 2010, p. 5). May 4th movement (1919) of
students and the May 30th movement of working class were both cause and effect of this developing nationalism. The Japanese invasion of Qingdao and the Versailles peace conference that agreed
The transfer of Qingdao to Japan caused an outpouring of nationalist feeling among educated people.
Many slogans have arisen from May 4th movement like “Return our Qingdao!” “Boycott Japanese
goods!” “Protect our countries soil!” and “China belongs to the Chinese!” Dr Sun Yat-Sen put forward
national survival as the theme of Chinese nationalism. He formed a nationalist party (Kuomintang).
Japanese aggression during the 1930s and 1940s brought nationalist sentiment to the much
A larger proportion of the population than political elites.
