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Political Science Quarterly
Volume 115 No. 1 (Spring 2000)
Chinese Nationalism and Its International Orientations
By Suisheng Zhao
SUISHENG ZHAO is a Campbell National Fellow at Hoover Institution of Stanford University for 1999-2000 and associate professor of government at Colby College.
The end of the cold war has precipitated an epidemic of nationalist conflict in many parts of the world. Nationalism has hardly been quiescent during the twentieth century. At times, it functioned to free nations from alien rule, to create a state of its own, and to contribute to the process of modernization. 1 In international relations, it also appeared as a relatively peaceful doctrine to express a political desire for national independence among people who believe they have a common ancestry or a common political destiny in a territory peculiarly identified with their history and their fulfillment. However, the prevailing image of nationalism in the contemporary world is negative. It is seen as fueling interstate warfare and has been responsible for many human tragedies. Nationalism is associated with the destructive warfare of the first half of the century and the bloody and tragic ethnic conflict in former Yugoslavia and the Balkans after the end of the cold war. There has been a burgeoning literature on nationalism and war. 2 However, the direct linkage between nationalism and international aggression is by no means convincing. In the discussion of the emergence of nationalism in many parts of the world, aggressive and war-causing behavior of nationalism is often taken for granted without explanation.
The extensive attention and alarm over the rise of Chinese nationalism in the mid-1990s illustrates this assumption. Some scholars such as Allen Whiting, Strecker Downs, Philip C. Sanders, and Michael Oksenberg are cautious in exploring the limits of Chinese nationalism and in raising the question of whether Chinese nationalism is affirmative, assertive, or aggressive. 3 But others believe that Chinese nationalism is a course of international aggression. Ying-shih Yu sees the rise of a new Chinese nationalism aiming at "replacing the dominant position of the West in the world and making the twenty-first century a Chinese century." Samuel P. Huntington states that the Chinese have increasingly asserted their intention to resume the historic role of "the preeminent power in East Asia" and "to bring to an end the overlong century of humiliation and subordination to the West and Japan." James Lilley states that "there is a rallying cry for Chinese everywhere . . . that after a century of humiliation and Mao's social and economic experiments China's time has come . . . it [China] will rise in the world to the place it deserves." Richard Bernstein and Ross Munro warn that "driven by nationalist sentiment, a yearning to redeem the humiliations of the past, and the simple urge for international power, China is seeking to replace the United States as the dominant power in Asia." 4 These authors have found an aggressive China simply because of the existence of nationalism in China.
This article attempts to explore whether there is a direct linkage between Chinese nationalism and international aggression by examining different orientations of the nationalism. It begins with a presentation of three perspectives of Chinese nationalism—nativist, antitraditionalist, and pragmatist—and their different international orientations. It goes on to focus on pragmatic nationalism, which has been the dominant perspective in China since the 1980s. It finds that pragmatic nationalism is instrumental, state-led, and reactive. It is constrained by the communist state's calculation of the benefits and cost of its use of nationalism. I argue that Chinese nationalism is a situational matter, more reactive than proactive in international affairs. Like nationalism in other countries, it may develop into feelings of hostility toward other peoples and nations. But the cost of promoting virulent ultranationalism is disproportionally high. Chinese nationalism has been more "inward-directed sentiments" that have held the nation together in a turbulent modern world than "outward-directed emotions that heap hostility upon others." 5
Chinese Nationalist Perspectives
Nationalism is of relatively recent historical provenance. As a modern concept, it combines the political notion of territorial self-determination, the cultural notion of national identity, and the moral notion of national self-defense in an anarchical world. Nationalism appeared with the emergence of the nation-state system in Europe and spread to the rest of the world after non-European countries were brought into the system. 6 The modern nation-state is a unique form of political organization, which was born as a result of the struggle between empire and nation and between tradition and modernity. As one study indicates, traditional empires were characterized as a mixture of universal principles (such as Christianity in the Roman Empire, Islam in the Ottoman Empire, and Confucianism in China) and particularistic features (such as ethnic composition, language, and ancient customs). The rise of modern nationalism basically meant the ascendancy of sentiments associated with the particularistic features of the nation over the universal principles. The ascendancy of particularism led to the drive by nations to gain political independence and then to acquire and maintain equal status with other nations. In extreme cases, this drive took the form of ultranationalism, with the supremacy of the national will, which led to aggressive behavior in the modern world. It also gave birth to many fervent and even murderous independence and separatist movements. 7
China is an empire stretching back two millennia. However, as Immanuel C. Y. Hsu pointed out, relying on documentary and behavioral references to Qing diplomacy, "imperial China was not a nation-state." 8 Before the nineteenth century, China was not a nation-state, as the Chinese people were not imbued with an enduring sense of nationalism based on the loyalities to the nation-state or ethnicity. Writing in the nineteenth century, Kunikida Doppa, a Japanese literary figure, found the Chinese "totally devoid of national consciousness." 9 Joseph Levenson's influential writings showed that nationalism did not exist in traditional China. Instead, culturalism permeated traditional Chinese thought because Chinese culture was the focus of people's loyalty. 10 Culturalism perceived China as the only true civilization, one that embodied a universal set of values; all those who accepted its teachings and principles, including alien dynasties like the Mongo-Yuan and Manchu-Qing courts, could be incorporated within its cultural bounds. According to Benjamin Schwartz, nationalism "represents a fundamental 'turn' in modern Chinese culture." 11 The catalyst for this was China's defeat by British troops in the 1840-1842 Opium War. This defeat paved the way for the eventual disintegration of imperial China and led the Chinese elite to reject the old culturalism and borrow the European concept of nationalism that would provide a new basis for China's defense and regeneration. China's shift "from cultural entity to political entity" is described by Joseph Whitney as the Confucian idea of the state replaced by an imported nationalism. 12 Zhonghua minzu (the Chinese nation) as a modern concept was adopted from the writings of Meiji Japan and was associated with nationalistic writings warning the Chinese people of the danger of annihilation under Western invasion at the turn of the twentieth century. 13
In the twentieth century, all Chinese leaders from Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek, and Mao Zedong to Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin have shared a deep bitterness at China's humiliation. They determined to blot out the humiliation and restore China to its rightful place as a great power. Having accepted the norm of modern nation-state system, these leaders no longer thought of China at the center of the world and Chinese culture as a universal set of values. However, they were convinced that China ought to stand equal with other great powers and that there was something profoundly wrong with a world that denied it this status. As John W. Garver suggests, "this determination to restore China's national grandeur is the crux of Chinese nationalism" and has driven China's vision of its role in the world and has thus become the lingua franca of successful politics in twentieth-century China. 14 While other movements and ideologies waxed and waned, nationalism permeated them all. Those who wanted to rule China had to propound and implement a program of national salvation.
While pursing the similar goal of national greatness, or in Chinese words, a qiangguomeng (the dream of a strong China), Chinese political elites have been divided on how to revive China and have developed three different nationalist perspectives: nativism, antitraditionalism, and pragmatism. Each perspective is rooted in a different assessment of the sources of national weakness and advocates a best approach to revitalize China. (See Table 1.)
Nativism
Nativist perspective has been advocated largely by traditional elites and was at times supported by a vast population in China. It is labeled by Xiao Gongxin as "Confucian fundamentalist nationalism" ( rujia yuanjiaozhi minzu zhuyi ) and by Edward Friedman as "anti-imperialist nationalism." 15 Nativism calls for a return to Confucian tradition, because it believes that the impact of imperialism on Chinese self-esteem and the subversion of indigenous Chinese virtues are the root of China's weakness. It asserts that China's decline is primarily due to foreign transgressions and that the sine qua non of national recovery is vigilance against foreign insults and pressure. In nativist view, the eradication of foreign influences is the route to revived national strength. National salvation must be attained through exclusive reliance upon indigenous virtues and ideas. While disagreeing among themselves over what indigenous virtue is, nativists concur that the requisite national regeneration can only occur through isolation and rejection of the outside world. China should wall out foreigners for a true independence that would come only when the Chinese people have internal unity, a mobilized and roused populace, and most importantly, the confidence to look inward for the primary bases of its strength.
Nativism is a powerful call, because its identification of imperialism as the enemy and its stress on national independence are appealing to a nation that had for about a century been the victim of foreign imperialist expansion. The goal of building an independent modern nation-state that could resist any foreign threat has been infused into the discourse of Chinese nationalism since the late nineteenth century. In the early days of the People's Republic of China (PRC), Chinese communist leaders brought with them traumatic memories of their country's inability to determine its own fate in the century of humiliation. To counter imperialist challenges, the Chinese Communist party (CCP) strived to make China completely independent of foreign influence by becoming economically self-reliant and militarily strong. Mao's policy of zili gengsheng (self-reliance) was consonant with the potent spirit of nativism. Steven M. Goldstein points out that nativist nationalism based on self-reliance went beyond the usual issues of national sovereignty associated with the term nationalism and called for a "fundamental transformation of China's national spirit." 16 This transformation was to be led by the CCP and carried out in line with the virtue that fostered frugality and bravery and permitted sacrifice for the cause of independence.
Nativism was expressed strongly during the Cultural Revolution, when Mao carried out a policy of autarchy by isolating China almost completely from the rest of the world. The recall of every Chinese ambassador was a symbol of the nativists' desire to insulate China from the corruption of contact with the outside world. China stressed the maximization of internal autocentric development, the minimization of external dependency, and the long-term transformation of the capitalist world system. After the beginning of reforms in the 1980s, Mao's nativism lost momentum. In the early 1990s, there was a new surge of nativism among the elites who worried about the decline of the communist ideology and rediscovered the value of the Chinese tradition, which the party had relentlessly attacked. Aware of the incompatibility of the orthodox official doctrines of Marxism-Leninism with the needs of modernization, these elites argued that old-style communist indoctrination would not be effective in convincing the Chinese people. A new way of thinking needed to be found to replace the old ideological doctrines. This new way was to advocate traditional Chinese culture while negating foreign value systems. Intellectual debates were redefined in terms of "Chineseness." Some scholars even called for an academic nativism (xueshu bentuhua) by extracting a brand new set of concepts and theories from ancient Chinese thought and experiences. Liu Kang and Li Xiguang, two advocates of nativist nationalism, stated that "in the 1990s, Chinese intellectuals ought to . . . liberate themselves from 'modern' Western speech and thought patterns, and acquire a new understanding of modern nationalism and nativism, to form a genuinely humane spirit ( renwen jingsheng ) and rebuild their 'academic lineage' and 'ethical traditions' with Chinese culture." 17
Antitraditionalism
In contrast to nativism, antitraditionalism sees China's tradition as the source of its weakness. Early advocates of antitraditionalism were the so-called new elite, including intellectuals in new schools and treaty port merchants, who found China's frailty in stark contrast to the traditional Chinese vision of the Middle Kingdom built on a superior culture extending back for millennia. To revive China, these new elites took a hostile view toward China's past, calling for the complete rejection of Chinese tradition and boundless adoption of Western culture. They thus established an important connection between nationalism and at times almost ferociously iconoclastic antitraditionalism.
Antitraditionalism received its first forceful expression during the May Fourth Movement in 1919. One extreme but nevertheless instructive example of the May Fourth era is Qian Xuantong's letter to Chen Duxiu, who later became one of the founders of the CCP. In response to Chen's proposal to abolish Confucianism, Qian concurred in the letter that "it is now the only way to save China" and suggested that the Chinese language had to be replaced by Esperanto in order to save the country. One study found that Qian did not seem to have been concerned with the extent to which his program might be supported by China's masses, since in his view they were the problem. 18 Antitraditionalism provided China's new elite with the ideological underpinning for its cultural remoteness from the much larger traditional sector of the population. As Myron L. Cohen indicates, "the modern Chinese nationalism articulated since the beginning of this century by China's new elite has involved a forceful and near-total rejection of the earlier traditional and culturally elaborated sense of nationhood." Cohen believes that this is "ironic" and "most problematic" for many of the Chinese people. 19
From the May Fourth Movement through the Maoist years to Deng's reform era, there have been repeated attacks on China's cultural heritage. As the founder of the PRC, Mao held a selective though essentially hostile attitude toward Chinese traditional culture. Although he acknowledged that some elements of it might be preserved, he never specified what should be preserved, and he attacked most of China's traditional culture as "feudal legacies." 20 Mao's followers denounced all aspects of tradition at the early stage of the Cultural Revolution, when Red Guards were mobilized to destroy the so-called four olds (ideas, culture, customs, and habits) and to smash any supposed remnants of Confucianism. The Cultural Revolution was a movement with the mixture of both nativist anti-Western xenophobia and antitraditionalist sentiments.
There was a new surge of antitraditionalism driven by liberal intellectuals in the early reform years of the 1980s, when the party began to correct the miscarriages of justice and opened China to the outside world. The dramatic events revealed in this process shocked the Chinese people. Their national pride suffered a heavy blow from self-condemnation of their recent past and awareness of China's economic backwardness. Many intellectuals could not help asking why this had happened. While open criticism of the communist system was forbidden, some intellectuals turned to criticism of Chinese culture in an attempt to discover causes for the failure in modernization. As a result, there was a rise of "cultural fever" ( wenhua re ) among Chinese intellectuals. 21 Traditional Chinese culture and Chinese national character became targets of criticism. Many Chinese intellectuals blamed China's "feudal culture" for the country's absolutism, narrow-mindedness, and love of orthodoxy, and even called Chinese people the ugly Chinese. The notion of culture developed into a euphemism for political institutions that could not be publicly attacked for fear of governmental reprisal.
Pragmatism
Different from both nativism and antitraditionalism, pragmatism sees foreign economic exploitation and cultural infiltration as a source of China's weakness, but believes that the lack of modernization is the reason why China became an easy target for Western imperialism. China fell victim to external imperialism because political decay, technological backwardness, and economic weakness had eliminated any possibility of defending itself. Pragmatists would like to adopt whatever approach that may make China strong. This is illustrated by Deng Xiaoping's famous saying, "it doesn't matter if it is a black or white cat as long as it can catch rats."
Early pragmatic thought can be traced to notable bureaucrats and scholars, such as Zhang Zhidong and Yan Fu, in the Self-strengthening Movement of 1861-1895. The so-called ti-yong formula placed an emphasis on Chinese values while at the same time trying to gain foreign technical skills and modern scientific knowledge. These people were pragmatic nationalists in the sense that they wanted to make selective use of foreign methods to defeat foreign barbarians ( yi yi zhi yi ). In a similar way, contemporary pragmatists have identified economic modernization as the key to the revitalization of China. In the early period of PRC history, communist leaders were pragmatic nationalists to the extent that they claimed the mandate of ruling China by the nationalist quest for the national greatness and modernization that began in the early twentieth century in the quest for "wealth and power." More importantly, they adopted policies and programs that any strong nationalist government would have undertaken under the circumstances. In large measures, the Nationalist regime had attempted or promised to pursue these but failed. In foreign affairs, the PRC tried to reach out to various countries, including issuing a series of overtures toward the United States, although it later was angered by Washington's nonrecognition policy. 22
Pragmatic nationalism was shrouded by an overlay of Mao's self-reliance nativism in the 1960s. However, it prevailed after Mao's death in 1976, when more and more Chinese people became aware that the Leninist vision of the Chinese people uniting behind and sacrificing themselves for a communist-led movement to keep out foreign invaders was "merely a creation of the mythologized Yenan era." 23 Since the 1980s, pragmatism has undoubtedly dominated the thinking of the Chinese people. Most communist leaders, including Deng Xiaoping, Zhao Ziyang, Hu Yaobang, and Jiang Zemin, are pragmatists. They have adopted a strategy of modernization by taking any pragmatic policies justified by the slogan, "building socialism with Chinese characteristics." In the fashion of the ti-yong formula during the Self-strengthening Movement, they have tried to make China strong by gaining access to the world's most advanced science and technology and by opening commercial and cultural exchanges with all foreign countries, including the advanced industrial democracies. In the meantime, they have rejected what they deemed not fitting with "Chinese characteristics," including any ideas that may threaten their authoritarian rule. Pragmatic leaders have set economic growth as China's top priority, because they know that the CCP's continued leadership vitally depends on its ability to improve the Chinese people's standard of living. The collapse of communist regimes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe has been explained by pragmatic Chinese leaders as their failure to deliver sufficient economic benefits to their people. The communist regime has thus substituted for obsolete Marx-Leninism performance legitimacy provided by surging economic development and nationalist legitimacy provided by the invocation of distinctive characteristics of Chinese culture.
International Orientations of Chinese Nationalism
Each of the three perspectives of Chinese nationalism has its unique foreign policy implications. Nativism infuses xenophobia into a confrontational policy toward the Western powers; antitraditionalism tries to adapt to the modern world by invocation of certain foreign models; and pragmatism lies between the two, asserting China's national interests by both reacting to and absorbing from the outside world. (See Appendix.)
Confrontation
Nativism is often related to confrontational antiforeignism, which is hypersensitive to perceived foreign insults and often makes militant reactions. Nativism may thus turn into ultranationalism, which believes that other nations or nation-states are either inferior or threatening and must be dealt with harshly. Ultranationalism is characterized by the suspicion, dislike, or fear of other nations and is associated with feelings of national superiority and with superpatriotism, an intensity that makes ultranationalism to a certain extent similar to fundamentalism, which often converges on "those who offer most complete, inclusive and extravagant world views." 24 Ultranationalism leads to a devaluing of and aggression toward the they-group and transforms the healthy pride of nations into cancerous prejudice, even leaving people addicted to the political painkillers of violence and demagoguery.
The most extreme example of antiforeignism in connection with nativism in modern China may be seen in the strong xenophobia of the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 and again during the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s. The hostility that developed toward foreigners and all things foreign during the Boxer Rebellion resulted in the burning of the British legation in Beijing and shops that sold foreign merchandise and books, and the killing of foreigners. When nativism prevailed during the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards surrounded the Soviet embassy in Beijing, submitting it to a constant barrage of revolutionary rhetoric broadcast from makeshift loudspeakers. The dependents of Soviet diplomats, seeking to leave China, were forced to crawl on their knees to the airplane waiting for them. The British legation in Beijing was burned to the ground again. As Harry Harding points out, "the Cultural Revolution represented the revival of a submerged strain of thought, a strongly xenophobic Chinese nativism, similar in some respects to the antiforeignism of the Boxer Rebellion of the turn of the century. 25 At the height of the Cultural Revolution, China remained friendly only with the most militant communist countries such as Albania, North Korea, and North Vietnam. Beijing encouraged Maoist insurgents to carry out armed struggle against the governments of almost every foreign country.
Nativism lost its momentum in the 1980s but regained some ground in the 1990s. The new nativism takes Chinese culture as a symbol against Western cultural hegemony and colonialism. It argues that Asians in general and the Chinese in particular have their own set of values different from those of the West. Some extreme nativists even suggest that Asian values are superior to their Western counterparts and should therefore be the basis for the values of the world in the twenty-first century. Sheng Hong, a controversial economist in Beijing, launched a fierce attack on Western civilization, which according to him was developed out of different forms of religion. Because each religion worshipped only one god, war and competition were inevitable. Western culture thus would lead humankind into catastrophe. Only Chinese civilization could save China and eventually help save the world, because it was not developed from a religious form. Confucian respect for universal harmony and collectivism should be especially instrumental for world peace and development. 26
Some politically-motivated nativists have warned about "cultural pollution" and "peaceful evolution" conspiracies by the West. They interpret these alleged schemes as anti-Chinese rather than anti-Communist and believe that the United States is attempting to Westernize and divide (xihua he fenhua) China and make the nation a Western dependent. Nativists are particularly hostile to the United States, because it represents an opposing value system of liberalism and individualism. Nativist sentiments are against Japan as well, due mainly to the humiliation and injustices suffered by the Chinese people at the hands of Japanese imperialists during War World II. In comparison, the hostility of nativism against the United States is due to the fact that it represents the Western value system, while the animosity toward Japan does not have this dimension. Thus the United States is treated in a very different way in nativist sentiments. To a certain extent, nativism is an anti-Americanism or anti-Westernism. Nativists have made special efforts to find the United States and other Western countries suffering from a degeneration of morality, distrust of leadership, crimes, ethnic tensions, and economic stagnation. A 1996 bestseller, The China that Can Say No , stated that "the moral decay inside the United States for the past several centuries has formed evil results," and the United States will "inevitably face a fin-de-sie®cle type general squaring of accounts." The United States is "annoying yet futile, despicable yet pitiful, and lost its future directions." 27 As a result, it is necessary for China to stand up and say no to the United States clearly and loudly. Following the lead of Mohammed Mahathir of Malaysia and Shintaro Ishihara of Japan in their books, The Asia that Can Say No and The Japan That Can Say No, Chinese nativists published a series of "Say No" books, such as The China that Can Say No, The China that Still Can Say No, and How Can China Say No. 28 Nativists have used confrontations with foreign powers to rouse emotional, nationalist reactions by tapping the deep-rooted feeling of Chinese cultural superiority and resentment of foreign efforts to belittle or humiliate China in an attempt to rally the Chinese people against any foreign infiltration.
Adaptation
In contrast to nativism, antitraditionalism calls for boundless adoption of foreign models of modernization, but its orientation is adaptation rather than accommodation to foreign powers. In spite of their heavy attack on Chinese tradition, most antitraditionalists remain in their heart deeply nationalistic. Their critique or even cynical treatment of China's past and their call for adoption of foreign models are one way of yearning for the recreation of China's national greatness. Adaptation is a human learning process in which old ways of coping with the outside world are changed into new ones. This change can create a readiness to respond to a given international situation in a characteristic and repetitive fashion. In the China case, disagreement about what foreign models China should adopt has resulted in adaptation efforts that do not follow the path laid down by one foreign model. Course change and even maladaptation became common practice. Antitraditionalists have advocated very different foreign models in adapting China to the modern world. Examples include Sun Yat-sen's three principles of "nationalism, democracy, and the people's livelihood"; Liang Qichao's liberalism; and Mao Zedong's Marxism. Antitraditionalists, however, have not agreed on any foreign model that fits China best.
In the early period of the PRC, the foreign model that Mao brought to China was Marxism-Leninism, which was not to be polluted by other foreign or modern values. China was going to adopt the Soviet model of economic and political development and adapt to the Soviet-led communist world. This orientation was evident in Mao's historic announcement on foreign policy at the eve of the CCP's twenty-eighth anniversary on 30 June 1949 that China would "lean towards one side" in the struggle between imperialism and socialism. To make his position clear, he said that China must ally itself "with the Soviet Union, with every New Democratic country, and with the proletariat and broad masses in all other countries." 29 However, the adaptation to the Soviet-led world was a total failure. While Mao was attracted to the universal claim of Marxism that outlines the course of world history along definitive and progressive lines, he could not compromise China's national interests and blindly follow Marxist doctrines or the policy of the Soviet Union. This maladaptation resulted in his passionate engagement in polemics with the Soviet Union and repudiation of the Soviet brand of communism in the 1960s.
In a different fashion, liberal antitraditionalists in the 1980s called upon the Chinese people to rejuvenate the nation by assimilating nourishment from the West, adopting Western models of modernization, and adapting to the competitive capitalist world. For this purpose, they demanded a fundamental change in the state of the Chinese mind-set and told Chinese people that to explore a new path to national greatness they needed to reinvigorate themselves by acquiring the spirit of science and democracy, the secret of the West's success. This message was conveyed vividly in Heshang (River Elegy), a six-part television series broadcast in 1988, which was regarded as the most provocative work of antitraditionalism. As a lament over the decline of a proud civilization, the series drew attention to the futility of a timeless pursuit of national glory in the barren yellow earth of the hinterland. The heavy burden of tradition upon the Chinese people was symbolized by the loess plateau that presses a nation to its yellow bosom and by the meandering Great Wall that confined the people who built it. Having turned key symbols of China's glorious past into symbols of its modern backwardness, the series used images of the West as symbols of the new civilization that were summoning China. It showed that to gain its greatness China must look toward the vast expanse of the ocean and beyond. This antitraditionalism gave voice to a nationalism that was urgent but simplistic and idealistic because it was overcritical of Chinese tradition and overenthusiastic about Western culture. Many Chinese intellectuals soon realized that antitraditionalism could not make China strong and alive, because a viable dream should link the legacies of the past with the hopes for the future. The bias of antitraditionalism against Chinese tradition hindered its ability to synthesize the best parts of Western and Chinese culture into new visions for China's future. After the initial culture shock in the early years of China's reform and opening to the outside world, Westernization found less and less enthusiasm among the Chinese people in the 1990s. It was thus recorded as another maladaptation.
Assertion
Pragmatic nationalism is national-interest driven. Its orientation in world affairs is assertive in defending and seeking China's national interests. As one advocate of Chinese pragmatism states, "its main objective is to build a politically, economically, and culturally united nation-state when foreign and largely Western influences are seen as eroding the nation-state's very foundation." 30 For pragmatic nationalists, "both the nation's problems and most of the possible solutions were perceived as coming from outside." 31 Pragmatic nationalism thus gains its power from both reacting to and absorbing from the outside world.
Some pragmatists, holding the ti-yong formula, have tried to limit interactions with the outside world to those clearly beneficial to China's economic development and to watch carefully for unwanted consequences. But most contemporary pragmatists are confident that China's distinctive culture is sufficiently resilient to survive extensive contact with the outside world. This confidence is expressed in Jiang Zemin's statement that "the development and progress of China is inseparable from the achievements in civilizations achieved by every country in the world. China needs to learn and assimilate the excellent achievements in the creation of civilization achieved by the people of every country in the world." 32 Michael Oksenberg used a term, confident nationalism, to describe the policy advocated by pragmatic nationalists. According to him, confident nationalism is a "patient and moderate nationalism rooted in confidence that over time China can regain its former greatness through economic growth, based on the import of foreign technology and ideas." 33 Under the guidance of pragmatism, Beijing's foreign policy has principally served to maximize China's economic interest and political integrity since the early 1980s.
Pragmatic nationalists are no less determined than both nativists and antitraditionalists to establish China as a powerful nation. They have constantly revealed their pride in China's national heritage and their dedication to making China a leading power in the world. However, unlike nativists who believe that Chinese cultural tradition may be of universal human value, pragmatic nationalists insist that the universal cultural claims—whether modern or traditional, Chinese or foreign—are subject to the promotion of China's national interest or the enhancement of national pride. They want to see China be a full-fledged participant in international affairs and occupy a prominent position in the world. Compared to antitraditionalists, who look to foreign models for China's future, pragmatists are more critical toward any imported universal principles, including both Marxism and liberalism. They emphasize the gap between these Western models and the Chinese conditions (guoqing). This has led some pragmatists to look to an Asian path of modernization. The economic success of many East Asian countries seemed to have proved that modernization is not necessarily tantamount to Westernization, and China can accumulate wealth without simply following any foreign models.
In this case, although pragmatic nationalists may be flexible in tactics, subtle in strategy, and even avoid appearing confrontational, they are uncompromising with foreign demands involving China's vital interest and may be arrogant in their singularity and dismissal of Western views and positions. A Renmin Ribao editorial in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Opium War states this subtle position: "While we must hold high the banner of patriotism, we should not indiscriminately reject anything foreign and close our doors to the outside world. Yet while we must open to the outside world, we should not yield to any pressure and to advocates of total Westernization." 34 This may make it difficult for some foreign countries to elicit cooperation on issues that trigger historical sensitivities, as pragmatic leaders are deeply committed to the preservation of national sovereignty, the reunification of China, and the attainment of national wealth and power. This assertion is evident in Beijing's Taiwan policy. Jiang Zemin made an eight-point proposal on 30 January 1995, suggesting that the two sides across the Taiwan Strait start negotiations "on officially ending the state of hostility between the two sides and accomplishing peaceful reunification step by step." 35 But the Peoples' Liberation Army (PLA) launched one after another wave of military exercises in the Taiwan Strait to stop the perceived Taiwan independence momentum and its collaboration with foreign forces only a half year after Jiang's peaceful venture. Through the use of force in an exemplary and demonstrative manner, pragmatic leaders showed their assertiveness in defending China's territorial integrity. The assertion is also reflected in Deng's handling of relations with Vietnam and his uncompromising demands on the reversion of Hong Kong's sovereignty to China. Chinese leaders are highly suspicious of the agendas of Western nations. The pragmatic nationalism only stiffens their spine and emboldens their resolve.
Characteristics of Chinese Nationalism
While nativism and antitraditionalism have continued to lurk in the background, pragmatic nationalism has become the dominant thinking of Chinese people and their leaders since the 1980s. A careful examination of pragmatic nationalism reveals its three characteristics: instrumentality, state-centeredness, and reactiveness. (See Appendix.
Instrumentality
For a long time, the axis of difference in the explanation of nationalism has been primordialism in contrast to instrumentalism. Primordialists argue for an essential nationalism based on an unchanging national identity, whereas instrumentalists attribute nationalism to manipulation by interested elites and see nationalist consciousness as a situational matter. Those in power and authority are at an advantage in creating and propagating a national identity that promotes their own interests, because they can marshal all the institutional apparatus at their disposal. 36 Chinese nationalism has been characterized by its instrumentality to the communist government in compensating for or, to a certain extent, replacing the all-too-evident weaknesses of communist ideology since the 1980s. Pragmatic leaders have fashioned nationalism, because it has the effect of removing differences within the country and replacing it with a common, hegemonic order of political values. Nationalism has been used to rally popular support behind a less popular communist regime and its policies by creating a sense of communality among citizens.
The emergence of pragmatic nationalism in post-Mao China was in response to a legitimacy crisis of the communist regime starting in the late 1970s, when the regime was deeply troubled by popularly-called "sanxin weiji" (three spiritual crises), namely, a crisis of faith in socialism, a crisis of confidence in the future of the country, and a crisis of trust in the party. After communist ideology lost credibility, some intellectuals turned to Western liberal ideas and called for Western-style democratic reform. Sanxin weiji thus resulted in the pro-democracy movement and the large-scale demonstrations in spring 1989. How to restore legitimacy and build a broadly based national support became the most serious challenge to the post-Tiananmen leadership. The instrumentality of nationalism was discovered along with the development of a conservative tendency that seeks to defend the vested interests of an authoritarian political system.
This conservative tendency started in the late 1980s is known as neoauthoritarianism (xinquanwei zhuyi), a less-Marxist-colored but nondemocratic political discourse. Neoauthoritarianism urged a strong and authoritarian state to enforce modernization programs and argued that the economic miracle of the four "little dragons" in East Asia was created because they all shared Confucianism and patriarchal power structure. In the early 1990s neoauthoritarianism was repackaged as neoconservatism ( xinbaoshou zhuyi ) with an emphasis on strong state control as well as moral values based on the conservative elements of Confucianism. Immediately after the Tiananmen Incident, He Xin, a Beijing-based scholar, became the most visible symbol of neoconservatism. He used the official slogan "stability above everything" to defend government action suppressing student demonstrations. 37 In 1992, a group of young intellectuals in Beijing published a widely circulated article, "Sulian Jubian Zhihou Zhongguo de Xianshi Yingdui yu Zhanlue Xuanze" (Realistic Responses and Strategic Choices for China after the Disintegration of the Soviet Union), which soon became a banner of neoconservatism. 38 This article argued that Marxism-Leninism was no longer effective in mobilizing loyalty and legitimating the state, and the CCP should base itself firmly on Chinese nationalism. In the meantime, some prominent scholars joined the orchestra of neoconservatism. Xiao Gongqin warned in a 1996 article that the possible disintegration ofChinese society might result from the decline of the official ideology. He sawno solutions in Western nostrums or in communism but only in nationalism, which, according to him, could play "the function of political integration (zhengzhi zhenhe) and cohesion (ningju)" in the post-cold war era. 39
With the renewed discovery of the power of nationalism, Deng Xiaoping and his successor, Jiang Zemin, began to wrap themselves in the banner of nationalism, which they found remained a most reliable claim to the Chinese people's loyalty and the only important value that was shared by both the regime and its critics. Nationalism may appeal to Chinese of all walks of life, no matter how uninterested they are in other aspects of politics. It was ironic that pro-democracy demonstrators in the Tiananmen Square in 1989, while confronting the government, claimed that patriotism drove them to take to the streets. After the Tiananmen Incident, pragmatic leaders began to emphasize the party's role as the paramount patriotic force and guardian of national pride. In the face of Western sanctions against China, they moved quickly to position themselves as the representatives of the Chinese nation and Chinese economic interests, including China's entry into the WTO (World Trade Organization), and maintenance of the low-tariff treatment on exports to the United States, known as most favored nation (MFN) status. One dramatic example of its effort to identify the regime with Chinese national pride was the bid to host the year 2000 summer Olympic games in Beijing. Although China failed to get the games, Chinese popular resentment was directed at foreign countries and human rights groups, who were blamed for the failed Olympic bid.
In an instrumentalist fashion, pragmatic nationalism does not have a fixed, objectified, and eternally defined content. Instead, it has been continually remade to fit the needs of its creators and consumers. Narratives of pragmatic nationalism, including interpretations of nationalistic symbols, are "invented histories or traditions." 40 This process of inventing involves, in addition to blatant fabrication of facts, selective remembering and partial forgetting of the nation's historical and cultural legacy. In a patriotic education campaign launched in the early 1990s, pragmatic leaders called for maintaining a "consciousness of suffering." Faced with outside criticism of China's human rights violations, they told the Chinese people that the West and Japan ignored their own principles of human rights when they trampled the rights of the Chinese and invaded China during the long century of humiliation. In response to the argument that China needs more political freedom and democracy to pave the way for world peace and stability, they asserted that the state has an obligation to implement effective and forceful measures to maintain domestic order and unity. They reminded the Chinese people that weakness, disunity, and disorder at home would invite foreign aggression and result in the loss of Chinese identity, as China's century-long humiliation and suffering before 1949 demonstrated. Beginning in 1994, for the first time since university entrance examinations were reinstated in the late 1970s, students applying for science subjects at colleges were exempted from the notorious Marxist political science exam, which had been widely resented. Instead, patriotic education courses were added to the curriculum of high schools and colleges. These courses concentrate on the great achievements of the Chinese people and especially the Communist party. The aim was to win more respect for the party by demonstrating what it had done for the people of China.
Nationalism is an effective instrument for the communist regime. Prior to the Tiananmen tragedy, the passion of Chinese intellectuals had been focused on political liberalization, and the most popular international political figure on Chinese university campuses was Mikhail Gorbachev. Many college students took Gorbachev's perestroika (reorganization) as the ideal course of action for the CCP. In the 1990s, however, worry about disorder and disunity outweighed concern about political lethargy or oppression, let alone a demand for liberty and human rights. The economic difficulties of the former Soviet states provided an expedient pretext for the government to relegate political liberalization to the background. The need for political stability, a precondition for steady economic growth, became an overriding mission of the Chinese leadership. Under the banner of patriotism, pragmatic leaders made an all-out effort to rally support for the status quo. The politics of accommodation, with ample precedents in traditional Chinese political culture, replaced revolutionary mobilization as the modus operandi of the government. Tu Wei-ming observed in the early 1990s that "traditional symbols are widely exploited to inspire nationalist sentiments. Western methods, such as market mechanisms and advertising are fully employed to promote patriotism." 41 Seeking to impose nationalism on the Chinese people as the collective identity of the state, pragmatic leaders stressed the instrumental aspect more than the intrinsic value of nationalism. This confirms Lucian Pye's famous observation that Chinese nationalism, reflecting the attributes and aspirations of a particular group of political leaders, lacks the collective cultural ideals and shared inspirations and myths that can both nourish a positive public conscience and place limits on the behavior of the leadership. 42 In other words, this form of nationalism is equated with blind patriotism, not with more inspiring cultural ideals and beliefs that reflect China's modern history and tradition.
Statis
Led by the state, pragmatic nationalism identifies the nation closely with the communist state. Nationalist sentiment is officially expressed as aiguo, which in Chinese language means "loving the state," or aiguozhuyi (patriotism), which is love and support for China, always indistinguishable from the communist state. As Michael Hunt observes, "by professing aiguo, Chinese usually express loyalty to and a desire to serve the state, either as it was or as it would be in its renovated form." 43 From this perspective, Chinese patriotism can be understood as a state-centric or state-led nationalism. The communist state is portrayed as the embodiment of the nations's will and seeks for the loyalty and support of the people that are granted the nation itself. It tries to create a sense of nationhood among all its citizens by speaking in the nation's name and demanding citizens subordinate their interests to those of the state. Freedom is sought not for individuals but for the nation-state. This means all power to the rulers of the communist state. As asserted by the People's Daily editorial on the 1996 National Day, "Patriotism is specific. . . . Patriotism requires us to love the socialist system and road chosen by all nationalities in China under the leadership of the Communist Party." By identifying the party with the nation, the regime makes criticism of the party an unpatriotic act.
State-led nationalism can produce passionate ideology when political leaders appeal to emotive nationalism for the defense of the state or use nationalism as an instrument to bring together disparate groups within the state and mobilize public support for their policies. For this purpose, the communist state launched a patriotic education campaign in the early 1990s. As a state-led campaign, it emphasized the need to remember earlier sufferings at the hands of the West and Japan, to prevent the loss of Chinese identity through foreign cultural and political intrusions, and to accept the need for strong government controls over society. The campaign drew upon traditional attitudes that favored a "well-ordered and hierarchical political structure," strong popular emotions regarding past injustices suffered at the hands of foreign powers, and "deeply rooted desires for growing sense of pride felt among ordinary Chinese citizens concerning China's recent economic and diplomatic accomplishments." 44 The campaign presented the image of a strong Chinese state capable of redressing past grievances, resisting current and future foreign intrusions, and wielding a high degree of influence in the international arena, at least on a par with other major powers.
The communist state was repackaged in the campaign. The leadership of the CCP was claimed because of its patriotism in China's long struggle for national independence and prosperity, not because of its communist ideals. A special emphasis of the campaign was on China's national essence (guoqing): where China is strong, where it lags behind, and what are its favorable and unfavorable conditions. Patriotism was used as a national call, while the peculiarity of the national essence offered a rationale for that call. A communist state, which would otherwise be hardly acceptable to the Chinese people after the collapse of communism in other parts of the world, was justified by the national essence. As a result, some intellectuals, including those who had sharply criticized the government during the spring of 1989, changed their attitudes. They accepted the themes of the patriotic education campaign about China's special conditions—that is, the argument that sudden democratization in China would result in rapid social disintegration, as witnessed in the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. Some of them joined neoconservativists in arguing that a centralized state must be strengthened in order to maintain social stability and economic development.
Reactiveness
Pragmatic nationalism is reactive. It tends to become strong in response to perceived foreign pressures that are said to erode, corrode, or endanger the national interest of China. As Liu Ji said, "Chinese nationalism has a unique characteristic: in peaceful times, there are often 'internal struggles' (wolidou) within the nation. . . . When confronted with foreign invasions, this nation is prone to respond with a narrow kind of nationalism." 45 A reactive sentiment to foreign suppressions is the starting point of Chinese nationalism. Unlike the formation of nationalism in Europe as an indigenous process driven by mercantilism and liberalism, nationalism in China was initially borrowed from the West by the Chinese elite to defend China against foreign invasions in the late nineteenth century. That is why Xiao Gongqin calls Chinese nationalism "yingji-zhiwei xing" (reactive-defensive type). According to Xiao, Chinese nationalism has risen in response to "negative stimulus" (buliang ciji) from certain foreign forces. It is therefore reactive to specific issues and has little to do with abstract ideas, religious doctrines, or ideologies. "The intensity of the reaction is in proportion to the intensity of negative stimulus from abroad." 46
The effort to identify the communist regime with the Chinese nation was particularly effective when China faced challenges from hostile foreign countries. The Korean War was a typical example. With the perceived imminent invasion of American forces via Korea, the communist government launched a kangmei yuanchao (Resisting America and Assisting Korea) campaign that mobilized popular energy and coupled with nationalistic rhetoric to defend the nation. Since the end of the cold war, China has been under heavy pressure from Western countries. In particular, Sino-U.S. relations became entangled over many issues, such as human rights, intellectual property rights, trade deficits, weapons proliferation, and especially the Taiwan issue. The voice of containment of China reached its peak in the Western media when China launched military exercises in the Taiwan Strait following President Lee Teng-hui's visit to the United States in May 1995. Suspicion of U.S. intentions prevailed among many Chinese people after the United States sent two aircraft carrier battle groups to protect Taiwan in March 1996. In this case, nationalist sentiment was not the sole province of the communist regime. A truly remarkable phenomenon was that Chinese intellectuals became a driving force of nationalism in the 1990s. 47
Response to the change in the international environment is a central concern of the intellectual discourse on nationalism. Two popular views in the West were especially cited by Chinese intellectuals as a challenge to the Chinese national interest. One is Fukuyama's statement that the end of the cold war is a triumph of capitalism and Western liberalism. The second view is Huntington's argument that geopolitical struggles in the post-cold war world are not ideologically motivated but defined by different civilizations. Many Chinese intellectuals reading their works were convinced that a confrontation between different nation-states and cultures under the banner of nationalism is going to replace opposition between communism and capitalism. They paid special attention to Huntington's argument that the biggest threat to Western civilization is Islamic and Confucian culture; thus the West should be alert to a Confucian and Islamic alliance. This argument faced vociferous attacks from Chinese intellectuals. In a rebuffing article, Wang Xiaodong (using a pen name, Shi Zhong) argues that there is no desire on the part of the Chinese to Confucianize the rest of the world. Any future conflicts will depend on economic interests, and China may come into conflict with other powers because of its growing economic strength. In another article, Wang suggests that nationalism is indispensable and a rational choice to advance national interests of China. 48
Although the intellectual discourse on nationalism overlaps, to a certain extent, the patriotic rhetoric of the Chinese government, its emergence was largely independent of official propaganda. Those who have contributed to the intellectual discourse on nationalism are from various political backgrounds. As observed by Wang Xiaodong, "among those under the banner of nationalism, there is a full array of people: some of whom advocate authoritarianism, others who support expansionism; while some people believe in more state controls, and others uphold the total freedom in the market economy. There are also those who propose a return to tradition and others opposing this restoration." 49 The important common denominator that brings together intellectuals of different political views is the concern over international pressures after the end of the cold war.
The Constraint on Chinese Nationalism
The above analysis on the three characteristics of pragmatic nationalism shows that the development of Chinese nationalism in the recent decade has been a function of its utility to the communist state in response to both domestic and external challenges. Being instrumental and state-led, nationalism may be used to flex China's muscles in international affairs if it is deemed desirable by Chinese leaders to enhance their political power. But being reactive to international currents, nationalist sentiments may decrease if perceived external pressure diminishes and if China's confidence in international affairs increases. In this case, whether or not the communist regime will mobilize popular support of nationalist xenophobia depends on its calculation of the benefit and cost in using nationalism.
Nationalism is a double-edged sword. Its destructive effects may set a limit on the utility of nationalism to Chinese leaders. It is not hard for pragmatic leaders to realize that the Boxer Rebellion-style xenophobia that prevailed during the Cultural Revolution may cause more harm than good to the communist regime. While nationalism may be used by the regime to replace the discredited communist ideology as a new base of legitimacy, it may also cause serious backlash and place the government in a hot spot. It was clear that rising nationalism in 1995-1997 ran into a criticism of Chinese foreign policy, especially the seemingly too soft stance toward the United States and Japan. It was certainly an embarrassment for the Chinese leadership when the authors of The China That Can Say No openly claimed that "we need China's Zhirnovsky" and proposed to take back Taiwan by force at any cost. They also backed a confrontation approach to the United States and Japan, while China's modernization has depended and will continue to depend on cooperation with these two countries.
The CCP rose to power partly because it gained nationalistic credentials by fighting the Japanese invasion. Now it is widely criticized as too chummy with Japan, which allegedly failed to provide more compensation for wartime injuries, laid claim to Tiaoyu islands, and waged economic imperialism by flooding China with Japanese products. The party has suffered from losing some of its dwindling legitimacy. The Chinese leadership also had to worry about the patriotic movement against Japan that might evolve into a protest movement against the Chinese government itself by those people who were jobless or angry about corruption in the government. In addition, coming at a time when China urgently needs Japanese trade and investment, the government certainly did not want to see the surge of nationalism jeopardizing the Sino-Japanese economic relations and the overall economic development strategy that relied heavily on foreign trade and foreign investment. 50
Another cost that pragmatic nationalism has to consider is the possibility that ethnic separatists may take over nationalist appeals to challenge the very base of the multinational state of the PRC. By definition, nation and state are not the same. A nation is an ethnic group and a state is a sovereign political community. 51 This distinction has led to two related but different forms of nationalism. One is state nationalism and the other is ethnic nationalism. 52 Pragmatic Chinese leaders have adopted state nationalism, which sees the nation as a territorial unit regardless of ethnicity and seeks political identity involving an aspiration for a strong PRC state. In the meantime, they have rejected and fought against ethnic nationalism, which sees the nation as a politicized ethnic group and supports separatist movements in the multinational state. Ethnic nationalism is one type of state-seeking nationalism by which representatives of an ethnic group that does not have collective control of a state claims an autonomous political status or a separate state on the ground that the population has a distinctive, coherent ethnic identity. 53 State-seeking nationalism could be very conflictual or even violent, because an accommodation of state-seeking nationalism often requires disruptive changes in the established national borders of multinational state. 54
The development of Chinese nationalism is related from the outset to the tension between ethnic nationalism and the creation of a multi-ethnic nation-state. Chinese nationalism once displayed a strong ethnic strain and was a state-seeking movement led by the Han majority in opposing alien Manchu rule in the early twentieth century. 55 In the revolution leading to the end of the Qing Dynasty, it was seen in extensive mobilization of Han Chinese in support of the anti-Manchu cause. Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of the Republic of China, had struggled with a contradiction between Han nationalism and the desire to retain all of the Qing territories in the new nation-state. The political consequences of defining the new nation in terms of Han culture would be the dissolution of the Qing empire. Sun Yat-sen began to speak about the need to rise above existing ethnic identities to create a new "national people" (guomin) shortly after the 1911 Revolution. Sun and other nationalist leaders had to reject ethnic nationalism that would have made the Chinese nation-state conterminous with the Han people. The Provisional Law of the Republic in 1912 specifically identified Mongolia, Tibet, and Qinghai as integral parts of the nation, even though these territories were historically recent additions to the empire created by the Manchus. Omitting mention of many ethnic minorities residing in China's south and southwest regions, Sun's discussion of the ethnic issue in terms of the "five peoples" highlighted his geopolitical concern with the attempts of the Mongols, Muslims, and Tibetans to form their own nation-states. Successive Chinese constitutions hence defined China as a multi-ethnic state.
After the CCP come to power in 1949, the PRC constitution canonized, "the People's Republic of China is a unitary multinational state (tongyi de duo minzu guojia), created in common by its various nationalities." This multinational state is composed of fifty-six ethnic nationalities. The fifty-five ethnic minorities in the 1953 census recorded 6 percent of the population, but the total area of the minority nationalities amounted to about 64 percent of China's territory. The PRC government once made a policy of systematic assimilation of ethnic minorities in order to create a single Chinese nation. This policy was justified by the claim that the Han as the more developed and majority nationality had the responsibility of helping backward ethnic minorities to move as quickly as possible into communist society. Under the assimilation policy, the PRC government adopted a variety of measures, including large scale migration of the Han people to the ethnic minority areas, the recruitment of ethnic minorities into the party and government bureaucracies, the development of infrastructure in minority areas to improve their economy, and the encouragement of the minorities to learn the Han language and other cultural practices. However, the chauvinist assimilation policy was not very successful and inevitably stimulated resistance from ethnic minorities. Han migration into minority territories exacerbated anti-Han sentiments. Tibetans expelled the Chinese officials and troops and declared independence in the 1959 uprising, which resulted in a bloody suppression of the Tibetan separatist movement by Beijing and forced the fourteenth Dalai Lama into exile in India.
In the 1980s, the PRC government made new policy with a dizzying array of preferential treatments to win the allegiance of the ethnic minorities. A Western observer called these policies "China's affirmative action," 56 which includes comprehensive "privileges" designed to help minorities gain a piece of China's prosperity pie. Minority children can get into university with exam scores 20 to 30 points below the minimum score for Han children. A separate network of segregated universities exists for ethnic minority students, and there are free boarding schools and special college preparatory classes for minority children. A comprehensive bilingual education program aims at helping minorities learn Chinese. Meanwhile, scholars are creating alphabets for minority languages that had no writing systems to help ensure that these languages do not die. Although most Han in urban areas are limited to one child per family, minority families can have two; in rural areas many are legally allowed three. Businesses are officially encouraged to hire minorities. As a result, the ratio of minority population has not been reduced. In the 1990 census, Han accounted for about 92 percent and the other fifty-five minority nationalities about 8 percent of the total population. The population size of minority nationalities varied, ranging from about 15.5 million people of the Zhuang nationality to 2,312 people of the Lhoba nationality. (See Table 2.)
China's "affirmative policy" is to give the minority nationalities enough power, education, or economic success to keep them from making independent demands and is not based on any philosophy of equality or any desire to celebrate differences. The Chinese people remain completely at ease with racial stereotypes, and the Han's bias against the minorities is commonplace. The Han have continued to use derogatory terms referring to the minorities. For instance, xongnu (slave-like people) is used to refer to ethnic minorities in the north and nanman (south barbarous) is for the ethnic groups in the south. To a certain extent, the official preferential treatment policy for minority nationalities is another way to confirm the Han belief that all minorities are backward, primitive barbarians who need the help of their Han older brothers. As opposed to empowering minorities, it is meant to encourage assimilation and the creation of a peaceful, unified, and essentially Han-dominated multinational state. Treatment of minorities in the popular press and the creation of a minority theme park (a sideshow-like museum in Beijing and Shenzhen where curious Han can have their pictures taken with minorities) make continued Han chauvinism painfully apparent. 57
In this case, ethnic nationalism among Tibetans, Uighurs, other Muslims, and Mongols has stayed alive and is evident in the upsurge of separatist demonstrations and movements in Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang in the 1990s. These ethnic minorities are bitter about the personal and collective (ethnic) suffering they have experienced under the Han Chinese rule. They see themselves "engaged in a struggle to keep culture and national identity afloat in a world of one billion Han." 58 In Tibet, for example, ethnic nationalism has developed into a state-seeking separatist movement that has won certain international sympathy. The PRC government has labeled these ethnic nationalists "splittists" (fenlie zhuyi fenzhi) and made every effort to eradicate Tibetan nationalism. 59 Minority nationalities in other parts of China, particularly the Zhuang in Guangxi and the Miao and the Yi in the Southwest, are already highly sinicised and are being peacefully integrated into the neighboring population. A strong policy of nationalism with inevitable emphasis on Han history and culture can "only serve to accentuate their ethnic and historical differences, and generate previously nonexistent antagonisms." 60
Under these circumstances, it would be counterproductive if the PRC government overplays Chinese nationalism, which appeals largely to the Han history and nation and may cause resentments among minority nationalities. Ethnic separatists could also take over the official nationalist appeals to make an ethnic interpretation for their own causes. A Chinese scholar observes that "because of the ethnic implication of Chinese nationalism, if the Chinese government advocates nationalism in order to defend China's national interests and positions in the world of nation-states, the ethnic separatist tendency would gain a legitimate status under the banner of nationalism." 61
Because nationalist xenophobia may undermine the base of the multinational state of the PRC, it constrains pragmatic Chinese leaders in their calculation of the utility of nationalism. That is why the Chinese government has never officially endorsed nationalism. The sentiments of the Chinese people are not described as nationalistic but patriotic. In the vocabulary of the Chinese communists, "nationalism" carries a derogatory connotation and is used to refer to parochial and reactionary attachments to nationalities. 62 The official line always defines the Chinese nation as the total population of China comprising fifty-six nationalities, and loyalty to the nation must mean loyalty to the state.
Conclusion: A Defensive Nationalism
"Every nationalism is unique. In contrast to American nationalism of manifest destiny, Chinese nationalism is powered by feelings of national humiliation and pride." 63 After the fall of culturalism in the late nineteenth century, the Chinese political elite has deemed it necessary to promote nationalism as a new force for unity. National greatness is an agreed upon objective and historical mission of the Chinese elite, notwithstanding their differences in supporting nativist, antitraditionalist, or pragmatist perspectives of nationalism. After the rapid decay of communist ideology, the communist state also used nationalism to shore up its waning legitimacy and to turn past humiliation and current weakness into motivation for modernization. Pragmatism became the dominant perspective to defend the vested interests of the political establishment in post-Mao China.
Pragmatic nationalism is assertive in international orientation and is particularly powerful when China's national interests or territorial integrity are in jeopardy. But it has not made China's international behavior particularly aggressive. That is why David Shambaugh characterized Chinese nationalism as "defensive nationalism," which is "assertive in form, but reactive in essence." 64 Defensive nationalism has made Chinese leaders very assertive in defending China's national interests, particularly on the issues concerning national security and territorial integrity, as seen in the continuing drama of PRC efforts to regain Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, which ensures a steady diet of nationalistic themes in the official media. The same defensive nationalism has also prevented China from assuming international responsibilities beyond its immediate concerns and capabilities.
The notion of defense in the Chinese case is a matter of territorial as well as internal defense, as the threat to the national security comes from within as much as from without. What have worried Chinese leaders most are the antigovernment and separatist movements inside Chinese territory. According to the National Defense Act passed by the National People's Congress in March 1997, one of the major functions of national defense is to prevent any internal split of the nation—a mission that makes separatism a primary concern of national defense. Chinese Defense Minister Chi Haotian characterized China's defense policy as a "defensive defense policy" that has four major goals: to consolidate national defense; to resist foreign aggression; to safeguard state sovereignty; and to maintain national unity and security. 65 For the defensive purpose, Chinese leaders have embraced with a vengeance and depended on the Western notion of sovereignty. They have not only accepted the norms of the nation-state system and acknowledged the formal equality of other states but also have asserted vigorously China's own territorial sovereignty and become very sensitive about interference in its "domestic affairs" by foreign powers. This defensive posture has sometimes been misinterpreted as aggressive, because China is overly sensitive about its national sovereignty. Richard Bernstein and Ross Munro are right that "China is quick to take offense and to view disagreements that other countries might take more easily in stride as assaults on national dignity, requiring uncompromising response." 66 One Western reporter found that "even though it is reestablished as an important power, China still acts like a country with something to prove, and it collects what it sees as new slights to its pride." 67 From this perspective it is not hard to understand why President Jiang Zemin refused to go to Washington to meet with President Clinton for a "working visit" in September 1995 and came only on a state visit with the red carpet welcome and 21-gun salute in October 1997.
To be sure, pragmatic leaders have displayed a consistently realpolitik world view. Nevertheless, their preferred ends have predominantly remained the defense of their own political power and the preservation of China's territorial integrity. They have played up a history of painful Chinese weakness in the face of Western imperialism, territorial division, unequal treaties, invasion, anti-Chinese racism, and social chaos, because eliminating "the century of shame and humiliation" is at the heart of a principal claim to CCP legitimacy. The regime's legitimization has always been based on its ability to defend China's national independence against foreign enemies. Even Mao, who pursued a nativist policy, claimed legitimacy not on his ability to carry out international aggression but on his success in defending China. Mao relied on deterrence and defense in depth in an attempt to wall out enemies. A three fronts strategy formulated by Mao in the 1960s typically manifested this defensive strategy. First-line defenses were built on China's west, north, and east, on China's long, exposed border with the Soviet Union and Soviet-supported Mongolia and facing the U.S. military bases in a Pacific island chain. Second lines of defense were prepared in defensible mountain regions behind the first. A third front, the secure militarized hinterland, was prepared in China's southwest, not far from Indochina. China moved most of its military industry into the third front hinterland, away from both the Soviet border and the coast. Chinese leaders have repeatedly claimed that they would rather lose thousands of troops than give up one inch of their land; they could sacrifice and bleed to protect territory that is absolute when dealing with subversion, real or fabricated, although national borders have never been absolute but fluid in history.
Chinese defensive nationalism is calculated and often has a strong moral appeal. In case of border conflicts with neighboring countries, the PLA has not always taken territorial occupation as an ultimate objective. Several times the PLA enacted the drama of unilateral withdrawal after gaining ground in the first series of skirmishes. The bloody sacrifice aimed at telling the opponent the moral superiority of the PRC and the secularity of its state sovereignty. The best known example of unilateral withdrawal appeared in the Sino-India war of 1962, when the PLA demonstrated its ability to defend the territory and withdrew 40 kilometers after forcing the Indian troops back 40 kilometers. Another example is the Sino-Vietnam war of 1979, when the PLA suggested a truce and general cessation of hostilities after reaching the city of Liangshan, before suffering further casualties and totally losing the aura of invincibility it had gained in the otherwise analogous Indian border conflict seventeen years earlier. 68 Similarly, the military exercises in 1995 and 1996 in the Taiwan Strait suggest no intention of the PLA to occupy Taiwan. The objective was to demonstrate determination to halt the tendency of Taiwan separatism and foreign intrusion.
After the end of the cold war, Chinese leaders found themselves facing a less favorable international environment. However, there were no immediate military threats to China's security. Thus, while defending its positions against sanctions imposed by Western countries, pragmatic leaders in Beijing avoided a confrontational policy against the United States and other Western countries. In November 1990, Beijing abstained during the UN Security Council's vote on the use of miliary force against Iraq, thus freeing the way for Operation Desert Storm led by the United States. According to a Chinese scholar, when America's power and influence were amplified by its victory in the Gulf War and by the formal demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, there were great pressures on the Beijing leadership to launch an ideological campaign against Western political ideas and the Soviet leaders' betrayal of socialist principles. However, pragmatic leaders, particularly Deng Xiaoping, argued that "China's power and interests did not allow a confrontational relationship with Western countries." 69 As Deng was quoted on his twenty-four character principle for handling world affairs after the Tiananmen Incident in 1989: "Observe developments soberly, maintain our position, meet challenges calmly, hide our capacities and bide our time, remain free of ambition, never claim leadership." This principle later evolved into an official sixteen character principle in dealing with Sino-U.S. relations: "enhancing confidence, reducing troubles, expanding cooperation, and avoiding confrontation," which was delivered by President Jiang Zemin at his meeting with President Clinton in Seattle in 1993. This defense strategy may sound deceptive, but it is in line with the essence of pragmatic nationalism and serves China's national interests. Pragmatic leaders encouraged the surge of nationalism in response to the possible formation of the U.S. containment policy against China in 1995-1996; they also let nationalist sentiment decline when the Sino-U.S. relationship began to improve in 1997. This external change coincided with a domestic change: President Jiang Zemin consolidated his position in the fifteen party congress in September 1997. In this case, pragmatic leaders have to weigh the domestic cost in balance to the utility of nationalism.
Defensive nationalism does not exclude a threat of prejudice and hostility toward other nations. The memory of "national humiliation" is a strong element of Chinese rhetoric. China's vulnerability engenders an urge to take a turn at being a great power. As observed by Nathan and Ross, "many Chinese see themselves as a nation beleaguered, unstable at home because insecure abroad, and vulnerable abroad because weak at home. To them it seems that China is always ready either to fly asunder or to be torn apart." 70 Chinese nationalism thus generates anxieties about how to make China strong and about lost territory. Other than the concern over the possible challenge to its nationalist legitimacy and outward economic development strategy as well as the rise of ethnic nationalism as domestic constraints on pragmatic Chinese leaders, there is no other value system powerful enough to neutralize nationalism in China. In most countries, nationalism is not an isolated sentiment. It coexists with other value systems that influence its content and character. One powerful restraining force on the negative side of nationalism is liberalism, which is very weak in China at the moment. One important characteristic of Chinese nationalism in the 1990s was its harsh criticism of "Western values." One extreme outcome of this development would be the return of nativism as the dominant perspective of Chinese nationalism. In this case, confrontational foreign policy would regain momentum and Chinese nationalism could become irrational and aggressive. But this is only one possible scenario and not inevitable. *
International Orientations of Chinese Nationalism
Nativism—Confrontation.
Often related to confrontational antiforeignism, antiimperialism, and anti-Westernism. It is hypersensitive to perceived foreign insults and can quickly make militant nationalist reactions and could easily be turned into ultranationalism.
Antitraditionalism—Adaptation.
Calls for boundless adoption of certain foreign models of modernization. Adaptation is a human learning process in which old ways of coping with the outside world are changed into new ones. This change can create a readiness to respond to a given international situation in a characteristic and repetitive fashion. Disagreement about what foreign models China should adopt has resulted in adaptation efforts that did not follow the path laid down by one foreign model. Course change and even maladaptation is a common practice.
Pragmatism—Assertion.
National interest-driven and calculated. Its orientation in world affairs is assertive in defending and seeking China's national interests. Although pragmatic nationalists may be flexible in tactics, they are uncompromising with foreign demands on China's vital national interests. This may make it difficult for some foreign countries to deal with China on sensitive issues.
Characteristics of Pragmatic Nationalism
Instrumentality
Pragmatic nationalism has been characterized by its use by the communist government to compensate for or replace the weakness of communist ideology since the early 1980s. Pragmatic leaders have fashioned nationalism because it has the effect of removing differences and rallying support behind a less popular regime and its policies.
State-centric
Pragmatic nationalism is led by and identifies the nation closely with the communist state, which speaks in the nation's name and demands citizens subordinate their interests to those of the state. Pragmatic leaders have expressed Chinese nationalist sentiment officially as aiguo , which in Chinese language means "loving the state," or aiguozhuyi (patriotism), which is love and support for China, always indistinguishable from the communist state.
Reactiveness
Pragmatic nationalism is developed largely in response to the perceived threat and pressures from hostile foreign forces, which are said to be potentially or actually eroding, corroding, or endangering the national interest of China. The effort to identify the communist state with the Chinese nation was particularly effective when China faced challenges from hostile foreign countries.
Endnotes
Note *: An early version of this article was presented at the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting in Washington DC, August 1997. The author acknowledges the research support from the Pacific Rim Research Grant of the University Professors Program at Boston University and Social Sciences Research Grants at Colby College. Back.
Note 1: See, for example, Liah Greenfield, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1992); and Bassam Tibi, Arab Nationalism: A Critical Inquiry (London: MacMillan Press, 1981). Back.
Note 2: Among others, see John L. Comaroff and Paul C. Stern, eds., Perspectives on Nationalism and War (Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach Publishers, 1995); Stephen Van Evera, "Hypotheses on Nationalism and War," International Security 18 (Spring 1994): 5-39; Michael Howard, War In European History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976); Carlton J. H. Hayes, Nationalism: A Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1960); V. P. Gagnon, "Ethnic Nationalism and International Conflict: The Case of Serbia," International Security 19 (Winter 1994-95): 130-166; and Glenn Chafetz, "The Struggle for a National Identity in Post-Soviet Russia," Political Science Quarterly 111 (Winter 1996-97): 661-688. Back.
Note 3: Allen Whiting, "Assertive Nationalism in Chinese Foreign Policy," Asian Survey , 23 (August 1983): 913-933; and Whiting, "Chinese Nationalism and Foreign Policy After Deng," The China Quarterly , June 1995, 295-316; Erica Strecker Downs and Philip C. Saunders, "Legitimacy and the Limits of Nationalism: China and the Diadyu Island," International Security 23 (Winter 1998-99): 114-146; Michael Oksenberg, "China's Confident Nationalism," Foreign Affairs 65 (Winter-Spring 1986-87): 504. Back.
Note 4: Ying-shih Yu, "Minzu zhuyi de jiedu" (Interpretation of Nationalism), Minzhu Zhongguo (Democratic China) (electronic edition), no. 35, June-July 1996; Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 229; James R. Lilley, "Nationalism Bites Back," New York Times , 24 October 1996; and Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, "The Coming Conflict with America," Foreign Affairs 76 (March/April 1997): 19. Back.
Note 5: John L. Comaroff and Paul Stern, "New Perspectives on Nationalism and War" in Comaroff and Stern, eds., Perspectives on Nationalism and War , 4. Back.
Note 6: Although some scholars believe that rudimentary nations and protonationalism are to be found in the premodern world, most scholars argue that only when the nation-state is constituted do nations and nationalism come into existence, either as an expression of this nation-state or as a challenge to it on behalf of a future state. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983); and Eric J. Hobsbam, Nations and Nationalism since 1780 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990). Back.
Note 7: Fong-ching Chen, "Chinese Nationalism: A New Global Perspective," The Stockholm Journal of East Asian Studies (6, 1995): 4. Back.
Note 8: Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, China's Entrance into the Family of Nations: The Diplomatic Phase, 1858-1880 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), 13. Back.
Note 9: Akira Iriye, China and Japan in the Global Setting (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 32. Back.
Note 10: Joseph Levenson, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and the Mind of Modern China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 108. Back.
Note 11: Benjamin I. Schwartz, "Culture, Modernity, and Nationalism—Further Reflections" in Tu Wei-ming, ed., China in Transformation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 247. Back.
Note 12: Joseph B. R. Whitney, China: Area, Administration and Nation-Building (Chicago: University of Chicago, Department of Geography Research, 1969), 26-29, 160-162. Back.
Note 13: According to a study, Zhonghua minzu began to appear in Chinese revolutionary journals in 1895 and became popular among intellectuals in 1909. Han Jinchun and Li Yifu, "hanwen 'minzu' yi ci de chuxian jiqi chuqi shiyong qingkuang" (The Emergence of the term 'minzu' in Chinese language and usage), Minzu yanjiu , 2, 1984, 36-43. Back.
Note 14: John W. Garver, Foreign Policy of the People's Republic of China (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993), 20. Back.
Note 15: Xiao Gongxin, "Zhongguo Minzu Zhuyi de Lishi yu Qianjing" (The History and Prospect of Chinese Nationalism), Zhanlie yu Guanli (Strategy and Management) 2, 1996, 59; and Edward Friedman, "Anti-Imperialism in Chinese Foreign Policy" in Samuel S. Kim, ed., China and the World (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), 60-76. Back.
Note 16: Steven M. Goldstein, "Nationalism and Internationalism: Sino-Soviet Relations" in Thomas W. Robinson and David Shambaugh, eds., Chinese Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1994), 229. Back.
Note 17: Li Xiguang and Liu Kang, "A Look at the Coverage of China by the Mainstream US Media," Zhongguo Jizhe (The Chinese Journalist), 15 May 1996, 19. Back.
Note 18: S. Robert Ramsey, The Languages of China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 3. Back.
Note 19: Myron L. Cohen, "Being Chinese: The Peripheralization of Traditional Identity" in Tu Wei-ming, ed., The Living Tree: The Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994), 88. Back.
Note 20: In a famous speech, Mao said, "to study the development of this old culture, to reject its feudal dross and assimilate its democratic essence is a necessary condition for developing our new national culture." He stressed that the new culture could be "opposed to all feudal and superstitious ideas." Mao Zedong, "On New Democracy," Selected Works of Mao Zedong , vol. ii (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1965), 381. Back.
Note 21: Wu Xiuyi, Zhongguo Wenhua Re (China's Cultural Fever) (Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chuban She, 1988); Chen Kuide, "Wenhua Re: Beijing, Shichao ji Liangzhong Qinxiang" (The Cultural Fever: Background, Ideology, and Two Tendencies) in Chen Kuide, ed., Zhongguo Dalu Dangdai Wenhuan Bianqian (Contemporary Cultural Changes in Mainland China) (Taipei: Guigan Chuban She, 1991), 37-61. Back.
Note 22: For an excellent study, see Jia Qingguo, Weishixian de hejie: Zhongmei Guanxi de Gehe yu Weiji (Unmaterialized Rapprochement: Estrangement and Crisis in Sino-US Relations) (Beijing: Wenhua Yishu Chuban She, 1998). Back.
Note 23: Edward Friedman, National Identity and Democratic Prospects in Socialist China (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharp, 1995), 64. Back.
Note 24: Martin E. Marty, "Fundamentalism as a Social Phenomenon," Bulletin, The American Academy of Arts and Sciences 42 (November 1988): 15. Back.
Note 25: Harry Harding, "China's Changing Roles in the Contemporary World" in Harry Harding, ed., China's Foreign Relations in the 1980s (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 188. Back.
Note 26: Sheng Hong, "Shenme shi wenming" (What Is Civilization), Zhanlue yu Guanli , 5, 1995, "Chong minzuzhuyi dao tianxiazhuyi (From Nationalism to Cosmopolitanism), Zhanlue yu Guanli , 1, 1996; and "Jingjixue tiaozhan xifang (Economics Challenges the West), Dongfang , 1, 1996. Back.
Note 27: Song Qiang, Zhang Zangzang, and Qiao Bian, Zhongguo Keyi Shuo Bu (The China That Can Say No) (Beijing: Zhonghua Gongshang Lianhe Chubanshe, 1996), 50, 230, 49, and 51. Back.
Note 28: Ibid.; Song Qiang, Zhang Zangzang, Qiao Bian, Tang Zhengyu, and Gu Qingsheng, Zhongguo He Shi Leng Shuo Bu (The China That Still Can Say No); (Beijing: Zhongguo Wenlian Chuban Gongshi, 1996); and Zhang Xueli, Zhongguo Heyi Shuo Bu (How China Can Say No) (Beijing: Hualing Chuban She, 1996). Back.
Note 29: Mao Zedong, "On the People's Democratic Dictatorship," Selected Works , vol. iv, 415. Back.
Note 30: Wang Jisi, "Pragmatic Nationalism: China Seeks a New Role in World Affairs," Oxford International Review (Winter 1994): 30. Back.
Note 31: Andrew J. Nathan and Robert S. Ross, The Great Wall and the Empty Fortress: China's Search for Security (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), 32-33. Back.
Note 32: Jiang Zemin, "Patriotism and the Mission of the Chinese Intellectuals," Xinhua , 3 May 1990. Back.
Note 33: Michael Oksenberg, "China's Confident Nationalism," Foreign Affairs 65 (Summer 1986-87): 505. Back.
Note 34: Renmin Ribao , 3 June 1990, 1. Back.
Note 35: Renmin Ribao , 31 January 1995, 1. Back.
Note 36: See Anthony Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986); Crawford Young, The Politics of Cultural Pluralism (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976); John L. Comaroff, "Humanity, Ethnicity, Nationality: Conceptual and Comparative Perspectives on the USSR," Theory and Society 20 (October 1991): 661-687; Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983). For some recent works on this approach, see Albert Breton, Gianluigi Galeotti, Pierre Salmon, and Ronald Winterobe, eds., Nationalism and Rationalists (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995); and Ernst B. Haas, Nationalism, Liberalism, and Progress: The Rise and Decline of Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997). Back.
Note 37: He Xin, Zhonghua Fuxing yi Shijie Weilai (Renovation of China and the Future of the World) 2 vols. (Chengdou: Shichuan Renmin Chuban She, 1996); and Wei Zhongguo Shengbian (Defending China) (Jinan: Shandong Youyi Chuban She, 1996). Back.
Note 38: This article was first published by the Ideology and Theory Department of the Zhongguo Qingnian Bao (China Youth Daily) as an internal circulating article in September 1991. It was quickly leaked abroad and reprinted in the January 1992 issue of Zhongguo Zhichun (China Spring) in New York City. Back.
Note 39: Xiao Gongqin, "Zhongguo Minzuzhuyi de Lishi yu Qianjing (History and Prospect of Nationalism in China), Zhanlue yu Guanli , 2, 1996, 62. Back.
Note 40: Ever since the publication of Hobsbawm and Ranger's influential volume, the concept of "invention of tradition," whether historical or cultural, has come into vogue. (Eric Hobsbawm and T. Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Gellner's Potato Principle—roughly that groups will look back historically to periods when they were mainly farmers to justify the control of land in an urban and industrial age—even shows how territory itself is imagined. See Ernest Gellner, "Nationalism in the Vacuum" in Alexander Motyl, ed., Thinking Theoretically about Soviet Nationalities (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992). According to this theory, there is no predetermined cultural and territorial boundary of nations. Back.
Note 41: Tu Wei-Ming, "Introduction" in Tu We-ming, ed., China in Transformation (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1993), xxi. Back.
Note 42: Lucian W. Pye, "How China's Nationalism was Shanghaied," Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 29 (January 1993): 126. Back.
Note 43: Michael Hunt, "Chinese National Identity and the Strong State: The Late Qing-Republican Crisis" in Lowell Dittmer and Samuel S. Kim, eds., China's Quest for National Identity (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), 63. Back.
Note 44: Michael D. Swaine, China: Domestic Change and Foreign Policy (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1995), 8. Back.
Note 45: Lui Ji, "Making the Right Choices in Twenty-first Century Sino-American Relations," Journal of Contemporary China 7 (March 1998): 90. Back.
Note 46: Xiao Gongqin, "Zhongguo Minzu Zhuyi de Lishi yu Qianjing" (The History and Prospect of Chinese Nationalism), Zhanlie yu Guanli , 2, 1996, 62. Back.
Note 47: Suisheng Zhao, "Chinese Intellectuals' Quest for National Greatness and Nationalistic Writing in the 1990s," The China Quarterly 152, December 1997, 725-745. Back.
Note 48: Shi Zhong, "Weilai de Chongtu" (Future Conflicts), Zhanlie yu Guanli , 1, 1993, 46-50; and "Zhongguo xiandaihua mianlin de tiaozhao" (The Challenges to China's Modernization), Zhanlie yu Guanli , 1, 1994. Back.
Note 49: Shi Zhong, "Zhongguo de minzu Zhuyi yu zhongguo de weilai" (Chinese Nationalism and China's Future), Huaxia Wenzhai (China Digest), an internet electronic magazine, 1996. Back.
Note 50: Suisheng Zhao, In Search of a Right Place: Chinese Nationalism in the Post-Cold War World (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, 1997), 17-18. Back.
Note 51: Hugh Seton-Watson, Nations and States: An Inquiry into the Origins of Nations and the Politics of Nationalism (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1977); and Louis L. Snyder, The Meaning of Nationalism (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1954). Back.
Note 52: Different scholars have used different terms for these two forms of nationalism. Anthony Smith describes them as ethnic and civic nationalism in his book, Nations and Nationalism in a Global Era (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1995), 97. Norman Davies calls them popular and state nationalism in his article, "West Best, East Beast?" Oxford Today 9 (Spring 1997): 28-31. James Townsend uses the terms ethnic and state nationalism in the article, "Chinese Nationalism," Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs (January 1992): 97-120. Back.
Note 53: In today's world, most states include more than one nation or potential nations. The lack of fit between nations and states is the condition in which state-seeking nationalism remains. One 1993 study finds that although there are only about 180 states in the world, there are between 3,000 to 5,000 "nations" and 575 "potential nation-states." The world political system, therefore, retains a high potential for ethnic nationalist conflict. T. R. Gurr, Minorities at Risk: A Global View of Ethnopolitical Conflict (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1993). Back.
Note 54: It is in this sense that Howard states that "no nation, in the true sense of the word, could be born without war," and "no self-conscious community could establish itself as a new and independent actor on the world scene without an armed conflict or the threat of one." Michael Howard, "War and the Nation-state" Daedalus 108 (Fall 1979): 102. Back.
Note 55: The creation of a Han identity dates to the late nineteenth century. The term "Han" emerged in the context of a discussion framed by Social Darwinism, when scholars like Liang Qichao responded to the European notion of race by claiming that the yellow race was dominated by the Han people, who "were the initiators of civilization and had civilized the whole Asia." Frank Dikotter, The Discourse of Race in Modern China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992), 86. Back.
Note 56: Rena Singer, "China Also Debates Affirmative Action," Philadelphia Inquirer , 20 August 1997. Back.
Note 57: For one study, see Tim Oakes, Tourism and Modernity in China (London: Routledge, 1998). Back.
Note 58: Melvyn C. Goldstein, "Outside Instigation and the Disturbances in Tibet," Journal of Contemporary China 4 (Fall 1993): 94-95. Back.
Note 59: Warren W. Smith, Jr., Tibetan Nation: A History of Tibetan Nationalism and Sino-Tibetan Relations (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996). Back.
Note 60: Fong-ching Chen, "Chinese Nationalism: A New Global Perspective," The Stockholm Journal of East Asian Studies 6 (1995): 13. Back.
Note 61: Xiao Gongxin, "Zhongguo Minzhu Zhuyi de Lishi yu Qianjing" (The History and Prospect of Chinese Nationalism), Zhanlie yu Guanli , 2, 1996, 61. Back.
Note 62: Article 50 of the Common Program of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference on 29 September 1949 stated that "nationalism and chauvinism should be opposed." See Theodore H. E. Chen, ed., The Chinese Communist Regime: Documents and Commentary (New York: Praeger, 1967), 34. Back.
Note 63: Nathan and Ross, The Great Wall and the Empty Fortress , 34. Back.
Note 64: David Shambaugh, "Containment or Engagement of China," International Security 21 (Fall 1996): 205. Back.
Note 65: China Daily , 12 December 1996, 1. Back.
Note 66: Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, The Coming Conflict with China (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997), 42. Back.
Note 67: Steven Mufson, "Maoism, Confucianism Blur into Nationalism," Washington Post , 19 March 1966. Back.
Note 68: For one study of this symbolic use of force by the PRC in border conflicts, see Jonathan R. Adelman and Chih-yu Shi, Symbolic War: The Chinese Use of Force, 1840-1980 (Taipei, Taiwan: Institute of International Relations, 1993). Back.
Note 69: Wang Jisi, "Pragmatic Nationalism: China Seeks a New Role in World Affairs," Oxford International Review (Winter 1994): 29. Back.
Note 70: Nathan and Ross, The Great Wall and the Empty Fortress, 34. Back.