The Origin of the New Chinese Student Nationalism

Excerpt from "The Origins and Implications of Chinese Student Nationalism"
By Patrick Ragen  

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Introduction

June 4, 1989 was one of the most significant protests in modern Chinese history, for both the claims against the domestic government made by its student leaders, and for its violent suppression. To many Chinese students now, however, the Tiananmen incident is classified not as modern history, but rather as “a page in ancient history.”(1) Indeed, the student rage of 1989, largely a product of the instability of economic transition in the 1980s(2), has transformed. Student protests nowadays are rarely directed against the central government. In fact, some of the largest student-led protests in recent years have not been antagonistically directed toward any domestic ruling body. Rather, the most notable protests have been triggered by perceived blunders of non-domestic actors against China, namely, the 1999 post-Belgrade bombing protests against the United States, and the 2005 protests against Japan. These protests are indicative of a larger growth of nationalism and Chinese pride, a development that has given China-watchers worldwide pause.

The government is arguably the primary force responsible for the extraordinary rise of nationalism in the post-Tiananmen era, through its strategic use of “pragmatic nationalism,”(3) one with a strategic purpose. The government’s encouragement of nationalism has been primarily used as a tool to deflect and channel the anger of those demographics most likely to protest – namely, students and youth elites – from issues of domestic discontent to nationalist expression of international discontent.  To be sure, factors that are not instituted directly by the Party, such as economic growth, popular culture and media influences, and societal insecurities, including historical feelings of inferiority and humiliation, have also contributed to the recent growth of Chinese nationalism. Still, the government undoubtedly emphasizes these factors over others in order to promote nationalism. So, it can be claimed that the government plays the key role in channeling a “pragmatic nationalism” in whatever direction it desires, strategically encouraging nationalist ideals to strengthen its image and divert attention from domestic discontents toward international ones.

What is not as easily agreed upon is what could actually happen should the “safety valve”(4) of using Chinese governmental nationalism as a distraction from other issues “burst”. Some argue that this nationalism will infect the minds of students and others so much so that it will become more and more irrational in nature, and could “spiral” out of control to the point where the increased nationalist demands of the people begin to affect the actual international military policies of the government. A bellicose China, made so by the demands of a people driven to the extreme form of what was originally a government-orchestrated nationalism, would no doubt be an unwelcome and dangerous force in the world. 

But the path that Chinese nationalism ultimately follows may not be so entirely dire. Another possible interpretation of the ‘safety valve’ scenario is that the government emphasis on nationalism may have the unintended long-term consequence of actually increasing the focus on domestic growth and discontents. An analysis of student involvement in the nationalist protests of 1999 and 2005 shows that anti-Western and anti-Japanese sentiments, respectively, are easily provoked by “precipitating factors,”(5) but, largely because of the economic and opportunistic rationality of the student elite, may not characterize the mindset of the average student in the long-term as much as some media reports may make it seem. The true character of Chinese student nationalism may not focus only on expressing pride through violent international engagements, but also on expressing pride through emphasis on domestic economic, educational, and political improvements.

So, it is very possible that among the connected, technologically advanced student elite, the government sanctioned, foreign-focused, “pragmatic” nationalism could transform into a more "liberal" strand of nationalism that is actually more critical of the government, when it is not perceived as being“nationalist” enough.(6) Thus, the implications of Chinese student nationalism may include the development of dangerous anti-U.S., anti-Japan, or anti-Taiwan sentiments that lead for demands for further action, but could just as well include an increase in domestic criticisms that nationalized students are inspired to levy against the Chinese government in the name of Chinese development and pride. Thus nationalism, originally intended as a tool of the Party for image improvement and the filling of an ideological gap, may ironically become a tool of the young elite for government criticism.

The New Chinese Student Nationalism

The pattern of post-Tiananmen reactive nationalism can be said to have reached its peak (thus far) in the student protests of 1999 and 2005. In 1999, students took to the streets in the largest numbers since Tiananmen to protest the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by NATO, pelting the U.S. and British Embassies with rocks and bottles, holding anti-U.S. signs, ascending the three Chinese killed in the bombing to “martyr” status, and wholly refusing to believe the United States claim that the bombing was a genuine accident.(7) This incident angered Chinese students so much because it was perceived as another clear example of victimization and humiliation. Even though China had increased in power in recent years, students still felt that they were powerless to obtain true retaliation in this instance because of the lack of a Chinese military response. Meanwhile, in 2005, after the Japanese government approved textbooks that played down the atrocities of the Japanese in China of the 1930s and ‘40s(8), students took to the streets once more, this time protesting outside of the Japanese consulate, and shouting nationalist slogans such as “Japan Out of Asia.”(9) Students also perceived this incident as an example of humiliation, and their inability to gain a ‘historical’ retaliation or retribution from the Japanese.

Interestingly, in both these protests, it seemed that the “reactiveness” pattern of pragmatic nationalism had already become a standard among the people, in that students themselves took to the streets without direct government encouragement. The government did show its implicit approval by providing buses to transport protesters in some areas, allowing protests to continue for longer than they normally would have tolerated, as well as by using rhetoric that seemed to validate the popular nationalist sentiments.(10) For example, the then Vice-President Hu Jintao said during the 1999 protests that he supported the “keen patriotism” of students and only hoped that the protests should not too much “disrupt social order”(11), while Premier Zhu Rongji reinforced conspiracy theories in stating that the Chinese people could “not believe NATO explanations.”(12)

These protests could be indicative of the government’s seeming success in creating an environment in which student nationalist grievances against other countries could surpass those grievances that they might hold against their own country. In the government’s eyes, as long as the increased nationalism of students did not too much disrupt society or affect the actual political relations of the government, the protests could be viewed as harmless. Indeed, the government was quickly able to bring the protests to an end when it saw fit, in 1999 through radio and television encouragement to switch the focus to fighting oppression through “education,”(13) and in 2005 even more quickly through mass text-messaging and blocking of anti-Japan websites.(14) Moreover, the government in both instances ensured that the protests would not too much taint its ties with either the United States or Japan. It mended ties with the United States within a few weeks after the incident in 1999, albeit without transmitting President Clinton’s apology official to the Chinese people.  And although diplomatic relations with Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi remain frosty at best, China’s government has been sure not to let its political relations with Japan extend beyond minor diplomatic scuffles, and certainly did not allow for its economic relationship with Japan to be largely affected.(15) Should the student nationalism that the government inspired continue to escalate in the future, however, it could have potentially serious implications for China’s relations with the Western world and Japan, and perhaps, even implications for the domestic Chinese government itself.

By encouraging nationalism among its student elite, the Chinese government runs the risk of ending up with a constituency that is more ‘nationalist’ than the Party itself. Those most active in nationalism are the students, graduates, and members of the middle class upon whom the party depends for support. These new nationalists have been described as “savvy urban yuppies,” and “computer-literate cyber nationalists,”(16) well connected, and willing and ready to mobilize. Indeed, the protests of 1999 and especially 2005 were largely aided in their organization through publicizing using the Internet.(17) Moreover, many post-graduate middle class youth are themselves becoming “party members”(18). Should the “safety valve” of using nationalism as a distraction from domestic issues, or as an ideological gap-filler, burst, it would likely be due to the dissatisfaction of this demographic. The “burst” could potentially lead this group to take two different un-“safe” courses of action: become irrationally militant hyper-nationalists, and militantly oppose China’s international policies against the U.S. and/or Japan, or become liberal nationalists, and become more vocal about both international and domestic grievances.

The first possibility is that students and young elite could get swept up in their reactive nationalism against those states that they perceive as threatening, especially the United States and Japan, and become hyper-nationalist in their demands. That is, they could start to call for the cutting of ties, or even violent action, against these states. There have been precursors suggesting this possibility with the United States. For example, the authors of the “Say No” literature of the mid-‘90s, including “China Can Say No” and “Behind the Scenes of Demonizing China,” have argued that China should “say no” to exploitation at the hands of the United States. Ben Xu argues that the “Say No” literature can be seen as a medium through which Chinese people have channeled their desire for dignity and respect into xenophobic resentment. Their repressed anger and lack of dignity in domestic issues has led to an extravagant reaction towards perceived external repression.(19) So, because Chinese are themselves unable to get dignity and respect from their own country, they have, according to this literature at least, channeled their anger to other countries. Should the ideas put forth by these books gain popularity and escalate in a hyper-nationalist environment, it could translate into demands for the severing of ties with the U.S., an economic prospect that the Chinese government certainly would not want to face.

But the prospect of a high degree of anti-U.S. sentiments in the near future seems very unlikely. In the first place, with regards to the “Say No” literature, these books seem to have gained popularity because of the extreme and extraordinary nature of their claims. More than anything, they are significant because they indicate the new “pluralism” that has characterized Chinese publications (and Chinese society in general), which run the gamut from radical criticisms of U.S.-China relations, to balanced accounts of the problems, to criticisms of the more radical literature.(20) Moreover, evidence seems to suggest that, even with the growth of nationalism and the 1999 anti-U.S. protests, Chinese students are still overwhelmingly willing to say “yes.” A 1999 survey found that young people, though more wary of the West, were still generally pro-West in their political and economic ideologies, and far more trusting of the U.S. than their elders.(21)  In another survey, students ranked “counteracting US hegemony” as China’s least important national goal, while domestic concerns of economic growth and political stability ranked highest.(22) Even during the course of the 1999 anti-U.S. protests, slogans changed from discouraging Chinese students from taking the GRE and TOEFL (in order to study in American universities), to encouraging students to take them and “fight American imperialism by entering its rear area.”(23) In general, Chinese students are most concerned with their educational and career opportunities, and these are often directly linked with studying in the United States, working in a Western firm, etc. The prospect of Chinese students putting anti-U.S. hyper-nationalist claims ahead of their personal interests anytime in the near future is, therefore, not likely.

Another, somewhat more likely and definitely more frightening possibility under the banner of potential hyper-nationalism is the possibility of calls by students and the elite for the severing of ties or even the use of military action against its neighbors, especially Japan and Taiwan. China’s growth in nationalism has been accompanied by an annual “double-digit” increase in military spending since 1990.(24) Should a Japanese vessel collide with a Chinese one in a disputed region of the East China Sea, and cause Chinese casualties, it could lead Chinese students and elite to rally the population together to demand that China’s new military power be put to use.(25) A similar situation could transpire should Taiwan’s government take any steps to anger China. Frighteningly, the U.S. could not remain uninvolved should either of these conflicts come to pass.

However, although Japan and Taiwan are more directly linked to the Chinese sense of historical humiliation and inferiority than the U.S. is, there is still reason to believe that students, as long as they place personal interest and economic stability first, will not rush to encourage a potentially violent conflict under almost any circumstance. Japan replaced the United States as China’s number one trade partner in 2004. Japan accounted for 11% of China’s FDI and the total volume of trade between the two reached $190 billion.(26) The two are “economically interdependent,”(27) and the educated student elite must realize this, just as they realize the importance of U.S. economic and educational advantages over anti-U.S. sentiments. Indeed, what would be more personally humiliating for Chinese students than any textbook gaffe or shrine visit would arguably be a marked decline in economic growth. The government realizes this – even though China’s emphasis on promoting nationalism through history has caused diplomatic ties with Japan to waver somewhat, any talk of military action or the use of force has been fiercely avoided.(28) Chinese students realize this as well, and though they may seem irrational in their protests, as long as relations with Japan remain relatively stable, they ultimately would place economic well-being over a full repayment of historical grievances.

Still, it is significant that words in a textbook were able to set off protests nearly matching those held against the U.S. after three Chinese citizens perished. Moreover, China and Taiwan do not have the same economic basis for avoiding conflict that China and Japan, or certainly China and the U.S. have developed. Indeed, China-Taiwan relations are the most sensitive of all, and one could imagine students losing all fear of ‘self-interest’ and economic consequence should an incident provoke escalated nationalist clamoring for reunification. The history of Chinese humiliation is most clearly marked by its relations with Japan and Taiwan, and should Chinese students cling to this history and emotional desire for revenge against either of these states, and perceive the government as not acting substantially on this desire, their hyper-nationalism could very probably spiral out of control and lead to militarist demands.

However, increased student nationalism does not necessarily need to translate only into an increased desire for international military retribution. Indeed, the second, and I would hope more likely, alternative should the safety valve of nationalism ‘burst’ is that the Chinese government’s carefully orchestrated “pragmatic nationalism” would transform into a more “liberal nationalism”(29) in the hands of the youth elite. Liberal Nationalists are not uninterested in defending their country’s national rights in the international arena. Quite the opposite, liberal nationalists have often criticized China for being too soft in its dealings with Japan and the United States.(30) The difference between the strain of liberal nationalism and the narrower idea of militant ‘hyper-nationalism’ that I presented is that Liberal Nationalists’ international claims are tempered by equally important claims in the domestic arena. Liberal Nationalism is an idea that springs directly from China’s previous nationalists, whose ideologies were not restricted to foreign criticism, but instead were characterized to a large extent by “self-criticism” and, some would even claim, “self-hatred.”(31) This philosophy would criticize a government unsatisfactorily providing for its people or respecting their personal rights. Leading Liberal Nationalist Wang Xiaodong has argued that the very basis of his nationalism is actually an “unequivocal commitment to democracy,”(32) because for a state to be guided by the needs and wants of its constituency is perhaps the most patriotic course that it can follow. 

Of course, in the eyes of the CCP, the rise of liberal nationalism could provide a monumental threat to its monopoly on power in China. Such is the reason that the government has been so focused on providing a balanced, pragmatic nationalism, one that encourages nationalism when it is to the Party’s benefit, but does not allow its citizenry to ever feel too empowered. The problem the Party faces is that this delicate balance may become impossible to maintain. As Nicholas D. Kristof observed, nationalism in China has the “potential not just for conferring legitimacy on the government but also for taking it away.”(33) Since the primary concerns of students remain economic growth, corruption and political stability(34), it seems more and more likely that, should the government be perceived as failing in any of these domestic realms, students will, in the name of nationalism, feel obligated to “take away” the government’s legitimacy.
This is not to suggest that a “June 4: Part II” is in the works. It is to point out, though, that with the growth of student nationalism comes the growth of student expectations and, of late, some of those expectations have not been adequately met. For example, in recent years, China’s graduate unemployment rate has increased steadily. (35) This has been attributed to the government’s decision to prematurely increase enrollment in universities, without ensuring that adequate funding be provided to encourage enrollment in majors with the highest potential for job recruitment.(36) In another recent example, students in Jiangxi Province vandalized and looted dormitories after realizing that the diplomas that they had earned at Jiangxi Province Clothing School were not certified to indicate completion of an undergraduate college career, but only a “Certificate of Academic Achievement.”(37) In this case, students protested directly toward their university and their local Ministry of Education,(38) but the issue as a whole relates back to the government-initiated over-enrollment of universities, and subsequent rise in graduate unemployment. As yet, one might hesitate to call these protests distinctively “nationalist.” Currently, many students probably view education and employment as issues of mere personal interest. Students, it would seem, are angry because they cannot personally succeed, not because they perceive their unsatisfactory education and employment situation to an insult to the pride of China as a larger entity.

But the protests, I would argue, are actually more directly linked to nationalism, and especially to criticism of the Party’s limited ‘pragmatic’ nationalism, than it may first appear. When the Party itself emphasizes economic success as one of the most convincing factors in the post-Tiananmen resurgence of Chinese nationalism, it could be argued that that nationalism becomes dependent on continued economic success. Moreover, when the Party encourages students to “throw [their] patriotic zeal into studies”(39) after protests as the best method to strengthen China in the face of external threats, continued nationalism then becomes dependent on the continued availability of education, and predictability of higher education to ensure job placement and subsequently strengthen China economically. Thus, because some of the very methods that the Party used to encourage nationalism included the exploitation of matters of individual student self-interest – namely, economic growth and educational improvement – China’s brand of nationalism can be said to be inherently linked to, and even dependent on, such issues of self-interest.

Had the Chinese government not been so restrained by its pragmatism that it allowed for anti-U.S. or anti-Japan protests to carry on, then perhaps nationalism could have been defined, as it is in so many other countries, primarily in terms of comparison to other countries. But since the government, constrained by international economic and political interests, could not let ‘reactiveness’ to international threats be the sole justification for its encouragement of nationalism, and could not rely on Socialist ideology to remain relevant enough to foster unity in rapidly changing times, it had to supplement nationalist appeals by pandering simultaneously to non-static domestic issues that were improving at the time (i.e. economic improvement, education, etc.). Thus, a government that gained the ability to equate itself with the nation by using a nationalism that developed largely out of the emphasis on strengthened domestic sectors must rely on the continued strengthening of these sectors in order for ‘state-centric’ nationalism to continue to hold merit. Should one of these sectors stagnate or decline to an unacceptable low, the government will be seen as defaulting on the very improvements that inspired a revived nationalism in the first place. In such a situation, the student elite will no longer be satisfied to rally around a ‘pragmatic nationalism’ that equates the nation with the State. Nationalism, instead, will turn into a more liberal variety, in which the interests of the nation as a whole are differentiated from, and even put ahead of, those of the State. Such a development would leave the government wide open to criticism on all fronts, domestic and international, couched in liberally nationalist terms. Theoretically, it could even lead to a call for the upheaval of the one-party system, since after the dis-identification of the Party with the nation, alternative political structures could be perceived as better suited to forward the nation’s interests.

Currently, though, the question remains as to why nationalist student protests directed at government bodies have not been larger and more frequent. One response could simply be that the economic and educational situation has not deteriorated to a point where students would perceive such protests to be necessary. In addition to this, the identity of the new, young, student elite is still developing.(40) Many really are only focused on self-interest and personal matters, and not enough are negatively affected by shifts in government education and economic policies that a group-oriented liberal nationalism can spring forth from the uniting of commonly held self-interests that are not being adequately met. So, for the time being, nationalism will likely continue to manifest itself primarily through reactionary or resentful sentiments toward other countries perceived as bullies or threats. However, should China’s political system cease to be able to guarantee the benefits that made nationalism regain popularity in the first place, not an unlikely prospect as student expectations grow higher and higher, students will have to unite to refocus their nationalist anger, at least in part, to include domestic grievances against the government.

Patrick Ragen is a junior in Stanford University.

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College students demonstrated before the U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou in 1999, after the U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.