This article sounds reasonable. I have one question to the author:
I am a Chinese American. I love America, and I also love China.
What are you going to call me? A patriotic American and a nationalistic Chinese or Nationlistic American and a patriotic Chinese?
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Don’t Feed China’s Nationalism
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So why doesn't the Chinese regime see this? Beijing has a particular problem. Now that communism is dead, the Communist Party sees its legitimacy as linked to its role in promoting and defending Chinese nationalism. It is especially clumsy when it comes to such issues. Clever technocrats though they are, China's communist leaders—mostly engineers—have not had to refine their political skills as they have their economic touch. In the past they have stoked anti-Japanese and anti-American outbursts, only to panic that things were getting out of control and then reverse course. They fear that compromising over Tibet would set a precedent for the unraveling of the Chinese nation. China has grown and shrunk in size over the centuries, and its dynasties have often been judged by their success in preserving the country's geography.
In fact, in almost all cases—Turkey, India—granting autonomy to groups that press for it has in the end produced a more stable and peaceful national climate. But that is a lesson the Chinese government will have to learn for itself; it is unlikely to take instruction from outsiders. Its handling of the protests in Tibet is disgraceful. But humiliating the entire country over it would make matters worse.
Read Jonathan Alter's opposing view on a boycott.
© 2008
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