Nationalism in China

In April 2001, a U.S. EP-3 surveillance plane, in what China says was a violation of its airspace, collided with a Chinese F-8 jet fighter, killing the Chinese pilot. Chinese authorities took the crew of the U.S. spy plane into custody after it made an emergency landing in China and said it would only be released after Washington issued a formal apology. The crew was eventually released after U.S. expressions of remorse over the loss of the pilot and aircraft. Experts say China's government stoked nationalism during the incident.

These incidents are not seen as isolated incidents in the Chinese view. Experts say the Chinese see them as the latest in the long series of Western aggressions against China. Pei says the Chinese feel very strongly about issues such as sovereignty and integrity of their territory because "they still have the historical memory of Western imperialism." And so the current protests in support of Tibet in the West, the coverage of the issue in the Western media, and linking the Olympics to the Tibet issue rouses anti-West sentiment in China.

On the Tibet issue, Kenneth G. Lieberthal, a professor at the University of Michigan, says the Western view is shaped by a notion of Shangri-La while the Chinese views are shaped by the assumption that Tibetans are backward, feudal, superstitious, and badly in need of modernization-Chinese style. "So I think they regard it as bizarre that the advanced industrial countries would humiliate them by boycotting the opening ceremonies of the Olympics over the Tibet issue," he says, "as America would find it if President Hu Jintao suddenly refused to visit the United States because of our history of treatment of Native Americans." Lieberthal says the Chinese see these anti-Olympic protests as an indication that regardless of how much China strives to become a constructive player in the world, "many in the West will never accept that, [and] will seek to humiliate them."

Conflict with Japan
Tensions between the two countries date to the 1894-1895 Sino-Japanese War, and more recently Japan's abusive conduct during the 1931-1945 occupation of China. As this Backgrounder points out these animosities surface in recurring cycles, often involving Chinese anger over Japan's perceived lack of contrition for wartime crimes. Instances of recent Chinese nationalism against Japan include outcries over the annual pilgrimages of former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to a Tokyo shrine that contains the remains of convicted war criminals from World War II and outrage over a 2005 Japanese history textbook that has been criticized as soft-pedaling Japanese wartime atrocities. The 2005 textbook incident led to riots against Japanese businesses in cities across China.

Edward Friedman, an expert on Chinese nationalism at the University of Wisconsin, says when Deng Xiaoping came to power in 1977, "anti-Japan nationalism became a great legitimating glue to hold the society together, eventually ending up in the really ugly April 2005 anti-Japan racist riots in China." But under the administration of Hu Jintao, China has sought better relations with Japan. Experts say outbreaks of virulent nationalism can become a problem for the Communist Party. Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International writes, "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."

Unwarranted Focus?
Lieberthal says since the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, China is regularly blamed for abuses on a wide range of issues. "I think that it is not only nationalism in China that gets more attention. It is almost everything in China that gets more attention," especially if they are negative. He says Chinese nationalism is a "natural outgrowth of (China's) recent accomplishments and very unhappy narratives."