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How does China signal foreign policy intentions to domestic and international audiences during territorial conflicts? While China can signal its resolve by provoking nationalism at home, doing so may risk appearing threatening to neighbouring countries in the region. We argue that China resolves the dilemma by sending different types of messages to domestic and international audiences. Focusing on China’s maritime conflicts in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, we examine China’s narratives regarding the maritime disputes through the analysis of state-run media. Our findings from text mining and topic analyses of more than 31,000 state media reports from 2002 to 2021 suggest that China signals to the international audience on international cooperation emphasising diplomatic and peaceful resolutions while relatively less so in domestic media. The analyses have implications for how China signals foreign policy intentions amidst rising nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the evolution and hybrid nature of Chinese classical dance (gudianwu), exploring its development since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and its role in promoting national identity. It argues that the integration of elements from Soviet ballet and traditional Chinese theatre has created a unique dance form that challenges essentialist notions of Chineseness, presenting gudianwu as a product of postcolonial modernity.

This article focuses on China's policy response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in August 2022. Pelosi's action triggered a surge of popular nationalist sentiments in China, but the response of the Chinese government was far less tough than what many popular nationalists had expected. The article argues that the Chinese government's policy choice in response to Pelosi's visit to Taiwan did not depend on the demands of popular nationalists, but rather was based on a cost-benefit analysis according to its perceptions. The influence of popular nationalism on the government's foreign policy choices has been exaggerated owing to an overestimation of the government's reliance on nationalism for its regime legitimacy, and an underestimation of the government's control over public opinion and nationalist activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the complex process of symbolic boundary-making of 'Hongkonger' cultural identities through the lens of the controversial 2015 film Ten Years, which is a celebrated omnibus production comprised of five short segments that picture a dystopic end to Hong Kong's cherished way of life in the year 2025. The article is premised on an interdisciplinary approach engaging with cultural studies and film studies. On one hand, it explores how Ten Years functioned as a boundary object, a vast terrain within which cultural identities of what it means to be a Hongkonger are constructed, banished, imagined, and performed under the rubric of bodily performatives. On the other hand, it offers blurring encounters into unfamiliar and precarious territories where the formation and formulation of Hongkonger identities and sense of belonging are negotiated, evacuated, and inhabited. In the end, the key tropes in Ten Years suggest that boundary work in post-Umbrella Hong Kong affectively negotiates with state-level nationalism advocated by the central government in Beijing through establishing and reformulating notions of 'localism' and Hongkonger identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how the nationalist, business-centric, elite-led and labour-subsuming logics of development in contemporary China are mirrored in contingent and locally-mediated ways in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In China's present 'de-revolutionary' moment [Wang, 2006], non-elite populations are conceived as labour inputs to be used and moulded in the pursuit of national development through market means. This same developmental ethos, mediated by a plethora of Chinese and non-Chinese actors, underpins the authoritarian tendencies of BRI-branded projects across the world. While authoritarian practices in China have both Leninist and capitalist genealogies and drivers, I argue here that Global China's most tangible and remarkable impacts on international authoritarianism are found in the practices required to secure capital accumulation along the BRI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As China's power grows, a widespread perception is that China is more willing to respond to nationalist demands and act assertively in international incidents. In reality, China has not supported and accommodated nationalism in all events but has cooled down nationalism in some cases. An important unanswered question is, why does the Chinese government demonstrate selectivity when responding to nationalism and take different foreign policies concerning nationalism in various incidents? This article provides a coherent and testable framework to answer this question and uses five cases to test the congruence and validity of the analytical framework. The core argument is that the primary concern of the Chinese government in dealing with nationalism is its legitimacy. When policymakers perceive severe threats to China's regime security and stability, they will open a 'safety valve' to embrace nationalism, allowing nationalism to unleash its anger under the government's monitor and escalating disputes to defend national interests and appease nationalism. When there are few threats to the regime, three factors will affect China's choice: the economic value of the diplomatic relationship, elements of China's core interests, and the viability of reaching an agreement that sets aside the dispute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic unleashed a torrent of conspiracy theories across different social media platforms. Parallel to this conspiracy wave was a heightened sense of nationalism, which manifested through both in-group solidarity and perceived out-group threats. In this study, we examine how individuals' use of government social media to gather political information correlated with nation-related conspiracy beliefs during the pandemic. Data were collected from 745 subjects in China and analyzed through path analyses, which allowed us to examine the direct association with political information consumption from government social media and the indirect association with nationalism on conspiracy beliefs. The results indicated that the use of government social media to gather political information was associated with greater beliefs in nation-variant COVID-19 conspiracies, both directly and through different mediations of nationalism. Our findings highlight the importance of examining government social media use and how nationalism can have differentiated mediation effects on beliefs in conspiracy theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current scholarship on Chinese public perceptions of international affairs tends to highlight the growing hawkishness and nationalistic tendencies in popular public opinion during the Xi Jinping era. Whereas these studies tend to deal with cases and contexts directly involving China, little is known about how the Chinese public responds to geopolitical crises in which China is not a direct participant. Our study attempts to address this gap by examining how Chinese social media commentators narrated and debated Russia's war in Ukraine—a major geopolitical event that has shaped China's interests but thus far has not directly implicated China in the conflict. Our analysis, drawing on online commentaries during the first six months of the Russia-Ukraine war, finds that the dominant narratives are still rooted in China-centric objectives and experiences. These nationalistic sentiments, however, diverge when it comes to advocating for China's positions on this war, ranging from direct support of Russia as part of China's battle against the West, to a cautionary position of learning from Russia's mistakes, to support for Ukraine as rooted in China's own experiences with foreign aggression. All these positions are distinct from the official stance of ambiguity in this conflict, highlighting the possibility of alternative, albeit still nationalistic, perspectives presenting themselves on social media despite strict censorship. This analysis contributes to our understanding of popular expressions on international affairs in the Xi era and, specifically, of the different manifestations of Chinese popular nationalism in contexts outside of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sino-Australia relations have experienced a rapid deterioration in the past half-decade. From genial ties centred around trade and exchange, the relationship has descended into mutual hostility, prompting the editor of China's Global Times to notoriously liken Australia to a blob of gum on the bottom of a shoe. To explain the deteriorating relationship, scholars have proposed numerous ideas, pointing to factors as wide-ranging as 'Chinese influence', poor diplomacy efforts, and ontological (in)security touched off by neoliberal governmentality. The current paper examines these ideas in a literature review, then synthesises such ideas to provide its own explanation of why things 'went wrong'. It also addresses corollary questions such as why Australia adopted a uniquely assertive China policy, and why this occurred specifically around 2017. We argue that the breakdown in relations can be attributed to the rise of nationalist, sovereignty-oriented movements in the West, and the spillover effect this had on Australian leadership; the profound uncertainty attending the election of Trump and his isolationist tendencies; and the shift to a more rigid, authoritarian approach to foreign affairs under Xi. This perspective adds to the literature by identifying failings on both sides while underscoring significant yet underappreciated global trends, such as nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on Chinese football fans' reactions to the Japanese national team and their fans' behaviour during the World Cup 2022. Despite the historical and contemporary problems that make friendly relations with Japan difficult to achieve, football fans in China largely welcomed the good performance of the Japanese national team. This attitude may be described as 'thin cosmopolitanism' because Chinese fans' major frame of reference was still nationalistic. For them, the impressive performance of the Japanese national team means that Asians and the 'yellow race people' can also play good football. However, the Japanese fans, whose cleaning up of stadia received wide coverage during the World Cup, were criticized by the Chinese fans who interpreted the Japanese fans' action as reinforcing the existing global racial order. The findings of this paper help reveal the limits regarding football's role in contributing to a more cosmopolitan worldview. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is often considered as motivated by a desire to challenge the international status quo, a challenge the West is trying to mitigate. Social constructivists account for this challenge via a norm of nationalistic assertiveness in Chinese foreign policy; a norm constructed in the synergetic relationship between China's Communist Party and its nationalist movement. However, this work argues that Chinese foreign policy is motivated, in part, by nationalist pressure arising from an antagonistically symbiotic relationship between the Communist Party and China's nationalist movement. This understanding is significant as it indicates that western policies are paradoxically factoring in the emergence of a challenger China. © 2023 Victoria University of Wellington and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Representing the nation in sports mega events has become a highly contested issue with the acceleration of the transnational movement of athletes. This research has examined Chinese people's attitudes to the naturalization of football players. The article discusses the findings in the context of the qualifying stages for the 2022 FIFA Men's World Cup by presenting and analysing data collected from semi-structured interviews and social media extracts. Two main issues were debated by Chinese people concerning the identity of naturalized athletes. One was the ethnicity of the naturalized footballers in relation to nationality, with some people questioning whether they belong to China and can represent China. The other issue concerned the players' skills and ability which influenced considerations of how much they could help China to qualify for the World Cup Finals. In relation to Chinese nationalism, national identity and Chinese sports, this study reveals, through the window provided by the presence of these naturalized footballers, how football, instrumentalism, nationalism and naturalization have been inextricably linked and have interacted with one another within the current context. The article analyses how pragmatic values have negotiated with ethno-cultural nationalism and impacted on the Chinese public's attitudes towards naturalized athletes, their image being presented in variable and dynamic ways by football fan netizens after each qualifying game. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inaccessibility of ChatGPT to Chinese users has fueled public conspiracy theories surrounding the technology. We conducted a critical discourse analysis of 1,576 relevant Weibo posts to identify these conspiracy theories and the sociocultural and political factors at play. Our findings reveal four major themes, including a profound distrust of foreign high technology, nationalist fervor, disconcerting allegations of AI development, and sensational assertions of government manipulation of the fertility rate. More importantly, we observe that the escalation of nationalist sentiments in the online sphere exacerbates the spread of conspiracy theories, reflecting public concerns about the country's technological progress and global reputation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the Chinese party-state's production of visual racism towards Uyghurs as a discursive foundation for its ethnic policy, as globally reproduced and disseminated by non-state actors. The paper draws from theoretical literature on the relationship between visual politics and affect, stressing the need for visual literacy to reflect on how images emotionally affect audiences' identities and insecurities. It focuses this analysis on education texts in China's post-2012 'de-extremification' and 're-education' campaigns, specifically on how images tell stories about life-or-death security issues that define Chinese identity. Chinese education about Uyghurs tends to frame Uyghur identities as racialised, culturally external existential threats to be defeated by state violence or teaching them to be Chinese. However, Uyghurs' own visibility strategies in global advocacy counter the party-state's imagery by centring their lives and experiences. The article shows how these strategies can be used as resources for teaching about Chinese politics and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we discuss the Confucian tradition in today's multicultural China from two perspectives: that of the mandatory school curriculum, which represents 'official knowledge', and that of students from ethnic minority and/or religious backgrounds who are located on the cultural margins in China. The analysis draws on curricular narratives of the Confucian tradition for six major school subjects and semi-structured interviews with a group of university students from non-Han ethnic minority and/or religious backgrounds, whose lived experiences are rarely included in the national curriculum narrative. The analysis suggests that the interpretation of the Confucian tradition is a monopolising and dominant discourse that reinforces the cultural hierarchy between different cultural groups. However, the students appear to regard the Confucian tradition as only one culture and worldview in China, which can benefit from the critical reflexivity of other cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of the rising tension between Hong Kong and mainland China, Hong Kong's Chief Executive Carrie Lam blamed the city's education system for its inability to develop a sense of 'I am Chinese' national identity and vowed to step up 'national education' from preschool. This article explores how 188 young preschool teachers perceived their national identity and viewed the applicability of national education in Hong Kong preschools. Data were collected using both quantitative and qualitative measures. The findings showed that even though the participants strongly resisted their Chinese identity, they agreed that national education could be introduced in preschools if it would be rendered rational and apolitical. Nevertheless, they suspected that the administration's motive behind national education was political indoctrination. They also noted several pedagogical difficulties. Finally, the implications are discussed against the changing socio-political context, serving as lessons for local and international readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This editorial introduces a themed section that focuses on the production of gender discourse and representations in the midst of tightening social and cultural control in China's entertainment industry and digital media landscape. In various ways, the two articles featured case studies that exemplify how the production of gender discourses and representations in this context emerges from the interplay of state control, the market, and the digital realm and unfolds against the rise of platform capitalism and techno-nationalism. Both articles center on the intricate and sometimes contradictory configurations of gender within China's state-market nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While national parochialism is commonplace, individual differences explain more variance in it than cross-national differences. Global consciousness (GC), a multi-dimensional concept that includes identification with all humanity, cosmopolitan orientation, and global orientation, transcends national parochialism. Across six societies (N = 11,163), most notably the USA and China, individuals high in GC were more generous allocating funds to the other in a dictator game, cooperated more in a one-shot prisoner's dilemma, and differentiated less between the ingroup and outgroup on these actions. They gave more to the world and kept less for the self in a multi-level public goods dilemma. GC profiles showed 80% test–retest stability over 8 months. Implications of GC for cultural evolution in the face of trans-border problems are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasingly popular standpoint that the rise of Taiwanese identity has transformed Cross-Strait relations. The discourses of pro-unification are regarded as the antithesis of pro-independence. Seemingly, the shift from Han Chinese identity to Taiwanese identity has been a rupture in the recent development of Cross-Strait relations. This study sheds light on Wei Yung (Wei Yong, 1936–2004) and his concept of 'multi-system nations' to reassess this standpoint. Wei wanted to assist Taipei in recalibrating Cross-Strait relations in the late 20th century. He initiated the 'multi-system nations' concept to justify Taipei's adoption of dual recognition and parallel (international) participation. Wei used this concept to defend Taiwanese political scientists' collective representation in the International Political Science Association. However, the result was not as he had wished. Although Wei's concept of 'multi-system nations' is outdated and his wishful thinking about China's unification has become a path not taken for both Taipei and Beijing, this study shows that there is in fact common ground between the sympathisers of pro-independence and the advocates of unification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay traces the language of sacrifice used in a series of articles in the Protestant church magazine Tian Feng in the early 1950s to explore the ways in which sacrifice was demanded of Christians by church leaders, both to create an autonomous, indigenous church freed from imperialist association, and in service of the new nation. It explores the biblical tropes utilised to link sacrifice and nation, and the role of the Korean War in catalysing demand for physical martyrdom alongside ideological sacrifice. The essay suggests that the radical vehemence of the period masks continuities in theological expression with the earlier twentieth century and that much closer attention needs paying to the Chinese construct of 'nation' and its historic connotations in addressing the question of Chinese Christian nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the mid to late 1920s, the Chinese film industry experienced a severe setback. Driven by the Ming Xing Film Company and the 'Merchant Movement', the Shanghai Film Guild was established in September 1927. It was the first filmmaking industry guild in the history of China. It was relatively outgoing in safeguarding the interests of the industry. It played an important role in maintaining the image of the industry, forcing the film censorship authority to revise its policies, and resisting those foreign films that insulted China. However, it did not form effective industry regulations to address industry autonomy. It did not change the vicious competition in the industry significantly, either. The establishment and operation of the guild was obviously affected by the wave of nationalism at the time, which caused it to perform more intensely in some situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sheds light on the intricate relationship between the revival of Hanfu, traditional couture from the Han Dynasty, and rising Chinese nationalism among Chinese youth living in the United Kingdom. Mobilizing the theoretical tool 'affective economies', we explore how particular feelings and values are assigned and attached to Hanfu, and thereby circulate among young Chinese migrants. We begin by examining the Hanfu movement to interrogate how Hanfu is reinvented based on a selective historicity of the past, serving as a specific cultural product for China's rejuvenation. We then move on to analyze a series of in-depth interviews conducted between December 2019 and July 2020. We probe the lived experiences of young Hanfu supporters, who are members of the UK Han Culture Association, and the cultural events organized by the Association, in order to scrutinize the ways Hanfu conjures up an imagined community suffused with nationalism. Drawing upon on the affective economies of Hanfu, we discern the following three key findings: First, we argue that there are both positive and negative affective attachments to Hanfu, such as homesickness, loneliness, alienation, happiness, pride and beauty, which impinge on migrant bodies, assigning values to Hanfu and the Hanfu-related cultural events. Second, we show through the analysis of the fieldwork materials the paradoxical desire for chuguo (going abroad) and huiguo (returning to the nation) in the hearts of the young migrants. Finally, we argue that Hanfu circulates as a 'mnemonic thing' that signifies a specific imaginary of Ancient China, where young migrant's aiguo (love of the nation) sentiments are then 'stuck' to this reinvented fashion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops the concept of 'patriotic consumer mobilization' to explain how China uses informal boycotts as economic coercion. Patriotic consumer mobilization employs citizens as the unit of action, facilitating manipulability, uncertainty, and plausible deniability. It manages public sentiment for domestic legitimacy and foreign policy goals. Citizens are mobilized via propaganda that underscores national humiliation, frames boycotts as grassroots patriotism, and signals resolve to foreign countries. After outlining conditions for use and a case comparison with Taiwan, we draw on Chinese-language sources to examine Beijing's coercion of South Korea over a missile defense system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay offers a timely analysis of how the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian warfare is observed in China through a gendered prism. Accounting for an anti-West axis in China's current political climate, we articulate how misogyny and nationalism converge in Chinese social media users' discussions about the military crisis currently unfolding in East Europe. This is revealed by a vulgar interpretation of the Russo-Ukrainian relationship and the sexualisation of Ukrainian/Russian women, which are both widespread in the Chinese-language social media sphere. With the patriarchal specificities of the Party-State polity in mind, the discussion yields a feminist perspective to foreground China's nationalist politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how India – both as a modern nation-state and a symbolic geography – is digested by Chinese self-cultivators to negotiate their belonging in China's spiritual nationhood, defined as the landscape of belief that corresponds to the geo-body of the nation-state. It follows the practitioners of Oneness (Heyi), one of the most popular Indian new religious movements in China today, for whom such negotiations are riddled with tensions. While Oneness practitioners align themselves with political orthodoxy disseminated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), emphasizing China's special role as a spiritual leader for humanity, they engage in quasi-religious heterodox practices, risking being labeled an "evil cult" (xie jiao). These frictions occur at the junction of two contrasting notions of spiritual nationhood, one derived from lingxing (spirituality) and the other from jingshen, a secularized notion of spirit that situates the CCP as the sacred center of the polity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study systematically examines, deconstructs, and maps the quotidian nationalist discourse among Chinese netizens and analyzes their 'liking' behavior on the social media platform, Zhihu, in order to investigate what and how they talk about nationalism. The analysis of the quotidian expression of nationalism marks a shift from the previous practice of relying on high-profile nationalist movements as evidence which may create an incomplete or inaccurate impression that much of Chinese nationalism is virulent and over-zealous. This study finds that Zhihu users are critical nationalists who are competitive but judicious. The existence of levelheaded nationalists in China's online space suggests the limits of strident nationalist contagion and nationalist mobilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patriotic campaigns and mass mobilization draw on existing xenophobic attitudes of the public, reinforcing the 'us vs. them' dualism between China and 'the West'. However, patriotic campaigns are not always top-down, state-led, nor are they always primarily driven by political ideology. Patriotic content appeals to a growing nationalist audience who consumes a mixed feeling of perceived victimization at the hand of foreign aggression and the pride arising from being a Chinese citizen. This paper argues that the profitability of patriotic content circulating on social media exacerbated the tension between market-driven grassroots patriotism and state-led patriotic campaigns. The tension grows out of, and is manifested in, the online popular debate around economically driven, grassroots 'patriotic' content that can challenge the state state-led patriotic rhetoric. While the state sometimes strategically co-opts some patriotic contents into its own patriotic narratives, it also delegitimises other undesired ones through labels such as 'high-level black' (gaoji hei) or 'low-level red' (diji hong). These labels were initially used to differentiate meticulously crafted political satire and parody from incompetent, illogical and vulgar propaganda pieces that unintendedly blemish the state's patriotic campaigns, but later evolved into an exercise of power to distance the CCP from undesired patriotic content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Popular nationalism increasingly dominates public debate in mainland China. This article examines the impact of this trend on Chinese policymaking by looking at the public consultation procedure for new regulations on foreigners' permanent residency in February 2020. Following an unexpectedly large online outcry of anti-immigrant sentiment in response to the draft regulations, government actors shelved the proposal, which constituted a long-delayed step towards a more comprehensive immigration framework. Drawing on textual analysis, expert interviews, and survey data, the article analyzes elite-public interactions before, during, and after the controversy, asking what factors contributed to this miscalculation of public sentiment, and what the P.R. debate can tell us about the role of public opinion in Chinese policymaking today. It argues that popular nationalists can play a bottom-up politicizing role on previously marginal policy issues such as immigration, surprising and constraining the state. Such politicisation further limits both public and elite policy debate, impairing state information gathering and exacerbating the tension between Chinese policy actors' desire to both control and understand public sentiment. In addition, the permanent residency debate demonstrates the relevance of public opinion to China's non-democratic immigration policymaking, which displays a trajectory of gradual politicisation similar to other early-stage immigrant-reception contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anti-feminism and misogyny online have intensified globally over the last decade, bringing substantive challenges to feminist identification and activism. This article explores the strategies for silencing and expelling feminists via the deployment of an anti-feminist discourse online, in response to feminism's increasing visibility in China. Data was collected via observation of 23 influential feminist accounts on Weibo. This was bolstered by data from 10 semi-structured interviews with feminist Weibo account contributors. By applying critical discourse analysis (CDA), four strategies used to demonise feminists and depoliticise feminism online in China are identified: feminists as deviant women, as betraying the nation, as connected to Islamists, and as "fake-feminists." The article highlights a kind of intertwined anti-feminism that draws power from distinct features—nationalism and Islamophobia. It argues that by interlocking Chinese historical and structural conditions as well as cultural context, anti-feminism diverts public attention away from systematic gender inequality, and onto antagonisms between feminists and anti-feminists, which further restricts the discussion of intersectional oppressions that affect women's lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how the Chinese government has adopted authoritarian digital populism to justify its political programs through its official social media sub-accounts. Through discourse analysis, we investigate textual material concerning the "Belt and Road Initiative" (BRI) posted on a representative WeChat account, Xiakedao. We find Xiakedao performing digital populism through stylistic-emotional manipulation to portray the benefits of the BRI to China, BRI countries, and the world, or, put succinctly, to legitimize the BRI. Specifically, in 2014–2016, through mixing informal and formal language, Xiakedao based its legitimization on stirring up a sense of hegemonic superiority by painting it as a strategy capable of significantly advancing China's interests. Since 2017, Xiakedao has shifted to emphasizing its massive global contribution to stimulate nationalist pride and exploiting a trauma complex to bestow a counter-hegemonic aura on it. Drawing on Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory, we argue that Xiakedao has utilized the terms "China" and "BRI" as an empty signifier and a floating signifier, respectively. We unravel its discursive strategies of fixing their meanings and (re)drawing antagonistic frontiers to legitimize the BRI during different periods. The study contributes to theoretically understanding how an authoritarian state legitimizes the same political programs from disparate stances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"'Us' and 'Others': The Chinese Diaspora in Japan and the Negotiation of Their Membership in the Sphere of Chineseness" examines the way first-generation Chinese diaspora in Japan make sense of their relationships with the Chinese nation. With empirical evidence collected from both the in-depth interview with 69 informants and the media ethnographic observation with 26 research participants, this thesis contributes to conceptualize the diasporic experiences as well as the identity politics of the Chinese diaspora who live in a crucial era – while we have witnessed China's rise and its transition from a diminishing to a returning power, as a response to this Japan has continuously articulated a "China threat" discourse, which not only further promotes its ethno-nationalistic ideology, but also directing the ethnicity-based marginality toward the Chinese diaspora in Japan. In this context, this thesis contributes to present that while these events create complex Sino-Japanese power dynamics, the presence of digital media means that the Chinese diaspora in Japan are influenced by them in a new way – "new" in the sense that the digital mediation fills those power and forces into every dimension of their lives, making their daily reality a constant identity negotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Plato Goes to China: The Greek Classics and Chinese Nationalism" by Shadi Bartsch explores the thriving study of Greek classics in China and the reasons behind it. Bartsch argues that the belief that the West is shaped by its classical antiquity, similar to how China is shaped by its own, has guided Chinese engagement with the West. The book examines the reception of Western classical antiquity in China, from Jesuit missionaries to modern conservative thinkers, and how it has influenced Chinese intellectual history. Bartsch also discusses the appropriation of ancient texts to challenge the legitimacy of liberal democracy and construct alternative visions of modernity in the context of rising nationalism. The book provides important insights into contemporary Chinese thought and offers a broader framework for analysis and critique. [Extracted from the article]

"From Culturalist Nationalism to Conservatism: Origins and Diversification of Conservative Ideas in Republican China" by Aymeric Xu is an intellectual-political study that explores Chinese conservative thought from the late Qing dynasty to the Republican period. The author challenges the notion that conservatism did not exist in China, arguing that Chinese conservatism is a polysemic term that attributes different values and judgments to liberalism, capitalism, industrialization, statism, social hierarchy, democracy, and Westernization. Xu identifies four typologies of Chinese conservatism: liberal conservatism, antimodern conservatism, philosophical conservatism, and authoritarianism. The book highlights the importance of the culture-politics nexus in modern China and examines the diverse perspectives within the conservative movement. While conservatism ultimately failed in Republican China, there has been a revival of New Confucianism in recent years. However, the book suggests that conservatism is unlikely to become an adequate political strategy in China. Overall, this well-researched book contributes to the understanding of modern Chinese thought and intellectual history. [Extracted from the article]

Studies on Chinese nationalist discourse in the late Qing era rarely consider the role of settler-colonialism in the development of nationalism, instead assuming that anti-colonialism was the dominant ideological source. This article transcends the traditional binary discourse of the colonised and the coloniser by exploring how settler-colonialism helped to project a borderless China in late Qing utopian fiction. I argue that this body of literature, as exemplified by Lü Sheng's A Madman's Dream, is a useful lens for exploring how Chinese settler-colonialism developed a (trans)national imagination. China, as a non-Western settler-colonist, had a dual identity: its experience of being colonised by the West resulted in its acting as a settler-colonist, while its efforts to promote a 'new China' overseas were intended to create solidarity with others who had suffered from colonisation. This article thus contributes to the growing body of scholarship about Qing expansionism as an instance of colonialism by demonstrating the internal tensions within Chinese discourse on colonialism in that era. I illustrate that Chinese settler-colonialism displayed a unique blend of discourse about expansion in the past, the experience of suffering in the present, and imagining the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last few years, Chinese 'boys' love' television dramas (dangai) have attained immense popularity within China and globally. While state authorities are known to censor LGBTQ content, the Chinese state media has used guofeng ('national style') language to laud some such series, including The Untamed and Word of Honor, in nationalistic terms. Through effusively praising depictions of traditional Chinese culture while downplaying or obscuring the texts' origins in homoerotic novels, such commentary has sought to recruit dangai series towards advancing Chinese cultural power while containing the texts' queer transgressiveness. We refer to this phenomenon as brand nohomonationalism, or the undergirding of nationalist ideology by particular configurations of normative sexual discourse, which expands on the insights of Puar's 'homonationalism', Iwabuchi's 'brand nationalism', and Williams' 'brand homonationalism' in the broader Asian context. Although brand nohomonationalist commentary has been curtailed since recent injunctions against 'effeminate men' and danmei (boys' love) content, it is part of the Chinese government's broader efforts to exercise ideological authority over popular culture. Analysing the phenomenon provides new insights into how sexual and national identities are co-constructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The legitimation of Chinese medicine has long been a politically and morally charged subject in China since the early twentieth century. In recent years, there is an apparent surge of enthusiasm in developing and promoting Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), as evidenced by the state's frequent lauding of its advantages and the implementation of a series of supportive policies and regulations. During the Covid-19 pandemic in China, TCM has again gained ample attention in major state-owned media outlets due to its proclaimed effects in treating Covid-19. In this article, I will conduct an interdisciplinary study of the semiotic work dedicated to legitimating TCM treatment of Covid-19 in the social media account of an official TCM institution. Drawing on critical discourse analysis and textual analysis supported by reference to history and anthropology of medicine, I will examine closely how the above-mentioned semiotic work is achieved through reference to a range of theoretical and moral arguments. Moreover, the paradoxes and inconsistencies in this process of semiotic construction will be discussed to shed light on the deeper issues concerning the entangled relationship of health science and politics in China, as well as the epistemological difficulties in promoting TCM inside and outside China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking document analysis as its method, this paper examines the Tibetans' response to the Chinese state nationalism. Due to the fear of political secession, the Chinese government has stayed silent about the Tibetans' right to self‐determination and subjected regional ethnic autonomy to the centralised political system. The Chinese authorities continue to dismiss the Tibetans' nationalist struggles as an imported foreign design and warn the international community not to sympathise with the Dalai Lama and his supporters. Amidst an adverse national and international political environment, the Tibetans have managed to sustain their nationalist wishes and obtain substantive international attention. Taking this background into account, this paper explores how the Tibetans have succeeded to resist China's state nationalism and position themselves as a champion of inclusion, justice, and minority rights. It argues that the Tibetans recognise the Chinese government's fear of secession and utilise that fear to forward their nationalist aspirations. The Tibetans shift their demand from independence to autonomy and highlight their own desire for recognition as a distinct community within the Chinese state. This strategy has helped them to claim that they are against the violations of autonomy but not against the Chinese state's territorial norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars note that since the early 1990s, the CCP has been invoking Chinese nationalism to rescue the party's declining ideological legitimacy. Probing China's political indoctrination (thought work), this article makes two contributions to such conventional consensus. First, empirically it argues that the rise of nationalism in the 1990s was not altogether new. Instead, from the early 1980s, the CCP had been switching to "patriotism." Second, this article argues that the communist regime's transition to nationalism was hesitant. It was an interactive process whereby multiple layers of the society and elite, confused alike, worked together to explore whether and how to embrace nationalism. The nation‐building also bore the imprint of the revolutionary and state‐socialist past. This article suggests that though the nation‐state has become the dominant political format of the world, as a pattern it fuses with a society's traditions, preconditions, and internal struggles. Such fusions made nation‐building in the non‐Western world unseparated from quasi‐national legacies such as revolution and socialism and could yield consequences other than capitalism and democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of citizenship in China has become popular not only as a research topic but also as a praxis that seeks to influence citizenship-related policies and address structural injustice. Analysis of the trajectory of developing citizenship research over the decades indicates that scholarship focusing on socioeconomic injustice has affected various policy actions, and the struggle associated with the cultural dimension of citizenship seems to have intensified. This special issue deconstructs the state's monolithic interpretation of culture and examines the cultural underpinnings of citizenship discourse and practice in China. We take a broad view of cultural traditions, which have been deeply rooted throughout history and have shaped the underlying relationships between the state, society, and citizens in modern China. The articles in this special issue reveal the culture-informed citizenship practices enacted by various actors, including the government forces, cultural minorities, and grassroots activists. They suggest that spirituality is a site of experiencing and negotiating citizenship in the Chinese context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on public opinion and foreign policy in China has focused on nationalism as the driver behind public support for the use of force. However, nationalism is just one of many potentially significant factors that can increase support for military deployments. In this article we build a mediation model to test the relative effects of psychological predispositions, foreign policy attitudes, perceptions of the opposing state and calculations about the likely outcome of the conflict on support for China sending naval forces to the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. We find that dislike of the Japanese government and a belief that China would be victorious in a conflict with Japan are both powerful predictors of support for the use of force. Nationalism and militarism directly increase support but also indirectly increase it via different pathways. Nationalists are more confident in a Chinese victory while militarists have a stronger dislike of the Japanese government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examined the relationship between ideology and conspiratorial thinking and the related mediating effect of ingroup favoritism in a non-Western society. We investigated patriotism and nationalism as two favorable orientations toward national ingroups. We also examined their relationship with the general conspiracy mentality and the specific conspiracy beliefs that have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results revealed that conservative ideology was associated with conspiratorial beliefs in China regardless of the specific conspiracy theories related to ingroups or outgroups, which indicates such tendencies may exist universally across cultures. Patriotism was not associated with conspiracy theories about the origin of COVID-19, whereas nationalism was negatively associated with the conspiracy theories about China (an ingroup) and positively associated with conspiracy theories about the US (an outgroup). Moreover, nationalism mediated the relationship between ideology and specific conspiracy beliefs during the pandemic. The general conspiracy mentality did not predict conspiracy theories about the origin of COVID-19. The results indicate that believing conspiracy theories is not only the result of a stable conspiracy mentality but is also influenced by ideology and intergroup relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An iconic characteristic of Hong Kong's social unrest in 2019 was the establishment of the so-called "yellow economic circle"—a networked system of retailers and consumers linked by shared political values. Movement sympathizers chose to consume products from retailers perceived as supporting movement aims and boycotted retailers thought to be in favor of closer ties with China. This research focuses on the challenges of the yellow economic circle through the lenses of class and consumer nationalism. Drawing on social media posts and interviews with pro-democracy individuals from different socio-economic backgrounds, we highlight challenges to the sustainability of the "yellow economic circle." Class-based purchasing power represented an obstacle to the success of the yellow economic circle; however, it was not the biggest challenge. Instead, an inherent incompatibility between the movement's aims and the means for achieving these aims posed the biggest hurdle. Navigating this incompatibility represented an opportunity for movement participants to develop innovations in thinking about consumer nationalism and the role purchasing power may play in participation. We conclude that the way participants defined consumer nationalism determined whether the yellow economic circle could be understood to engender a shared "Hong Kong identity" and eliminate existing class differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the epic national narratives of modernization and development in China is the story of Beidahuang ('Great Northern Wilderness') in the country's northeast. The term 'Beidahuang' refers originally to state-sponsored campaigns, starting in the 1950s, that involved the enlistment of tens of thousands of People's Liberation Army soldiers, educated youth, and Communist Party cadres. Their task was to transform the vast northeast 'wasteland' into productive farmland that would feed the nation while securing the nation's borders with Russia. This article examines the significance of Beidahuang as a feature of the environmental discourse in China's northeast borderlands, focusing on the first decade of the twenty-first century when the Chinese state was establishing more systematic measures for addressing environmental concerns. In the context of the northeast borderland, the massive deforestation that resulted from the socialist campaigns to transform 'wasteland' into productive farmland has left a controversial legacy for regional elites grappling with the Party leadership's turn towards environmental conservation as an emerging political priority. This article suggests that the ongoing importance of the 'Great Northern Wilderness' in the Chinese cultural imagination has shaped the ways in which regional elites frame environmental issues in relation to economic development, nationalism, and border relations with Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a critical review of new policies in China, the United States, and the European Union that characterize genomic data as a national strategic resource. Specifically, we review policies that regulate human genomic data for economic, national security, or other strategic purposes rather than ethical or individual rights purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 15 years, Chinese videogames and fan communities have become a site where state-sanctioned gender norms are reproduced, altered and challenged. This article analyzes the representation of masculinity in the MMORPG Jian 3 and how fan-fiction writers transform this representation. The videogame predominantly evokes soft masculinity, a sexually ambiguous form of masculinity that represents men with traditionally feminine characteristics but not as explicitly homosexual. Much of the fan-fiction removes this ambiguity, transforming the game's soft masculinity into an explicit form of homosexual masculinity. This diminished ambiguity has political valence in the Chinese context, where national identity is intertwined with a specific form of heterosexual masculinity. The fan-fictions serve to disentangle the relationship between nationalism and masculinity by advancing an alternative form of masculinity and decoupling it from the national project. These two textual strategies – the advancing of a homosexual form of masculinity and the decoupling of masculinity and nationalism – are present in other Chinese games and their fan-fictions, and indeed can be found in other media forms too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the intersections between state and fashion in China by examining the facilitation of a new fashion identity in a fashion edutainment program produced by national television. It argues that the state-sponsored (re)appraisal of traditional sartorial esthetics from which a decolonized fashion identity is expected to evolve is intimately interweaved with the state's metanarrative of national revival. The study interprets the reversion back to native historical traditions to counter and offer an alternative to Western cultural episteme as an inherently decolonial effort. With an emancipated fashion identity, the state aims to reclaim cultural authorship from the dictates of colonialism and orientalism. The paper examines how sartorial nationalism is given new expressions and highlights the question of authenticity working within state-prescribed parameters. The desire for international recognition however undermines the decoloniality of this undertaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bagamoyo Port Project (BPP) was meant to have set in motion the development of East Africa's largest port. Yet, with the advent of former President John P. Magufuli to power in October 2015, the BPP has led a chequered existence. This article explores the dynamics behind the stalled talks over the BPP by emphasising Magufuli's penchant for developmentalism, nationalism and authoritarianism ultimately as a political strategy designed to mask his vulnerable electoral standing within the party and with the electorate. The renegotiations over the BPP served as an ideal opportunity in this regard to shore up his base. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses how population genetics has impacted on nationalist discourses across the Taiwan Straits and affected the relationship between Taiwan and China since the 1990s. In Taiwan this cutting-edge science has helped to construct a native-based and Taiwan-centred national identity through promoting indigenous peoples' rights, rejecting a blood-based, cross-Straits nationalism, and founding a pan-Pacific indigenous peoples' community through genetic links and cultural affinity. In China, after subverting the nationalist myth of Peking Man (a Homo erectus group believed to be the common ancestor of the Chinese) by analysing genetic data, the same group of Chinese genetic scientists have constructed another nationalist myth of a genetically homogenous nationhood. Such a discourse not only valorizes Chinese nationalism through claiming a DNA-based Chineseness across ethnic distinctions but also asserts genetic links between China and Taiwan, therefore providing a 'scientific' basis for China's nationalism in the new century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative studies of nationalism rarely incorporate China as a case in their observations. Despite the rise of nationalism in salience throughout Chinese society, studies of nationalism in China are frequently tagged as insularly focused and unsuitable for comparison. However, a survey of the literature in Chinese nationalism studies reveals that similar blind spots and limitations challenge studies of China with more general comparative research on nationalism. Given this parallelism in development, I argue that looking to observations of China provides scholars of nationalism with vital opportunities to expand and refine theory to include insights from a non-western, non-democratic case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]