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Empirical evidence concerning the demographics and development of Chinese nationalism is sparse but important for scholarship and policy. Its collection entails methodological challenges in access and reliability. We conducted a field experiment to measure nationalism in incentive-compatible choices among a diverse group of 447 Chinese subjects in a field setting. Our results demonstrate greater nationalism in female, older, less affluent and more rural respondents. We also find support for nationalism in professional and educated individuals. Our results provide qualified support for a middle-class nationalism in China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the 1990s, the Chinese party-state has attempted to teach its youth how to think and speak about the nation through a "patriotic education" campaign waged in schools, the media and on public sites. The reception of these messages by youth of different social backgrounds remains a disputed issue, however. Drawing on a multi-sited field study conducted among rural and urban Han Chinese youth attending different types of schools, this article explores the effects of the patriotic education campaign on youth conceptions of the nation by examining the rhetoric high-school students employ when asked to reflect upon their nation. The study reveals that a majority of youth statements conform to the language and contents of the patriotic education campaign; however, there are significant differences in the discursive stances of urban youth and rural youth and of those attending academic and non-academic, vocational schools. These findings call into question the party-state's current vision of China as a "unified" national collectivity. They highlight the existence of variances in the sense of collective belonging and national identity of Chinese youth, while underscoring the importance of social positioning and perceived life chances in producing these variances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Militaries are sustained by public money that is diverted away from other domestic ends. How the public react to the "guns-versus-butter" trade-off is thus an important question in understanding the microfoundations of Chinese military power. However, there are few studies on public attitudes towards military spending in China, whose rising power has been a grave concern to many policymakers around the world. We fielded a national online survey to investigate the nature of public support for military spending in China. We find that Chinese citizens support military spending in the abstract, but their support diminishes when considered alongside other domestic spending priorities. We also find that public support for military spending coexists surprisingly with anti-war sentiments and a significant strain of isolationism. In addition, while the conventional wisdom suggests that nationalism moves a state towards bellicosity and war, we find that Chinese citizens with a stronger sense of national pride report stronger anti-war sentiments than other citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the theoretical links between two important ingredients of individuals' fundamental political values (i.e. authoritarian ideology and national attachment) and their life satisfaction assessments in an authoritarian context. We employ data from a 2016 national public survey in China to empirically examine how these political values relate to Chinese citizens' life satisfaction. Our regression analyses demonstrate that Chinese citizens with stronger authoritarian ideology and national attachment are likely to report a higher level of life satisfaction. Our study contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the importance of the connections between political values and citizen life satisfaction. It also advances our understanding of the origins of social and political stability in authoritarian regimes, where citizen life satisfaction usually represents a major source of state legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent two-decade-long march of "global China" – manifested as outward flows of investment, loans, infrastructure, migrants, media, cultural programmes and international and civil society engagement – has left sweeping but variegated footprints in many parts of the world. From "going out," officially announced in the year 2000, to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Made in China 2025, and from the developing world to advanced industrialized democracies, state-endorsed campaigns are but tips of a much more momentous iceberg. Numerous Chinese citizens and private corporations have also participated in a global search for employment, business, investment and educational and emigration opportunities. International reactions to the increasingly ubiquitous presence of China and the Chinese people in almost every corner of the world have evolved from a mixture of anxiety and hope to a more explicitly critical backlash. Terms such as "sharp power," "debt-trap diplomacy" and the "new Cold War" bespeak the West's dominant perception today of China as a threat to be contained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature on scientific controversies has inadequately attended to the impact of globalization and, more specifically, the emergence of China as a leader in scientific research. To bridge this gap in the literature, this article develops a theoretical framework to analyse global scientific controversies surrounding research in China. The framework highlights the existence of four overlapping discursive arenas: China's national public sphere and national expert sphere, the transnational public sphere and the transnational expert sphere. It then examines the struggles over inclusion/exclusion and publicity within these spheres as well as the within- and across-sphere effects of such struggles. Empirically, the article analyses the human genome editing controversy surrounding research conducted by scientists in China between 2015 and 2019. It shows how elite scientists negotiated expert–public relationships within and across the national and transnational expert spheres, how unexpected disruption at the nexus of the four spheres disrupted expert–public relationships as envisioned by elite experts, and how the Chinese state intervened to redraw the boundary between openness and secrecy at both national and transnational levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autocrats typically seek public support on the basis of economic growth-promotion and redistribution policies, and China is no exception. As important as these factors are for authoritarian resilience, we argue that economic legitimation is a more complex phenomenon than has previously been acknowledged. Beyond improvements in material well-being, citizens form judgements about the state's effectiveness in carrying out a variety of economic roles beyond growth promotion and they also care about the fairness of these market interventions. In this study, we use original survey data collected in late 2015 and early 2016 to evaluate Chinese citizens' perceptions of two economic roles of the state that have been hotly debated in recent years: state ownership and market regulation. We find that while citizens view the ideas of state ownership and interventionist regulation in a generally positive light, suggesting a broad level of agreement in Chinese society about what economic functions the state ought to perform, perceptions of how the state actually carries out these roles are more mixed. Our results show that the urban young are especially inclined to critical evaluations, raising the question of how the Chinese Communist Party's legitimation strategy will fare under conditions of inter-generational value change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has adopted preferential measures in hopes of luring back overseas talent, but what determines individual attitudes towards returning migrants and policies promoting return migration? This paper addresses this question using an original survey experiment of Chinese netizens. We argue that attitudes towards return migration are driven by two competing perceptions: on one hand, skilled migrants are widely thought to have beneficial effects on the local economy; on the other, domestic citizens may be wary of policies that offer elite returnees excessive benefits. The findings imply that the CCP may face a delicate trade-off between the economic benefits of return migration and the social costs of increasing inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In a novel approach to studying political mobilization among ethnic Tibetans in China, this article addresses two key questions. First, considering the Chinese state's repressive policies towards Tibetan Buddhism, what role does religion play in fomenting Tibetan political resistance? Second, what implications can be drawn from the changing ethnic demography in Tibet about the conflict behaviour of Tibetans? Using various GIS-referenced data, this article specifically examines the 2008 Tibetan protest movements in China. The main results of our analysis indicate that the spread and frequency of protests in ethnic Tibetan areas are significantly associated with the number of officially registered Tibetan Buddhist sites, as well as the historical dominance of particular types of Tibetan religious sects. Furthermore, our analysis shows that the effect of Han Chinese settlement on Tibetan political activism is more controversial than previously thought. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In recent years, the governments of China and India have initiated a strategic partnership. Talks of creating an integrated “Chindia” economic hub have been commonplace. Many studies have been undertaken from conflicting perspectives on bilateral relations at the high level, but how ordinary Chinese people view their contemporary Indian counterparts and how this provides a civic dimension to the partnership remains under-explored. In an authoritarian nation where exhibiting sentiments contrary to the party-state's policy is not encouraged and remains uncommon, the Chinese have increasingly relied upon the internet to express their views on various aspects of policy, including that towards India. Using systematic, qualitative research on the online community, this article categorizes the various opinions expressed by Chinese internet users about India, the Indians and Beijing's Indian policy; analyses the apparent huge gap between these perceptions and the official rhetoric of Beijing; and forecasts how such perceptions might influence future Sino-Indian relations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the establishment of the Museum of the Chinese Revolution at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. The museum was formed as a political institution to serve the interest of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It reflects the attempt of the CCP to control the collective memory of the nation and to monopolize the writing of history. The idea of building such museum was originated in 1933 during the Jiangxi Soviet period. The purposes of forming the museum in the Tiananmen Square are to affirm its centrality and increase its visibility among the Chinese people.

The article analyzes how the policy of religious freedom has been used for the Chinese Communist Party to retain institutional and ideological control over the religious sector of Chinese society. The element of continuity is based on the incompatibility between dialectical materialism and religious idealism. The forces for evolution arise from ways wherein religious issues impinge on policies towards minorities and terrorism. The control of religion to encourage national reconstruction and foreign investment results in the proliferation of religious activity and important changes in religious policy.

The article focuses on the perception of China regarding the 1979 war with Vietnam based on an examination of primary source materials and research of leading scholars. It takes into account China's historical relation with Vietnam and their influence on Beijing's approach towards the war. The reasons behind the decision of the China to go to war with the Vietnam include Hanoi's hegemonistic imperial dreams in South-East Asia, violation of China's borders and subsequent incursion into Chinese territory.