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This paper examines the concept of green nationalism in the authoritarian context of China, where the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has adopted the rhetoric of ecological civilization as a means of promoting environmental protection and securing global legitimacy. The authors argue that the CCP's performance legitimacy is closely linked to its ability to address environmental concerns in the context of climate change, and that the development of green nationalism is a rational choice for leaders seeking to maintain this legitimacy. However, the authors also highlight the role of actors such as social entrepreneurs, academics, and environmental NGOs in promoting green nationalism from the bottom-up. Using constructivist political theory, the paper explores how the intersection of different green narratives at various levels can be used to rethink the nation and make claims to legitimacy. Overall, the paper contributes to theory-building by providing a framework for understanding the complex relationship between environmental protection, nationalism, and authoritarian politics in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on how the phenomenon of naturalized athletes has caused unprecedented domestic discussions on issues of national identity in China. Using online data collected from Sina Weibo, it discusses how the Chinese public reacted to prominent cases of naturalization of athletes in such different sports fields as men's football and a variety of winter sports. It interrogates how Chinese citizens view the possibilities and realities of this particular category of immigrants, and how the appropriate boundaries of 'Chineseness' have been debated and contested. The paper found that Chinese public reaction to naturalization of foreign athletes is overall mixed, which is conditioned on an ethno-racial view of Chinese descent, cultural heritage and linguistic affinity. The paper concludes with reflections on the ethno-racial foundation of the Chinese national identity and the challenges the country will face in a future of accelerated international migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tensions between China and Taiwan have been heightened significantly lately. This paper is aimed at investigating the cross-Strait relations from Taiwan's perspective concerning, in particular, Taiwan's economic policy toward China. Indeed, China has long been Taiwan's largest trading partner; yet, political relationship between the two has fluctuated over time. On the one hand, China has been an attractive market for Taiwanese businesses, but one the other hand, there have also been economic and security concerns about Taiwan's dependence on China. This paper shows the connections between political and economic factors which jointly affect Taiwan's economic policy toward China. It argues that there may be a general equilibrium—a median voter—but it has often been distorted by the institutional constraints in Taiwan's political process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Taiwan, where relations with China define the major political cleavage, voters have distinct preferences on the issue of independence. Do Taiwanese favor a symbolic or pragmatic approach to the Taiwan independence issue? What are the factors that account for their political preferences? We identify two types of voters, symbolic and pragmatic, according to whether their preferences on independence are conditional or unconditional on China's potential counter actions. Specifically, symbolic voters have unconditional preferences on independence, while pragmatic voters are more agreeable to independence under more favorable conditions. Using multiple wave data from the Taiwan National Security Surveys (TNSS 2002–2022), we investigate the individual- and macro-level factors and find that gender, age, education level, ethnicity, partisan strength, and economic growth rate shape the types of voters in Taiwan. This paper contributes to the study of political attitudes in Taiwan, and have important implications on the regional stability in East Asia. [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]

This paper examines the extent to which China's 'Fourth generation' leadership might be inclined to place a greater emphasis on nationalist rhetoric both in China's international relations and in domestic policy. It explores two different views of nationalism, namely state-centred and popular. With the decline in the public impact of official ideology, the Party-state has given tacit recognition to nationalism as one potential source of regime legitimisation. However, this article argues that by placing the Party at the centre of the official discourse the state-centred view of nationalism restricts the extent to which the Party-state can mobilise nationalist symbolism in support of its leadership and makes the Party vulnerable to criticism from more popular conceptions of nationalism. The priority given to developing the economy means China's leaders must downplay popular criticism which can focus on the negative consequences of China's growing interaction with the wider world. Under China's 'Fourth generation' leadership this tension may deepen. China's new leadership are unlikely to resort to 'wrapping themselves in the flag' as some commentators have suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the debate about foreign policy implications of Chinese nationalism in the context of China's increasingly confrontational and assertive behavior in recent years. It argues that while the Chinese government made effective efforts to control popular nationalism and Chinese foreign policy was therefore not dictated by emotional nationalistic rhetoric before 2008, it has become more willing to follow the popular nationalist calls to take a confrontational position against the Western powers and to adopt tougher measures in maritime territorial disputes with its neighbors. This strident turn is partially because the government is increasingly responsive to public opinion, but more importantly because of the convergence of Chinese state nationalism and popular nationalism calling for a more muscular Chinese foreign policy. Enjoying an inflated sense of empowerment supported by its new quotient of wealth and military capacities, and terrified of an uncertain future due to increasing social, economic and political tensions at home, the communist state has become more willing to play to the popular nationalist gallery in pursuing the so-called core national interests. These developments have complicated China's diplomacy, creating a heated political environment to harden China's foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper I address the question of how Chinese scholars participate in scientific knowledge production by appropriating Western IR theories, primarily by examining interactions between North American theories that claim universality and China-specific IR efforts. Drawing on post-Mao era publications and books, I discuss how increasingly independent Chinese IR scholars are portraying their country's rising status in international politics and identifying China's national interests, while still emphasizing socialist concepts such as anti-hegemonism. The result is a form of Chinese IR scholarship that combines Western IR language with a worldview that emphasizes a modern China within the context of traditional socialist foreign policy norms. I will argue that Chinese scholarly discussions about IR theory building reflect efforts to present ‘their rising China’ (as individually perceived) in the study, research, and development of IR theory in response to the appearance of modern IR methods that require new definitions and new roles for old socialist forms. In this context, identity concerns are more important than the actual theories being established or appropriated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using the 2008 China Survey, this paper examines Chinese respondents' feelings toward their country and how such feelings are related to their democratic values. First, it compares Chinese nationalism with that of 35 countries and regions in the 2003 National Identity Survey. Second, it looks at the origins of Chinese nationalism as embedded in the social and political characteristics of individuals. Third, it further examines the impact of nationalism on people's political attitudes. The findings show that nationalism in contemporary China is better predicted by the political and economic characteristics of an individual rather than cultural attributes, and that nationalism serves as a powerful instrument in impeding public demand for democratic change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the uses of YouTube by Uyghur nationalist movement activists and studies various ideological codes used by different communities to promote their messages. It argues that several ideological codes are produced in order to challenge the dominant ideologies promoted by the Chinese government, which create a ground for Uyghur 'imagined solidarity' across physical borders. Analysis of the production of audio-visual messages by the dispersed ethnic group provides an important window into how ethnic identity is forged by means of Web 2.0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In March 2008, Tibet erupted in the biggest challenge to Chinese rule since 1959. While Beijing and Dharamsala engaged in their familiar battle of representations, pundits speculated on the causes of the uprising, ranging from conspiracy theories to informed policy analysis. Applying the framework of the insecurity dilemma, this article argues that Tibetan identity insecurity on account of the post-1989 hard-line Chinese policies was the chief cause of the uprising. Largely peaceful protests and occasionally violent riots in Tibet have been integral to Tibetan efforts to mitigate their societal insecurities provoked by Chinese migration, 'assimilationist' policies and 'cultural imperialism'. However, Tibetan protests and riots heighten Chinese insecurities and harden Beijing's policies both inside Tibet and towards the Dalai Lama. This paper reveals the dynamic cycle of hard-line Chinese policies provoking Tibetan uprisings; the resulting hardening in Chinese policies feeds back into Tibetan insecurities and protests. The 2008 uprising was the most recent cycle in the long-running saga of the Sino-Tibetan insecurity dilemma. The article warns that unless the Tibetans and the Chinese find a way to break out of the insecurity dilemma, Tibet could explode into another frenzy of violence and counter-violence in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The crippled economic and political reform in China has come with two schools of thought: the new-left and nationalism. The new-left focuses on domestic issues, while nationalism tackles more international relationships. This paper explores the effects of radical nationalism on China's democratization process. It argues that if nationalism takes the dominant position in China's political process, Chinese reform will go astray. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues against the popular impression that the rise of Taiwan's national consciousness is a result of democratization. Instead, it looks to the world timing of Taiwan becoming an independent reference point internationally for explanation of the changing identity in contemporary politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rise of China, the importance of understanding Chinese nationalism increases. Assessing Chinese nationalism, many people claim that it has grown stronger and more intense in recent years. Some believe that this is the case because the Chinese Government deliberately promotes nationalism to serve its own purposes. This paper argues that the reality with Chinese nationalism is much more complicated than many assume. It has grown stronger in some respects but weaker in others. The role of the Chinese Government is at best mixed. In explaining the development of Chinese nationalism, one needs to look at external as well as internal and historical causes. Only by doing so can one gain a fuller and more balanced understanding of this intriguing phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in relative power between the rising and dominant state have been consistently recognized as a key contributor to international conflicts, as they can lead to convergence within both societies in threat perceptions of each other. In the case of China, a dominant view assumes that China's increased power leads to wide social support for nationalism, which unifies the Chinese threat perceptions of key rivals such as the US and Japan. Based on a large-scaled survey among China's elite youth, this study examines the relationship between their perception of China's power asymmetry and threat with respect to the US and Japan. The findings show that the dominant view has clearly overlooked the divergent voices within the youth, and they also challenge the common assumption that China's growing power has fostered a generation of youth with unanimous support for more assertive Chinese foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to explain both China's motivations in, and South Korea's response to, the Koguryo controversy. It argues that it is necessary to take into account the role of national identity and domestic politics in explaining the controversy. China's claim is neither defensive nor offensive toward the two Koreas; rather, it is a logical consequence of a particular historiography in China that was developed in the twentieth century. Given the centrality of national identity construction in both countries, the conflict over Koguryo will be difficult to resolve in the future. To prevent future conflicts from reoccurring, both sides need to adopt a new perspective on history to move toward a shared history and cultural community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the cultural representations of Chinese military-action films which re-interpret China's non-intervention policy and give China's foreign engagements rationality and legitimation. It involves two narrative strategies: (1) framing the protection of nationals abroad as the key incentive behind China's military actions; and (2) emphasizing an unquestioning commitment to sovereignty, to UN authorization, and to the consent of host countries during the intervening process.Then, it points out the propagandistic features of China's military-action films: framing the outside world as a threatening place in which individuals' survival depends on the protection of a powerful nation; cultivating collective narcissism and nationalism; and reframing China's global economic expansion through a"friendship narrative". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines popular nationalism and regime support in the Xi era by evaluating news comments from a major overseas Chinese website on the 2018 constitutional amendments removing presidential term limits. It finds that the event was not only contested among overseas and domestic Chinese, but also has alienated many nationalists who previously supported the regime. Even the subsequent pro-regime discourse is less focused on support for Xi or the regime, and more about distrust of the West and dissidents. However, some citizens have become less critical toward the regime out of the concern of external threats. The findings confirm the Xi Jinping effect on nationalist regime support, and show how China's international and domestic environments may activate nationalist sentiment differently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What has China learned from the 'Century of Humiliation'? In China's mnemonic practices, 'the backward will be beaten,' which attributes the nation's humiliation experiences to economic, military, and technological backwardness, is the most significant 'lesson from past' required to be remembered. Bridging the literatures on memory, nationalism, and International Relations (IR), this study conducts a detailed analysis of the making of 'the backward will be beaten' and examines how it helps shape China's perception of national security based on a competitive worldview and its associated nationalist visions. This study also identifies alternative discourses that challenge the dominant historical lesson by intellectuals and netizens. It contributes to a nuanced understanding of the collective memory of the Century of Humiliation and its implications for Chinese nationalism and foreign relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes China' and the People's Liberation Army (PLA)'s rationale in opening what it calls a 'logistical support facility' in Djibouti as well as the missions that it is supposed to fulfil. The author also presents this base's activities since its opening on 1 August 2017 and explores the potential role that the Chinese military stationed in Djibouti could play to secure Xi Jinping's Belt and Road initiative and protect Chinese interests and nationals in Africa or the Middle East. Finally, it assesses the PLA base's relations with other militaries present in Djibouti, particularly the US, the French and the Japanese, concluding that Djibouti operates as a microcosm of a multipolar world heading towards a bipolar, though asymmetrical, world order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article shows how China became a global competitor in the railway- and construction equipment industry by using a combination of defensive and offensive mercantilist policy tools. While many scholars in IPE have recognized that economic state intervention is still commonplace, the literature focusing on economic nationalism has failed to grasp its multifaceted feature. By confusing economic nationalism with protectionism, the possibility of outward-looking measures within a mercantile strategy has been neglected. The research that does recognize the ability of states to combine global economic integration and continued market intervention, demonstrates an empirical bias towards strategic emerging industries and state-owned enterprises. This article includes the role of offensive economic policy measures as well as less strategic sectors and private- owned enterprises in China's mercantile strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author puts forth an analytical framework called party-state realism for understanding how policy makers in the People's Republic of China approach foreign policy. It has four defining characteristics. In order of importance, they are: putting the interests of the Communist Party at the core of China's national interest calculation; and on this basis adopting an instrumentalist approach; adopting a party-centric nationalism; and adhering to a neoclassical realist assessment of the country's place in the international system and its relative material power in advancing national interest. In this conception, the putting of the Chinese Communist Party's interest at the core of national interest is a constant, not a variable, factor. This does not mean the changing international context and relative national power are irrelevant, just that they take secondary importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2016, the Brexit referendum and Donald Trump's electoral victory once again brought xenophobic nationalism into the world spotlight. Surprisingly, in the United Kingdom and the United States, a dramatic increase in wealth inequality impelled the working poor to cling more tightly to nationalism. In recent times, China has also witnessed this correlation of resurgent nationalist aspirations and an increasing gap between rich and poor. In light of these international developments, the primary objective of this study is to explore how China's increasing inequality is influencing Chinese nationalism. The question of whether the Chinese youth who agonize over the trend of wealth inequality has paradoxically grown more attached to Chinese nationalism is also intriguing. Based on structural equation modeling, the estimated results show that, conversely, the increase in economic inequality in China has led to a decline in Chinese nationalism. In particular, disaffected Chinese youth with higher education who suffer from increasing economic disparity have been reluctant to embrace nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Winston Churchill once said, 'it is better to jaw-jaw than to war-war.' However, negotiations are particularly difficult when they are enmeshed in public opinion precommitments. The sharpest crisis between China and Vietnam in the last 30 years concerned the placement of a Chinese oil rig into contested waters in 2014. This study analyses the Chinese and Vietnamese propaganda efforts surrounding the crisis as examples of the instrumental use of propaganda in managing domestic public opinion on diplomatic crises. The article argues that despite very different approaches to public diplomacy during the crisis, both states were primarily concerned with avoiding escalation and ending the confrontation. The authors show how propaganda function as a pacifying device in dealing with rising domestic nationalism when executing a moderate foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the prominent features of China's state-led campaign of cultural diplomacy. Through multiple comparative case studies of its flagship project of the Confucius Institute (CI), it aims to identify and contextualise the various variables affecting its effective operation. It finds that this dependent variable is mainly determined by the independent variable of the CI's ability to localise its product and process to suit different target audiences, along with a number of extraneous variables, including ideology, nationalism and the media environment in the destinations. People-to-people interaction is also an important mediator that contributes to facilitating mutual understanding. All the variables and the complexity of their inter-relations constitute the Chinese characteristics and are charted out in a diagram. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resurgent nationalism has become an important driver of China’s foreign policy, and many countries are concerned about its evident new assertiveness. This article argues that closer attention to the vigorous internal debate among its international relations (IR) experts about their country’s future external strategies will add perspective to those concerns. It contends that the views of these experts provide probably the best available window into China’s thinking about its international options. China’s IR experts have been conspicuously divided about the appropriate balance of strategies for its transition from a previously cautious and inward-looking foreign policy to a more ambitious and proactive agenda. In particular, they differ about the relative emphasis that should be placed on the pursuit of national interests versus the advancement of international interests. This debate reflects contradictory elements in China’s foreign policy under Xi Jinping, some of which may potentially lead to confrontation and conflict while others hold out the prospect of continuing constructive engagement. Greater understanding of expert views within China about managing and reconciling these contradictory trends is likely to provide valuable insights for researchers and decision-makers in China and other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This Xinjiang Class is a four-year, national-level boarding school program established by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the year 2000. The overarching aim of the program is clear: the CCP intends to train a core group of young Uyghurs who have internalized the ideals of the Party. This article, which is based on interviews and regular interaction with over 60 graduates of the Xinjiang Class, casts doubt on whether the boarding schools have been effective in ‘interpellating’ young Uyghurs as compliant members of the Chinese Nation (Zhonghua minzu). This article contends that Uyghur graduates of the Xinjiang Class have instead embraced a non-Chinese ethno-national identity—an identity bound by Central Asian and Islamic cultural norms—and have largely rejected the Zhonghua minzu identity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

China's counterinsurgency strategy in Tibet and Xinjiang relies heavily on hard power and imposition. Well-functioning vertical coordination in the security sector of China's political system and assimilationist nationality dynamics combine to favour the use of force against ethnic groups that do not accept the political legitimacy of China's Communist Party. Transnational links contribute to China's difficulties with implementing counterinsurgency in Tibet and help China implement its strategy in Xinjiang. Development strategies aimed at improving living standards are crowded out due to a lack of horizontal coordination between civilian and security agencies and a bias towards unitary nation-building in Chinese nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic integration in the Taiwan Strait has become increasingly stronger recently. Economic integration should have led to stronger political convergence. Why hasn't it occurred? I argue that democracy in Taiwan and the continuation of the single-party rule in China have created two very different social experiences. These different social experiences have formed two different identities. People in Taiwan are increasingly thinking of themselves as Taiwanese rather than Chinese. The growing level of popular nationalism in China has also altered the political identity of mainland Chinese. Such change could force Beijing to accommodate citizens' demand to act more toughly towards Taipei. Further political integration is still possible, but it would require another norm change, perhaps already in the making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of China's online game industry provides an example of the interaction of new technologies and politics in the commercialization and globalization of China's cultural economy. The analysis of online games about China's Resistance War against Japan (1937–1945) highlights the interplay of the state's political agenda, business interests, and nationalistic sentiments as online games are planned, designed, and consumed in contemporary China. It reveals that the Party-state has candidly integrated online game technology into its expanding propaganda domain and utilized it for propagating official ideology and sustaining economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Mainstream views in China tend to believe that lower popular support for the DPP shown in the 2008 presidential election indicates parallel declining support for the Taiwan Independence Movement (TIM). However, this study shows that during the DPP administration of 2000–2008, popular support for the DPP and the TIM has become divergent: at the aggregate level, popular support for the DPP has generally declined since 2000, but that for the TIM has actually increased and then remained stable; at the individual level, Taiwanese people's dissatisfaction with the DPP administration significantly reduced their support for the DPP in 2008, but had no independent effect on their nationalist sentiment. Further analysis of the TIM's support base shows that the supposedly pro-status-quo pan-blue camp actually provided an increasing number of Taiwanese nationalists, which stabilized popular Taiwanese nationalism and weakened the DPP's monopoly of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese party-state officials now openly speak of the importance of increasing the country's soft power. This raises questions, however, about how the soft power concept relates to the party-state's existing propaganda system. This article investigates how the party-state interprets the soft power concept and how this fits into its broader approach to propaganda work. It argues that the way the party-state has interpreted the concept of soft power conforms to its approach to both foreign and domestic propaganda work. Like foreign propaganda, increasing soft power for the party-state involves improving international communication capabilities and is undertaken with domestic objectives in mind; like domestic propaganda work, policies designed to increase soft power are expected to balance the goal of promoting cultural creativity and variety with the goal of strengthening national cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the rise of China by exploring a number of recent popular Chinese political texts to go beyond explanations that take the international system as the level of analysis. It proposes that a merging of nationalism and geopolitical thinking is taking place, resulting in the emergence of a new form of nationalism that can be categorised as 'geopolitik nationalism' because it deploys many of the themes evident in the political thought of Germany and Japan before the two world wars. By considering the impact of such ideas, it is possible to gain new insights into recent assertive actions in Chinese foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In June 2001, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan established the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). While the immediate focus of the organization was to combat the so-called 'three evils'-ethnic separatism, religious extremism, and international terrorism-the SCO's long-term viability and effectiveness in promoting regional stability and economic development depend on how member states build up common identity and cooperate on issues of mutual concern. This article looks at China's role in initiating the Shanghai-5/SCO structure within the broader framework of Beijing's foreign and security policy interests and priorities in Central Asia and seeks to examine both the prospects for and the potential obstacles to its efforts in achieving key objectives for this new regional organization: management of ethnic and religious unrest, including the fight against terrorism and separatism; maintenance of stable borders; development of energy resources; and promotion of economic prosperity. In addition, the article will also examine the extent to which Beijing has used the opportunity to exercise leadership and whether or not China can extend its influence to Central Asia using the SCO as a vehicle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that how President Chen Shui-bian's provocative initiatives have impacted cross-strait stability since 2003 generates crucial lessons, not available in the past, for understanding the propelling and constraining dynamics of a cross-strait military conflict in the long run. The lessons are grounded in three interrelated sets of interactive logic: between the Chen Administration and the Taiwan electorate; between Taiwan people's aspiration for an exclusive national identity and their risk-averse proclivity in the face of China's military threat; and between Washington's and Beijing's acts of signaling toward Taipei. Specifically, this article demonstrates that Taiwan's voters at first backed the Chen Administration's provocative initiatives in order to seek a national identity instead of de jure independence, and that such popular support receded dramatically once such initiatives came to be perceived, amidst domestic and international developments, by the voters as drifting away from the identity quest and toward evoking their choice between the status quo and independence. The risk-averse voters turned away from the altered character of the initiatives and thus restrained the reckless politicians, largely because of both Washington's signaling which highlighted the change and the ensuing risk of war, and Beijing's refraining from saber rattling toward Taiwan. The voters' decisions foiled the 2004 and 2008 referenda, and forestalled the DPP in 2004 from acquiring a parliamentary majority necessary for legislating its provocative initiatives such as renaming the country and creating a new constitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anti-Japanese popular nationalism is rising high in China today. Little evidence to date proves that it is officially orchestrated. Nonetheless, Chinese popular nationalism still has deep roots in the state's history propaganda which has implanted pernicious myths in the national collective memory. Fueling mistrust and exacerbating a mutual threat perception, popular nationalism could be a catalyst for future Sino–Japanese conflict over the Taiwan problem, island disputes, and maritime resource competition. The increasingly liberalized but often biased Chinese media, the role of nationalist sub-elites, and the government's accommodation have all contributed to the strength of anti-Japanese nationalism, which cannot be mitigated by bilateral economic interdependence. To rid bilateral relations of the negative historical legacy, the two countries need the vision and determination to remove nationalistic myths and promote a shared history through mutual critique and self-reflection in transnational historians' dialogues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the motives behind the making of the current status-quo and risk-averse Chinese foreign policy. It identifies a three-P incentive structure that is based on the political preservation of the CCP regime, China's economic prosperity, and Beijing's pursuit of power and prestige. These three motives are stable and overlapping, featuring Taiwan and the relationship with the United States as the key issues. Beijing is expected to be motivated by these peculiar motives over the next two decades; but new internal and external developments may greatly change these motives and generate new impetus for China's foreign policy. Although the official line in Beijing is still the mild ‘peaceful development’, after a fling with the more majestic idea of ‘peaceful rise’, the rise of nationalist emotions and demands in the PRC continues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the so-called ‘military websites’ in Chinese cyberspace to examine the complexity of contemporary Chinese nationalism. By pointing out the fact that the majority of members of military websites are well educated and well informed, yet nationalistic and anti-Western, the author argues that the key factor in shaping their nationalist thinking is the formation of a new interest-driven game-playing paradigm in the past two decades which the Chinese use to interpret national policies and international relations today. Ironically, much of the new interpretative framework has been borrowed from Western concepts and ideas, including Comprehensive National Power, National Interests, and Rules of the Game. Equipped with this new paradigm to interpret the received information and look at the world, the more informed Chinese are the more nationalist they may be, as demonstrated by the responses to the plane bugging incident by Chinese net surfers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging at the turn of the twentieth century, overseas Chinese nationalism played an important part in the evolution of the overseas Chinese community and modern history of China. It is generally held that overseas Chinese nationalism had died out and had become ‘a historical phenomenon’ by the 1950s, when the China-centered allegiance of the overseas Chinese was replaced by a local-oriented identity. The fundamental change of the Chinese diasporic communities over the last two decades, however, has put this conventional wisdom into contestation. This essay is concerned with the emergence of the xin yinmin (new migrants) and corresponding manifestations of a reviving overseas Chinese nationalism since 1980. It is divided into two main parts. The first is empirical, examining the rise and characteristics of the new migrants, who are composed of four main types: students-turned-migrants, emigrating professionals, chain migrants, and illegal immigrants. The second section is conceptual and comparative, looking at the manifestations and limitations of the reviving overseas Chinese nationalism and placing them in a historical perspective. It also considers the embedded tensions between nationalism and transnationalism and the strategies employed by both the Chinese state and new migrants in tackling these tensions. I argue that there are complex reasons behind the re-emergence of overseas Chinese nationalism. From overseas, it is a by-product of the formation of sizeable new migrant communities, particularly in the West. As the first-generation immigrants who have extensive links with the homeland, they remain culturally, and often, politically, attached to China (as a nation-state and/or site of transnational imaginary) and are concerned greatly with Chinese matters. Through such intermediaries as Chinese-language newspapers, websites and TV programs, they form a borderless and imagined greater China that is bound by both the ideas of sovereignty and transnational culture. From the mainland, a series of policies relating to the Chinese overseas facilitate the connections between China and its population overseas, thus providing a potential ground for the revival of overseas Chinese nationalism. I argue that the key agendas of this reviving overseas Chinese nationalism are China's economic prosperity, cultural regeneration, and national unification. This nationalism, furthermore, is characterized by its reactive nature and embedded contradictions with the simultaneous process of transnationalism, which in turn reduces the centrality and intensity of nationalism. As a result, it is unlikely to constitute a unified ideology or a movement with centralized leadership such as that in the 1930s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the interplay between nationalism and foreign policy in China—but with a twist. It seeks to loosen up analytical categories to expand from cultural nationalism to see how civilization constructs identity in national and transnational ways. It examines the limits of Chinese trans/nationalism according to the main Chinese expression of inside/outside—‘civilization/barbarism’—as it constructs Chinese nationalism and Greater China. The purpose is to both critically examine Chinese nationalism and to trace what our focus on the nation-state obscures: namely, transnational politics. Rather than recounting one master narrative of Chinese nationalism, the essay argues that civilization and barbarian define Greater China according to four narratives—nativism, conquest, conversion and diaspora. Hence, the essay does not merely deconstruct the notion of Greater China and Chinese nationalism, but shows how these four grids of meaning can help us to understand identity politics and foreign policy debates in China. Nationalism thus turns from being the Answer about the true intent of China, to being a series of questions which define different terrains of political inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role of nationalism in shaping Chinese foreign policy in the history of contemporary China over the last 100 years. Nationalism is used here as an analytical term, rather than in the usual popular pejorative sense. By tracing the various expressions of contemporary Chinese nationalism, this article argues that nationalism is one of the key enduring driving forces which have shaped Chinese foreign policy over the period; as China increasingly integrates herself into this globalized and interdependent world and Chinese confidence grows, the current expression of Chinese nationalism is taking a more positive form, which incorporates an expanding component of internationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of Chinese nationalism is very popular--both in China and the West. This article introduces a special section of seven articles (four of which are in this issue) on 'The Limits of Chinese Nationalism', arguing that our understanding of nationalism in China is problematic. This special section aims to explore the limits of many of the statements about Chinese nationalism that have now become 'common sense': the rise of Chinese nationalism, nationalism filling an ideological vacuum, elites manipulating nationalism to gain legitimacy, and so on. Using critical IR theory this Introduction explores the concept of limits to argue that borders in China are not just territorial, but cultural, economic and thus political. It seeks to change the objective of our discussion of Chinese nationalism from seeking an Answer--either as a measure of the objective nature of Chinese nationalism or as a moral judgment of it as good or evil--to seeing 'nationalism' as a provocation which pushes us to think about China and identity in a host of different and productive ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taiwan is a mildly divided society--divided essentially along the lines of national identity. Indeed, there is no doubt that national identity is the dominant factor affecting Taiwan's mainland China policy. Other factors such as business interests and security concerns may enter the picture from time to time, but they often get bogged down in the national identity controversies. As a matter of fact, there is high correlation between people's attitudes toward business and security concerns and their positions on the national identity issue. The key to understanding Taiwan's mainland China policy is thus the distribution of voters on the national identity issue and how it is translated into the political fortunes of various political parties in the electoral game. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese practice of Marxist historical writing represents a dynamic interaction between nationalism and transnationalism. On the one hand, Chinese Marxists were attracted to the Soviet experience in applying Marxism to historical study, especially during the 1950s and the early 1960s, for the latter provided a seemingly much needed theoretical guidance. On the other hand, they attempted to circumscribe the Soviet influence in order to strike a balance between history and theory, the foreign and the indigenous, and the national and the transnational. In so doing, they turned their practice of Marxism into an interpretive, hermeneutic process, in which the temporal distance between the Marxist text and China's historical experience became recognized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]