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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]

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]

The purpose of this study is to explore how nationalism shapes the public perception of multinational corporations' crises on Chinese social media. Using qualitative content analysis, this study examines 1000 public comments from the top 10 hashtag posts and explores the interaction between nationalist expression (i.e., content and sentiment of nationalism) and the public's perception of the United Airlines crisis in 2017. The findings demonstrate how nationalist content impinged upon the interpretation of United Airlines' misconduct. Six concrete emotions (anger, hared, amusement, pride, encouragement, and disgust) were identified from the sample comments, which were categorized into inward-directed and outward-directed nationalist sentiments. Given the findings, this study argues that nationalist expression has driven the evolution of the United Airlines crisis beyond the discussion of organizational misconduct. While inward-directed sentiment served to strengthen the Chinese public's national identity, outward-directed sentiment was utilized to exclude multinational corporations as "out-groups." The theoretical and practical implications are also discussed. • Nationalism provokes an emotional rather than rational understanding of organizational crises. • Inward-directed nationalist sentiments served to strengthen the Chinese public's national identity. • Outward-directed nationalist sentiments were utilized to exclude multinational corporations as "out-groups". • Nationalist sentiments as permanent emotions can lead to the public's emotional-based coping of organizational crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]