Search

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]

This study looks at the sources of anti-Japanese sentiment in today's China. Using original survey data collected in June 2014 from 1,458 students at three elite universities in Beijing, we quantitatively investigate which factors are associated with stronger anti-Japanese sentiment among elite university students. In particular, we examine the link between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s nationalist propaganda (especially patriotic education) and university students' anti-Japanese sentiment. We find that nationalist propaganda does indeed have a significant effect on negative sentiment towards Japan. Reliance on state-sanctioned textbooks for information about Japan, visiting museums and memorials or watching television programmes and movies relating to the War of Resistance against Japan are all associated with higher levels of anti-Japanese sentiment. The findings suggest the effectiveness of nationalist propaganda in promoting anti-Japanese sentiment. We also find that alternative sources of information, especially personal contact with Japan, can mitigate anti-Japanese sentiment. Thus, visiting Japan and knowing Japanese people in person can potentially offset some of the influences of nationalist propaganda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the ideological meanings of select visual images in Hong Kong’s national anthem TV announcements in the public interest (API) series ‘One Home and One Country’, which aimed to promote patriotism and enhance nationalism among Hong Kong people after 1997. Using semiology, the author decodes all the visual content and technical aspects of the four series that were broadcast between 2004 and 2007. Through content analysis, he examines the embedded messages by counting and analysing the frequency of the signified meanings of the visual elements, which are highly selective and depoliticised to reinforce re-sinicisation. The series intentionally displayed the visual spectacles of a modernised China, traditional values and culture, and national achievement. By minimising the presence of political elements, the Hong Kong SAR government branded and built a positive image of the People’s Republic of China and encouraged Hong Kong people to unconsciously accept their national identity and pride. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since China implemented animation control policies in 2004, foreign animation programmes have almost disappeared from Chinese television. At the same time, the Chinese government has invested enormous amounts of money in developing the animation industry as a creative industry. A questionnaire survey was conducted to explore how the Chinese audience views domestic and foreign animation programmes. The results indicate that pirated Japanese animation is widely viewed via the Internet by adolescents; on the other hand, domestic animation is popular only among children. Preferences for domestic animation correlate positively with age and patriotism but negatively with Internet use, while preferences for Japanese animation correlate negatively with age and patriotism but positively with Internet use. These results show that nationalistic sentiments are associated with preferences for either domestic or foreign animation programmes. However, preferences for Japanese animation are not significantly associated with anti-government attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article reexamines the relationship between the May Fourth Movement and warlordism by questioning the long-held assumption that the movement was from its inception as anti-warlord as it was anti-imperialist. In particular, it shows that popular nationalism before and at the beginning of the May Fourth Movement received continual support from many provincial warlords under and beyond the nominal control of the Beijing government. It demonstrates how and why these provincial warlords endorsed the patriotism of the movement at the national and international levels, even as they suppressed radical protests in their political domains. This analysis uncovers the long-obscured fact that the May Fourth Movement succeeded with crucial support from such provincial warlords because of its broad nationalism and the disunity of warlord politics. This rediscovery also reveals how military involvement in the movement changed the trajectory of both warlord politics and anti-warlordism in modern China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is about the development of baseball in Taiwan, and how it has been connected with Taiwan's entangled history of Japanese colonization, the Chinese Nationalist's authoritarian rule, the ethnically stratified social structure, and the emergence of the Taiwanese identity. Baseball was foreign to Taiwan when it was first introduced to the island. The sport then crossed the ethnic and class boundary between the Japanese colonizer and the Taiwanese islander in the 1920s, later the Taiwanese natives and the Chinese mainlanders in the 1970s, and in turn became a symbol of Taiwanese nationalism. This article argues that baseball does not circulate a fixed meaning as it travels to different places. The story of Taiwanese baseball indicates the interpenetration of colonialism, class, ethnicity, and nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the rise of the True Jesus Church (TJC) as part of an emerging indigenous Chinese Christianity. Begun in 1917 under the influence of American Pentecostalism, the TJC developed into a lively popular sect with more than a million members by the 1990s. The birth of this independent and often antiforeign group coincided with, and was aided by, the surge of patriotism in the early Republican period and arguably constituted a religious expression of Chinese nationalism. More importantly, the TJC—with its messianic proclamations and bold displays of Pentecostal power—helped shape a twentieth-century Protestant millenarian movement in China amidst political disintegration, foreign aggression, and widespread suffering. Its growth signaled an evolution of popular religion in which Christianity joined local beliefs in supplying the core ideology of sectarian movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores how humiliation has been an integral part of the construction of nationalism in China. Social theory; Domestic and international political consequences of the deployment of shame and humiliation; National insecurities in China.