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China at 60 - Nationalism

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) completed 60 years on 1 October 2009. Mao Tse-tung had declared the establishment of the PRC on 1 October 1949 stating that the ‘Chinese people ha[d] stood up’. This was historic, especially in the backdrop of the civil wars which China was faced with at the time. Mao successfully established a communist state and thus, united the Chinese masses under the aegis of the communist ideology.

In the past 60 years a lot has changed within the PRC. After Deng Xiaoping came to power, he decided to open the Chinese economy to improve the situation. While Mao’s great leap forward and the Cultural Revolution had completely damaged the Chinese economy,,its opening ushered in a change in the socio-economic structure of Chinese society. Deng propagated the opening up with the use of slogans like ‘it does not matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it can catch a mouse’. Such statements indicated that there was nothing ‘wrong’ in working towards becoming rich. The more the Chinese economy opened up, the less it remained communist in appearance.

The party knew that the importance of ideology as a binding force and provider of legitimacy to the party to rule was fast eroding. Due to this they had to look for alternatives which could give them a certain amount of legitimacy to remain in power, just as their ideology had done in the past. The PRC realized that providing economic growth and a higher level of living would prevent the emergence of any kind of opposition. But the Tiananmen Square incident of May-June 1989 clearly showed that opening up the economic sphere while remaining closed and rigid in the political sphere would not prove beneficial to the party. With the passage of time ‘nationalism’ emerged as the party’s preferred choice - to be used as and when it wanted to garner the people’s support.

There have been events in the recent past which have been used by the Chinese government to further fan nationalist sentiments among the masses such as the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, the spy plane crash, Japanese text book writing, and the uprising in Tibet. Some events like the ASAT test, Beijing Olympics and the successful space walk, have all been painted as great national achievements.

An analysis of these reactions makes one feel that the PRC is treading a very thin line - while on the one hand, it provides space for such feelings to be expressed when it is beneficial; it has also been trying to curb such expression when it does not deem it fruitful. This however, can prove to be quite problematic in the future. The PRC definitely realizes this, but appears unsure about what needs to be done. It has been using public sentiment to justify some of its foreign policy objectives and convince the Chinese people that it is working towards establishing their just position in the international world order.

Even the Chinese media which is generally highly controlled is now being given some amount of freedom to get the opinions of the people and provide them an outlet. The introduction of the telephone and internet has further complicated things for the PRC because it is getting difficult for the Chinese government to trace who is writing what on the internet sites and blogs, despite the highly efficient system to monitor such activities.

Nationalism has helped Beijing further its foreign policy and other goals, directed towards achieving the ‘Great Power’ status. Any signals from the United States which have appeared to be unfavorable to China have been made public by the PRC and the consequent public sentiments have been used to make things non-negotiable. However, this is not the case when it comes to domestic politics. The rules and regulations of the PRC are seen as sacrosanct and any attempt to defy them is generally met with harsh punishment.

It would not be wrong to say that in the last six decades, the Chinese government has moved from an ideology-driven system to an economy-driven one. To sustain its legitimacy, it is using the nationalist feelings of the people. But with the ever-increasing gap between the rich and the poor, this nationalism could backfire and become a problem for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP has to constantly work towards keeping these feelings under control. It has managed to keep them under control until now, but the future course that Chinese nationalism will take, remains unclear.