Chinese nationalism
Chinese nationalism is a form of nationalism in both mainland China and Taiwan which asserts that the Chinese people are a nation and promotes the cultural and national unity of all Chinese people. It is significantly distinct from Han nationalism, a sense of jingoism that is felt by purely Han Chinese people who deem themselves superior to other existing ethnicities in China.
Chinese nationalism emerged in the late Qing dynasty in response to the humiliating defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War and the invasion and pillaging of Beijing by Eight-Nation Alliance. In both cases, the aftermath forced China to pay financial reparations and grant special privileges to foreigners. The nationwide image of China as a superior Celestial Empire at the center of the universe was shattered, and last-minute efforts to modernize and strengthen the old system were unsuccessful. These last-minute efforts were best exemplified by Liang Qichao, a Qing Dynasty reformer who failed to reform the Qing government in 1896 and was later expelled to Japan, where he began work on his ideas of Chinese nationalism.
The effects of World War I continually shaped Chinese nationalism. Despite joining the Allied Powers, China was again severely humiliated by the Versailles Treaty of 1919 which transferred the special privileges given to Germany to the Empire of Japan. This resulted in the May Fourth Movement of 1919, which developed into nationwide protests that saw a surge of Chinese nationalism. Large-scale military campaigns led by the Kuomintang during the Warlord Era that overpowered provincial warlords and sharply reduced special privileges for foreigners helped further strengthen and aggrandize a sense of Chinese national identity.
After Imperial Japan was defeated in World War II, Chinese nationalism again gained tract as China recovered lost territories previously lost to Japan, including Manchuria and Taiwan. However, the Chinese Civil War, had resumed, damaging the image of a unified Chinese identity. The Communists were victorious in 1949, as the Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan. Under Mao Zedong, the Chinese Communist Party began to employ Chinese nationalism as a political tool. Using Chinese nationalism, the Chinese Communist Party began to suppress separatism and secessionist attitudes in Tibet and among the Uyghurs, a Turkic minority in the far-west province of Xinjiang, an issue that persists.
Populist nationalism has become a major factor in domestic and foreign policy in Modern China, and has seen a significant increase under Xi Jinping, who became the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China in 2012, and later the President of the People's Republic of China in 2013.
National consciousness
There have been versions of a Chinese state for around 4,000 years. The Chinese concept of the world was largely a division between the civilized world and the barbarian world and there was little concept of the belief that Chinese interests were served by a powerful Chinese state. Commenter Lucian Pye has argued that the modern "nation state" is fundamentally different from a traditional empire, and argues that dynamics of the current People's Republic of China – a concentration of power at a central point of authority – share an essential similarity with the Ming and Qing Empires. Chinese nationalism as it emerged in the early 20th century was based on the experience of European nationalism, especially as viewed and interpreted by Sun Yat-sen. The key factor in European nationalism was tradition – some of the newly manufactured – of a cultural identity based primarily on language and ethnicity. Chinese nationalism was rooted in the long historic tradition of China as the center of the world, in which all other states were offshoots and owed some sort of deference. That sense of superiority underwent a series of terrible shocks in the 19th century, including large-scale internal revolts, and more grievously the systematic gaining and removal of special rights and privileges by foreign nations, led by Britain, France, Russia, and Japan, who proved over and over again their military superiority, based on modern technology that was lacking in China. It was a matter of humiliation one after another, the loss of faith in the Manchu Dynasty. The most dramatic watershed came in 1900, in the wake of the invasion, capture, and pillaging of the national capital by an eight-nation coalition that punished China for the Boxer Rebellion. Ethnic nationalism was, in any case, unacceptable to the ruling Manchu elitethey were foreigners who conquered China and maintained their own language and traditions. Most citizens had multiple identities, of which the locality was more important than the nation as a whole. Anyone who wanted to rise in government Non-military service had to be immersed in Confucian classics, and pass a very difficult test. If accepted, they would be rotated around the country, so the bureaucrats did not identify with the locality. The depth of two-way understanding and trust developed by European political leaders and their followers did not exist.Ideological sources
The discussion of modern Chinese nationalism has dominated many political and intellectual debates since the late nineteenth century. Political scientist Suisheng Zhao argues that nationalism in China is not monolithic but exists in various forms, including political, liberal, ethnical, and state nationalism. Over the first half of the twentieth century, Chinese nationalism has constituted a crucial part of many political ideologies, including the anti-Manchuism during the 1911 Revolution, the anti-imperialist sentiment of the May Fourth Movement in 1919, and the Maoist thoughts that guided the Communist Revolution in 1949. The origin of modern Chinese nationalism can be traced back to the intellectual debate on race and nation in late nineteenth century. Shaped by the global discourse of social Darwinism, reformers and intellectuals debated how to build a new Chinese national subject based on a proper racial order, particularly the Man-Han relations. After the collapse of the Qing regime and the founding of the Republic of China in 1911, concerns of both domestic and international threat made the role of racism decline, while anti-imperialism became the new dominant ideology of Chinese nationalism over the 1910s. While intellectuals and elites advocated their distinctive thoughts on Chinese nationalism, political scientist Chalmers Johnson has pointed out that most of these ideas had very little to do with China's majority population -- the Chinese peasantry. He thus proposes to supplement the Chinese communist ideology in the discussion of Chinese nationalism, which he labels "peasant nationalism."Chinese nationalism in the early twentieth century was primarily based on anti-Manchurism, an ideology that was prevalent among Chinese revolutionaries from late nineteenth century to the turn of the twentieth century. After Qing's defeat in the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, reformers and intellectuals debated how to strengthen the nation, the discussion of which centered on the issue of race. Liang Qichao, a late Qing reformist who participated in the Hundred Days' Reform of 1898, contended that the boundary between Han and Man must be erased. Liang's thought was based on the idea of racial competition, a concept originating from social Darwinism that believed only superior races would survive whereas the inferior races were bound to extinct. Liang attributed the decline of China to the Manchu rulers, who treated the Han as an "alien race" and imposed a racial hierarchy between the Han and the Manchus while ignoring the threat of imperial powers. Liang's critique of the Qing court and the Man-Han relations laid the foundation for anti-Manchuism, an ideology that early Republican revolutionaries advocated in their efforts to overthrow the Qing dynasty and found a new Republic. In his writing “Revolutionary Army,” Zou Rong, an active Chinese revolutionary at the turn of the twentieth century, demanded a revolution education for the Han people who were suffering from the oppression of the Manchu rule. He argued that China should be a nation of the orthodox Han Chinese and no alien race shall rule over them. According to Zou, the Han Chinese, as the descendants of the Yellow Emperor, must overthrow the Manchu rule to restore their legitimacy and rights. Wang Jingwei, a Chinese revolutionary who later became an important figure in the Kuomintang, also believed that the Manchus were an inferior race. Wang contended that a state consisting of a single race would be superior to those multiracial ones. Most of the Republican revolutionaries agreed that preserving the race was vital to the survival of the nation. Since the Han had asserted its dominant role in Chinese nationalism, the Manchus had to be either absorbed or eradicated. Historian Prasenjit Duara summarized this by stating that the Republican revolutionaries primarily drew on the international discourse of "racist evolutionism" to envision a "racially purified China."
After the 1911 Revolution, Sun Yat-sen established the Republic of China, the national flag of which contained five colors with each symbolizing a major racial ethnicity of China. This marked a shift from the earlier discourse of radical racism and assimilation of the non-Han groups to the political autonomy of the five races. The rhetorical move, as China historian Joseph Esherick points out, was based on the practical concerns of both imperial threats from the international environment and conflicts on the Chinese frontiers. While both Japan and Russia were encroaching China, the newly born republic also faced ethnic movements in Mongolia and Tibet which claimed themselves to be part of the Qing Empire rather than the Republic of China. Pressured by both domestic and international problems, the fragile Republican regime decided to maintain the borders of the Qing Empire to keep its territories intact. With the increasing threat from the imperialist powers in the 1910s, anti-imperialist sentiments started to grow and spread in China. An ideal of "a morally just universe," anti-imperialism made racism appear shameful and thus took over its dominant role in the conceptualization of Chinese nationalism. Yet racism never perished. Instead, it was embedded by other social realms, including the discourse of eugenics and racial hygiene.
In addition to anti-Manchurism and anti-imperialism, political scientist Chalmers Johnson has argued that the rise of power of the Chinese Communist Party through its alliance with the peasantry should also be understood as "a species of nationalism." Johnson observes that social mobilization, a force that unites people to form a political community together, is the "primary tool" for conceptualizing nationalism. In the context of social mobilization, Chinese nationalism only fully emerged during the Second Sino-Japanese War, when the CCP mobilized the peasantry to fight against the Japanese invaders. Johnson contends that early nationalism of the Kuomintang was quite similar to the late nineteenth-century nationalism in Europe, as both referred to the search for their national identities and positions in the modern world by the intelligentsia. He argues that nationalism constructed by the intellectuals is not identical to nationalism based on mass mobilization, as the nationalist movements led by the Kuomintang, as well as the May Fourth Movement in 1919, were not mass movements because their participants were only a small proportion of the society where the peasants were simply absent. When the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, the CCP began to mobilize the Chinese peasantry through mass propaganda of national salvation Johnson observed that the primary shift of the CCP's post-1937 propaganda was its focus on the discourse of national salvation and the temporary retreat of its Communist agenda on class struggle and land redistribution. The wartime alliance of the Chinese peasantry and the CCP manifests how the nationalist ideology of the CCP, or the peasant nationalism, reinforced the desire of the Chinese to save and build a strong nation.
Ethnicity
Defining the relationship between ethnicity and the Chinese identity has been a very complex issue throughout Chinese history. In the 17th century, with the help of Ming Chinese rebels, the Manchus conquered China proper and set up the Qing dynasty. Over the next centuries, they would incorporate groups such as the Tibetans, the Mongols, and the Uyghurs into territories which they controlled. The Manchus were faced with the issue of maintaining loyalty among the people they ruled while at the same time maintaining a distinctive identity. The main method by which they accomplished control of the Chinese heartland was by portraying themselves as enlightened Confucian sages part of whose goal was to preserve and advance Chinese civilization. Over the course of centuries the Manchus were gradually assimilated into the Chinese culture and eventually many Manchus identified themselves as a people of China.The complexity of the relationship between ethnicity and the Chinese identity is best exemplified during the Taiping rebellion in which the rebels fought fiercely against the Manchus on the ground that they were barbarian foreigners while at the same time others fought just as fiercely on behalf of the Manchus on the grounds that they were the preservers of traditional Chinese values. It was during this time that the concept of Han Chinese came into existence as a means of describing the majority of Chinese ethnicity due to sinicization in early Chinese history.
In 1909, the Law of Nationality of Great Qing was published by the Manchu government, which defined Chinese with the following rules: 1) born in China while his/her father is a Chinese; 2) born after his/her father's death while his/her father is a Chinese at his death; 3) his/her mother is a Chinese while his/her father's nationality is unclear or stateless.
In 1919, the May Fourth Movement grew out of student protests to the Treaty of Versailles, especially its terms allowing Japan to keep territories surrendered by Germany after the Siege of Tsingtao, and spurned upsurges of Chinese nationalism amongst the protests.
The official Chinese nationalistic view in the 1920s and 1930s was heavily influenced by modernism and social Darwinism, and included advocacy of the cultural assimilation of ethnic groups in the western and central provinces into the "culturally advanced" Han state, to become in name as well as in fact members of the Chinese nation. Furthermore, it was also influenced by the fate of multi-ethnic states such as Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. It also became a very powerful force during the Japanese occupation of Coastal China during the 1930s and 1940s and the atrocities committed then.
Over the next decades, Chinese nationalism was influenced strongly by Russian ethnographic thinking, and the official ideology of the PRC asserts that China is a multi-ethnic state, and Han Chinese, despite being the overwhelming majority, they are only one of many ethnic groups of China, each of whose culture and language should be respected. However, many critics argue that despite this official view, assimilationist attitudes remain deeply entrenched, and popular views and actual power relationships create a situation in which Chinese nationalism has in practice meant Han dominance of minority areas and peoples and assimilation of those groups.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Chinese nationalism within mainland China became mixed with the rhetoric of Marxism, and nationalistic rhetoric become in large part subsumed into internationalist rhetoric. On the other hand, Chinese nationalism in Taiwan was primarily about preserving the ideals and lineage of Sun Yat-sen, the party he founded, the Kuomintang, and anti-Communism. While the definition of Chinese nationalism differed in the Republic of China and PRC, both were adamant in claiming Chinese territories such as Senkaku Islands.
In the 1990s, rising economic standards, the dissolution of Soviet Union, and the lack of any other legitimizing ideology has led to what most observers see as a resurgence of nationalism within Mainland China.
Ethnic minorities
Chinese Muslims and Uighurs
Chinese Muslims have played an important role in Chinese nationalism. Chinese Muslims, known as Hui people, are a mixture of the descendants of foreign Muslims like Arabs and Persians, mixed with Han Chinese who converted to Islam. Chinese Muslims are sinophones, speaking Chinese and practicing Confucianism.Hu Songshan, a Muslim Imam from Ningxia, was a Chinese nationalist and preached Chinese nationalism and unity of all Chinese people, and also against imperialism and foreign threats. He even ordered the Chinese Flag to be saluted during prayer, and that all Imams in Ningxia preach Chinese nationalism. Hu Songshan led the Ikhwan, the Chinese Muslim Brotherhood, which became a Chinese nationalist, patriotic organization, stressing education and independence of the individual. Hu Songhan also wrote a prayer in Arabic and Chinese, praying for Allah to support the Chinese Kuomintang government and defeat Japan. Hu Songshan also cited a Hadith, a saying of the prophet Muhammad, which says "Loving the Motherland is equivalent to loving the Faith". Hu Songshan harshly criticized those who were non-patriotic and those who taught anti-nationalist thinking, saying that they were fake Muslims.
Ma Qixi was a Muslim reformer, leader of the Xidaotang, and he taught that Islam could only be understood by using Chinese culture such as Confucianism. He read classic Chinese texts and even took his cue from Laozi when he decided to go on Hajj to Mecca.
Ma Fuxiang, a Chinese Muslim general and Kuomintang member, was another Chinese nationalist. Ma Fuxiang preached unity of all Chinese people, and even non-Han Chinese people such as Tibetans and Mongols to stay in China. He proclaimed that Mongolia and Tibet were part of the Republic of China, and not independent countries. Ma Fuxiang was loyal to the Chinese government, and crushed Muslim rebels when ordered to. Ma Fuxiang believed that modern education would help Hui Chinese build a better society and help China resist foreign imperialism and help build the nation. He was praised for his "guojia yizhi" by non-Muslims. Ma Fuxiang also published many books, and wrote on Confucianism and Islam, having studied both the Quran and the Spring and Autumn Annals.
Ma Fuxiang had served under the Chinese Muslim general Dong Fuxiang, and fought against the foreigners during the Boxer Rebellion. The Muslim unit he served in was noted for being anti-foreign, being involved in shooting a Westerner and a Japanese to death before the Boxer Rebellion broke out. It was reported that the Muslim troops were going to wipe out the foreigners to return a golden age for China, and the Muslims repeatedly attacked foreign churches, railways, and legations, before hostilities even started. The Muslim troops were armed with modern repeater rifles and artillery, and reportedly enthusiastic about going on the offensive and killing foreigners. Ma Fuxiang led an ambush against the foreigners at Langfang and inflicted many casualties, using a train to escape. Dong Fuxiang was a xenophobe and hated foreigners, wanting to drive them out of China.
Various Muslim organizations in China like China Islamic Association and the Chinese Muslim Association were sponsored by the Kuomintang.
Chinese Muslim imams had synthesized Islam and Confucianism in the Han Kitab. They asserted that there was no contradiction between Confucianism and Islam, and no contradiction between being a Chinese national and a Muslim. Chinese Muslim students returning from study abroad, from places such as Al-Azhar University in Egypt, learned about nationalism and advocated Chinese nationalism at home. One Imam, Wang Jingzhai, who studied at Mecca, translated a Hadith, or saying of Muhammad, "Aiguo Aijiao"- loving the country is equivalent to loving the faith. Chinese Muslims believed that their "Watan" lit=country; homeland was the whole of the Republic of China, non-Muslims included.
General Bai Chongxi, the warlord of Guangxi, and a member of the Kuomintang, presented himself as the protector of Islam in China and harbored Muslim intellectuals fleeing from the Japanese invasion in Guangxi. General Bai preached Chinese nationalism and anti-imperialism. Chinese Muslims were sent to Saudi Arabia and Egypt to denounce the Japanese. Translations from Egyptian writings and the Quran were used to support propaganda in favour of a Jihad against Japan.
Ma Bufang, a Chinese Muslim general who was part of the Kuomintang, supported Chinese nationalism and tolerance between the different Chinese ethnic groups. The Japanese attempted to approach him however their attempts at gaining his support were unsuccessful. Ma Bufang presented himself as a Chinese nationalist to the people of China, fighting against British Imperialism, to deflect criticism by opponents that his government was feudal and oppressed minorities like Tibetans and Buddhist Mongols. He presented himself as a Chinese nationalist to his advantage to keep himself in power as noted by the author Erden.
In Xinjiang, the Chinese Muslim general Ma Hushan supported Chinese nationalism. He was chief of the 36th Division of the National Revolutionary Army. He spread anti-Soviet, and anti-Japanese propaganda, and instituted a colonial regime over the Uighurs. Uighur street names and signs were changed to Chinese, and the Chinese Muslim troops imported Chinese cooks and baths, rather than using Uighur ones. The Chinese Muslims even forced the Uighur carpet industry at Khotan to change its design to Chinese versions. Ma Hushan proclaimed his loyalty to Nanjing, denounced Sheng Shicai as a Soviet puppet, and fought against Soviet invasion in 1937.
The Tungans had anti-Japanese sentiment.
General Ma Hushan's brother Ma Zhongying denounced separatism in a speech at Id Kah Mosque and told the Uighurs to be loyal to the Chinese government at Nanjing. The 36th division had crushed the Turkish Islamic Republic of East Turkestan, and the Chinese Muslim general Ma Zhancang beheaded the Uighur emirs Abdullah Bughra and Nur Ahmad Jan Bughra. Ma Zhancang abolished the Islamic Sharia law which was set up by the Uighurs, and set up military rule instead, retaining the former Chinese officials and keeping them in power. The Uighurs had been promoting Islamism in their separatist government, but Ma Hushan eliminated religion from politics. Islam was barely mentioned or used in politics or life except as a vague spiritual focus for unified opposition against the Soviet Union.
The Uighur warlord Yulbars Khan was pro-China and supported the Republic of China. The Uighur politician Masud Sabri served as the Governor of Xinjiang Province from 1947 to 1949.
Tibetans
, a Tibetan politician, founded the Tibet Improvement Party with the goal of modernisation and integration of Tibet into the Republic of China.The 9th Panchen Lama, Thubten Choekyi Nyima, was considered extremely "pro-Chinese", according to official Chinese sources.
Mongols
Many of the Chinese troops used to occupy Mongolia in 1919 were Chahar Mongols, which has been a major cause for animosity between Khalkhas and Inner Mongols.In Taiwan
One common goal of current Chinese nationalists is the unification of mainland China and Taiwan. While this was the commonly stated goal of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China before 1991, both sides differed sharply in the form of unification due to obvious and salient differences in political ideology.In Taiwan there is a general consensus to support the status quo of Taiwan's de facto independence as a separate nation. Despite this, the relationship between Chinese nationalism and Taiwan remains controversial, involving symbolic issues such as the use of "The Republic of China" as the official name of the government on Taiwan and the use of the word "China" in the name of Government-owned corporations. Broadly speaking, there is little support in Taiwan for unification. Overt support for formal independence is also muted due to the PRC's insistence on military action should Taiwan make such a formal declaration. The argument against unification is partly over culture and whether democratic Taiwanese should see themselves as Chinese or Taiwanese; and partly over mistrust of the authoritarian Chinese Communist Party, its human rights record, and its de-democratizing actions in Hong Kong. These misgivings are particularly prevalent amongst younger generations of Taiwanese, who generally view both the CPC and the KMT as obsolete and consider themselves to have little or no connection to China, whose government they perceive as a foreign aggressor.
Overseas Chinese
Chinese nationalism has had mutable relationships with Chinese living outside of Mainland China and Taiwan. Overseas Chinese were strong supporters of the Xinhai Revolution.After decolonization, overseas Chinese were encouraged to regard themselves as citizens of their adopted nations rather than as part of the Chinese nationality. As a result, ethnic Chinese in Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia have sharply divided the concept of ethnic Chinese from the concept of "political Chinese" and have explicitly rejected being part of the Chinese nationality.
During the 1960s, the People's Republic of China and Republic of China maintained different attitudes toward overseas Chinese. In the eyes of the PRC government, overseas Chinese were considered capitalist agents; in addition, the PRC government also thought that maintaining good relations with southeast Asian governments was more important than maintaining the support of overseas Chinese. By contrast, the ROC desired good relations with overseas Chinese as part of an overall strategy to avoid diplomatic isolation and maintain its claim to be the sole legitimate government of China.
With the reforms under Deng Xiaoping, the PRC's attitude toward overseas Chinese became much more favourable, and overseas Chinese were seen as a source of capital and expertise. In the 1990s, the PRC's efforts toward overseas Chinese became mostly focused on maintaining the loyalty of "newly departed overseas Chinese", which consisted of mostly graduate students having emigrated, mostly to the United States. Now, there are summer camps in which overseas Chinese youths may attend to learn first-hand about Chinese culture. In 2013, "100 overseas Chinese youth embarked on their root-seeking journey in Hunan." Textbooks for Chinese schools are distributed by the government of the People's Republic of China.
Opposition
In addition to the Taiwan independence movement, Hong Kong independence movement and Japanese nationalism, there are a number of ideologies which exist in opposition to Chinese nationalism.Some opponents have asserted that Chinese nationalism is inherently backward and is therefore incompatible with a modern state. Some claim that Chinese nationalism is actually a manifestation of beliefs in Han Chinese ethnic superiority, though this is hotly debated. While opponents have argued that reactionary nationalism is evidence of Chinese insecurity or immaturity and that it is both unnecessary and embarrassing to a powerful nation, Chinese nationalists assert that Chinese nationalism was in many ways a result of Western imperialism and is fundamental to the founding of a modern Chinese state that is free from foreign domination. Certain Japanese nationalist groups are anti-Chinese.
Northern and Southern
Edward Friedman has argued that there is a northern governmental, political, bureaucratic Chinese nationalism that is at odds with a southern, commercial Chinese nationalism. This division is rejected by most Chinese and many non-Chinese scholars, who believe that Friedman has overstated the differences between the north and the south, and point out that the divisions within Chinese society do not fall neatly into "north-south" divisions.For example, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party, known as the father of modern China, was a southern Chinese with Cantonese-Hakka ancestry. He advocated pan-Han Chinese nationalism against the ruling Manchu-led Qing dynasty and was influential in the overthrow of the Qing dynasty. He is widely revered in both mainland China and Taiwan regardless of northern or southern orientation.
Populism
During the 1990s, Chinese intellectuals have vigorously debated the political meaning and significance of the rising nationalism in China. From their debates has emerged a multifarious populist nationalism which argues that anti-imperialist nationalism in China has provided a valuable public space for popular participation outside the country's political institutions and that nationalist sentiments under the postcolonial condition represent a democratic form of civic activity. Advocates of this theory promote nationalism as an ideal of populist politics and as an embodiment of the democratic legitimacy that resides in the will of the people.Populist nationalism is a comparatively late development in Chinese nationalism of the 1990s. It began to take recognizable shape after 1996, as a joint result of the evolving nationalist thinking of the early 1990s and the ongoing debates on modernity, postmodernism, postcolonialism, and their political implications-debates that have engaged many Chinese intellectuals since early 1995.
Modern times
The end of the Cold War has seen the revival throughout the world of nationalist sentiments and aspirations. However, nationalist sentiment is not the sole province of the CPC. One remarkable phenomenon in the post-Cold War upsurge of Chinese nationalism is that Chinese intellectuals became one of the driving forces. Many well-educated people-social scientists, humanities scholars, writers, and other professionals have given voice to and even become articulators for rising nationalistic discourse in the 1990s. Some commentators have proposed that "positive nationalism" could be an important unifying factor for the country as it has been for other countries. China has also pursued ethno-nationalist policies aimed at appealing to its diaspora abroad.As an indication of the popular and intellectual origins of recent Chinese nationalist sentiment, all coauthors of China Can Say No, the first in a string of defiant rebuttals to American imperialism, are college educated, and most are self-employed.
Chinese nationalism targets against two major groups: Japan, which invaded China in 1931–1945, and Secessionism like Tibetan independence, Xinjiang independence, Taiwanese independence, Hong Kong independence, occasionally Mongolian independence, and their supporters like US and India. Chinese nationalists deem Taiwanese separatists, Hong Kong separatists, and other similar independence groups in China as hanjian.
In the 21st century, notable spurs of grassroots Chinese nationalism grew from what the Chinese saw as the marginalization of their country from Japan and the Western world. The Japanese history textbook controversies, as well as Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni Shrine was the source of considerable anger on Chinese blogs. In addition, the protests following the 2008 Tibetan unrest of the Olympic torch has gathered strong opposition within the Chinese community inside China and abroad. Almost every Tibetan protest on the Olympic torch route was met with a considerable pro-China protest. Because the 2008 Summer Olympics were a major source of national pride, anti-Olympics sentiments are often seen as anti-Chinese sentiments inside China. Moreover, the Sichuan earthquake in 2008 sparked a high sense of nationalism from the Chinese at home and abroad. The central government's quick response to the disaster was instrumental in galvanizing general support from the population amidst harsh criticism directed towards China's handling of the Lhasa riots only two months previously. In 2005, anti-Japanese demonstrations were held throughout Asia as a result of events such as the Japanese history textbook controversies. In 2012, Chinese people in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan held anti-Japanese protests due to the escalating Senkaku Islands dispute.
Another example of modern nationalism in China is the Hanfu movement, which is a Chinese movement in the early 21st century that seeks the revival of Chinese traditional clothing. Some elements of the movement take inspiration from the use of indigenous clothing by ethnic minorities in China, as well as the usage of kimono in Japan and traditional clothing used in India. Credit Suisse has determines through a survey that young Chinese consumers are turning to local brands as a result of growing nationalism. In extreme cases, some Chinese have questioned whether or not Chinese companies are actually Chinese.
Internet vigilantism
Since the state-controlled media has control over most media outlets, the Internet is one of the rare places where Chinese nationalists can freely express their feelings. While the government is known for shutting down controversial blogs, it is impossible to completely censor the Internet and all websites that may be deemed controversial. Chinese Internet users frequently write nationalistic topics online on websites such as Tianya.cn. Some web-based media such as a webcomic named Year Hare Affair also features nationalistic ideas. Many nationalists look for news of people whom they consider to be traitors to China, such as the incident with Grace Wang from Duke University, a Chinese girl who allegedly tried to appease to both sides during the debate about Tibet before the 2008 Summer Olympics. She was labeled as a traitor by online Internet vigilantes, and even had her home back in Qingdao, China, desecrated. Her parents had to hide for a while before the commotion died down.In response to protests during the 2008 Olympic Torch Relay and accusations of bias from the western media, Chinese blogs, forums and websites became filled with nationalistic material, while flash counter-protests were generated through electronic means, such as the use of SMS and IM. One such site, Anti-CNN, claimed that news channels such as CNN and BBC only reported selectively, and only provided a one-sided argument regarding the 2008 Tibetan unrest. Chinese hackers have claimed to have attacked the CNN website numerous times, through the use of DDoS attacks. Similarly, the Yasukuni Shrine website was hacked by Chinese hackers during late 2004, and another time on 24 December 2008.