Chinese Nationalism, a False Alarm for Korea-The Case of the Beijing Olympics -

Abstract

Chinese popular nationalism has been spotlighted as a source of the “China Threat” in interpreting the country’s foreign policies by China scholars, especially, so-called constructivist pessimists. However, the applicability of this interpretation is quite limited when Sino-South Korea relations are examined. Though it is true that the anti-Korean sentiment of the Chinese has seriously grown in recent years, it has not affected the government’s foreign policies to Korea. On the contrary, it has been played down or counter-balanced by the government, its media, and academics of China, as the period around the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when negative feelings surged, clearly illustrates. Chinese nationalism is not a threat to South Korea and cannot be generalized as a variable explaining Chinese foreign policies.