Chinese Populist Nationalism: Its Intellectual Politics and Moral Dilemma

Abstract

In light of the growth of nationalism in China during the 1990s, it should comeas no surprise that intellectuals there have vigorously debated its political meaning and signiŽ cance. From their debates has emerged a multifariouspopulist 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. Their justiŽ cation for populist nationalism is based on the argument that Chinese nationalismhas become the incarnation of the democratic process that allows the common people to join with others in forming ideals of equality and dignity in the national environment. This populist rhetoric radicalizes the emotional element in nationalist discourses and constructs nationalist politics as a fulŽ llment of the nation’s otherwise unavailable democratic public life. 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. From late 1989 to early 1992, nationalism was mainly an oYcial ideology by which the Chinese government buttressed the legitimacy of its tattered regime after the Tiananmen massacre. Throughout the second half of 1989, mainland media reiterated Deng Xiaoping’s explanation for the Tiananmen crisis: ‘‘This storm was bound to come sooner or later. This was determined by the major international climate and China’s own minor climate.’’ OYcial nationalism took a Ž rmly antagonistic stand