Shame! Shame! Shame on China! -- China's new nationalists revealed
International Herald Tribune
China's new nationalists revealed
Monday, April 21, 2008
revealed
As the Summer Olympics approach, some disturbing aspects of contem****ary
China are coming into view. A worldwide audience has learned what human
rights activists have long known about Beijing's complicity with
dictator****ps in Sudan and Burma.
The Chinese Communists' harsh repression in Tibet sparked protests along
the route of the Olympic torch relay and on college campuses.
And as China spreads blatant lies that the Dalai Lama is inciting
violence in Tibet, the government's campaign to keep the Olympics free
from politics looks like an excuse for imposing on the rest of the world
the sort of censor****p that prevails inside China.
There has also been a less obvious revelation: an increasingly zealous
nationalism among Chinese youth. This mood of patriotic passion can be
seen in counter-demonstrations organized by Chinese student associations
in the United States against sup****ters of a free Tibet.
It is no less striking in Internet imprecations fired off not only
against Tibetan "splittists" but also against the rare Chinese student
who dares to call for mutual understanding between Chinese and Tibetans.
This kind of witch-hunting occurred at Duke University last week, when a
20-year-old freshman from mainland China tried to encourage dialogue
between a large group of Chinese student demonstrators and a smaller
group of Tibetans and their sup****ters holding a vigil for human rights.
She was vilified as a traitor. Her personal information was released
into cyberspace. Hundreds of thousands of angry and threatening posts
appeared on Chinese Web sites. Her parents back in China were threatened
and had to go into hiding for their own safety.
It is not easy to determine how much of this nationalistic frenzy may
have been fostered and organized by Chinese Communist officials and how
much is attributable to the sort of high-spirited group pride common to
the youth of other nations.
The Beijing authorities eased up on their restriction of online forums
as they observed the patriotic tenor of reactions to foreign criticism.
There is a crucial distinction between a healthy, constructive
nationalism and the pathological variety that Hitler sought to inject
into the Berlin Olympics of 1936.
Nevertheless, the nationalistic vehemence that has come into view this
spring among China's best and brightest is a troubling phenomenon.
It suggests that nationalism has replaced Maoism or Marxism as the
legitimating credo of China rulers - and that the critical spirit
defining the Tiananmen protests of 1989 has given way in some quarters
to an emotional identification with the ancient idols of blood and soil.
International Herald Tribune Copyright
2008 The International Herald Tribune
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