During my six-year sojourn in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, one of the things I came away with was a sense of how generally un-nationalistic and non-patriotic the Chinese people were.
Caught up in the struggle first to simply survive and then, in the mid-90s, to try and grab onto the moving train that was China's new Great Leap into Capitalism, average mainland Chinese, whether out in the remote farmlands of western Anhui Province or in the rundown house lining the hutongs of Shanghai or Beijing, had no time for patriotic displays or nationalistic concerns.
When Chinese Communist Party leaders in Beijing would beat the drum of nationalism over Taiwanese independence efforts in the 1990s, it evoked mostly yawns among average Chinese people, and in fact, to Beijing's embarrassment, a popular computer game featured a war-game in which Taiwan defeated the People's Liberation Army.
That all started to change when the U.S., early in the first term of President George W. Bush, taunted the Chinese by flying a spy plane into Chinese airspace, damaging a Chinese fighter jet that flew up to intercept it, and getting forced down itself on Hainan Island. That incident aroused a lot of anger among ordinary Chinese who felt that the U.S. was pushing their country around, and who felt pride at their country's willingness and ability to stand tough and take the American plane hostage.
Technorati Tags: Dave Lindorff China Tibet censorship Iran George W. Bush
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