Baogang He - Nationalism, National Identity and Democratization in China

A booming Chinese economy has fuelled speculations about the potential global impact of a new giant emerging on the world stage in the 21st century - a Greater China whose territory stretches over the PRC, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and ethnic communities in the Chinese Diaspora, and which is presumed to be permeated or underpinned by some essential Chineseness or pan-Chinese nationalism. At the same time, there is speculation about what is seen as a national identity crisis. Some ethnic groups in the PRC do not, for example, identify themselves as Chinese and demand independence. Some in Taiwan are actively involved in constructing a separate identity, thereby undermining the Pan-Chinese identity. Not only do these ethno-national movements represent the people and offer evidence of their ability to develop their culture and identity, and demonstrate the growing demand for new rights, such as the right to be different and the right to control a specific living space, but they also raise the question of whether or not China will disintegrate, as happened in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Ethiopia and elsewhere. They also highlight the multi-faceted and interrelated nature of the national identity problem. For instance, in the case of Tibet, the national identity question is one concerned with an awakening nation without a state. For China, on the other hand, it is to develop a new set of national identities strong enough to maintain and expand the Chinese nation state, while for Taiwan, it is focused on the issue of independence ().

A number of serious questions are raised through a consideration of the national identity problem in the context of China. What does it mean, for example, to be Chinese? Is there a national identity crisis in China? What is the new Chinese nation being imagined by Chinese historians and the literati? Who is imagining the nation? Who is included or excluded? What is this new nation like? Where is the nation going? What transpires in the transformation of national identity? How does the new imagined community, and the imagining of it, exert pressure on the Party-state? How does the government respond to pan-Chinese nationalism? How does a monolithic political structure respond to problems of national identity, and what effects does suppression have on national identity? How does the government try to dissolve anti-Han sentiment among minority groups through a new ideology of nationalism? How do economic reforms impact on national identity and the unity of the Chinese state? Do economic reforms strengthen or weaken national identity? Is the sequence (economic reform followed by political reform) favourable to Chinese nation-building? And, how does uneven economic development create tensions between the Han and ethnic minorities? Is Chinese nationalism an ally or enemy for Chinese democratization? Under what conditions will Chinese nationalism hinder Chinese democratization? Or, under specific circumstances, will it favor democratization? These are just some of the questions this book will attempt to answer.

Baogang He has already addressed the national identity problem in his previous two books. In his first book, The Democratisation of China, he encountered the problem in the context of his treatment of the right to secede and the question of Tibets secession movement. In his second book, The Democratic Implications of Civil Society in China, Baogang He discussed the role of civil society in defining national boundaries and described the dilemma in which Chinese democrats have been caught as they deal with the tensions between nationalism and democratization.

Since then, Baogang He has thought more and more about this issue and was joined in this intellectual enterprise by Yingjie Guo, who studied in detail the rise of nationalism and its impact on the development of new national identities. This book is an attempt to answer some of the myriad questions raised above and to remedy the deficiencies of Baogang Hes previous two books in which he was able to touch only briefly upon these issues. If The Democratic Implication of Civil Society in China is regarded as an essay on driving forces for Chinese democratization, this book can be seen as a treatise on the obstacles and the difficulties Chinas democratization confronts. It is also our hope that this book will fill in some of the gaps in the study of Chinese nationalism in relation to Chinese democratization.

There is a growing body of literature dedicated to the study of Chinese nationalism and national identity. Various aspects of nationalism in modern China are covered in Chinese Nationalism, edited by Jonathan Unger. Many studies of the contemporary scene focus mainly on official nationalism and radical nationalist expressions such as China Can Say No.1 One of the underlying concerns for the bulk of this literature is the potential and actual threat posed by Chinese nationalism. Ying-shih Yu, Allen Whiting and Michel Oksenberg see state nationalism in China respectively as fascist, assertive and confident. Wang Gungwus term of restoration nationalism seems much broader and multi-layered, including at least some elements of state, popular and cultural nationalisms. Other adjectives frequently used to qualify Chinese nationalism include arrogant, dogmatic, expansionist, irrendentist, jingoistic, potboiler, reactionary, revolutionary, visceral and xenophobic, although it is rarely made clear what is, in fact, meant by Chinese nationalism. Given the negativity associated with nationalism, both in theory and practice, Chinese scholars on the mainland and overseas, seem generally more interested in prescriptions for Chinese nationalism than descriptions of it. The proposed alternative nationalisms are wide ranging and include pragmatic, rational, moderate, constructive, wise and romantic approaches.