Chinese Nationalism and its Foreign Policy Implications

Coming of age in China during the intellectually impoverished period of the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s, Suisheng Zhao is now a leading scholar of Chinese studies, particularly the China-US relationship. Suisheng Zhao currently serves as Professor and Executive Director of the Center for China-US Cooperation at the University of Denver’s Graduate School of International Studies. He is founding editor of the Journal of Contemporary China, a member of the Board of Governors of the US Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, a member of National Committee on US-China Relations, and a Research Associate at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research in Harvard University.

At the invitation of the USC U.S. – China Institute, Suisheng Zhao gave a talk on Feb. 1 to more than fifty enthusiastic scholars, students, and administrators on Chinese nationalism and its foreign policy implications.

Contrary to the traditional view that the ideology of communism is the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, Suisheng Zhao proposed that nationalism is the foundation of the country. In 1949 when Mao Zedong announced the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, he used a nationalist phrase — “Chinese people have stood up ever since” — to restore China’s identity, pride, and its rightful place in the world.

Chinese Nationalism: affirmative, assertive, or aggressive?

With the economic, political, and military development of China in the late twentieth century, Chinese nationalism has been on the rise as communist ideology has been on the decline. Zhao sees no cause for concern in this trend. National interest and national pride are healthy in any state. However, the concern arises when political leaders use nationalism to demoralize other nations in order to promote national interest or to mobilize the people to act aggressively. This becomes savagism rather than nationalism. There are some alarmists who believe that Chinese nationalism is indeed a threat and will lead China to become an international aggressor.

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Chinese Nationalism and its Foreign Policy Implications
University of Southern California U.S. - China Institute