China: Erratic State, Frustrated Society

Conceptualizing the cultural and political facets of “Chinese Nationalism” in an era of China’s global rise

“…Patriotism and state nationalism in China: two sides of the same coin Thirty years ago, Lucian Pye argued that China was suffering from a superiority and an inferiority complex at the same time (Pye 1990). The feeling of superiority was based on the indisputable former greatness of the Chinese civilization, and the expectation that it was simply a matter of time before China was yet again ready to Han Chinese 55 Ethnic Minorities Chinese nation (nationalism) Fig.…”

“…Finally, the cohesive effect of nationalism is used to replace socialism as the glue that holds China together. As shown above, the patriotic education campaign has been quite efficient in spreading patriotic values in the Chinese population, and while similar campaigns in Japan has created division, as intellectuals oppose the nationalist curriculum in Japanese schools (Kondo and Xiaoyan 2011) patriotism in China has been accepted to the degree that China suffers from what Fang Lizhi has called the problem of patriotism: An argument that a certain position is unpatriotic will make that position instantly untenable (Pye 1990). However, even though patriotism is quite widespread in China, there are many different varieties of nationalism-not all of them equally welcome to the Chinese government.…”

To ‘Fall in Line’ or to ‘Grab’: Thoughts on the Indigenization of Political Science

“…Furthermore, he believes that China fails to exhibit tendencies of institutionalization, which he believes to be a hallmark of the modern nation-state. Due to its inability to conform to these criteria, Pye perceives China as "pretending" to be a nation-state [7]. While to a Chinese audience this sort of analysis may sound suspicious, Western readers have easily accepted this type of reasoning.…”

Understanding the Chinese Diaspora: The Identity Construction of Diasporic Chinese in the Age of Digital Media

“…Through a brief comparison between the logic of national identity construction of China and the Western countries and a review of Chinese identity in Western countries, this section outlines a trajectory on which the Chinese identity evolves. Pye (1990) argues that China is not a nation state like others in the family of nations but a civilisation pretending to be a state. To a certain extent, this argument has grasped some subtle differences between the nature of China and Western countries.…”

“…China is not merely a tangible entity of a given regime, territory and nation, but also a civilisation with a cultural sphere (Pye, 1990;Tu, 1991).…”