Looking at the Sides

And this time, I’m not talking about the Free Tibet and Beijing supporters. Instead, I’m thinking about:

1. The ultra-nationalistic protesters who advocate boycotting Carrefour and have been spreading all sorts of rumors about evil foreigners on the internet.
2. The moderate Chinese citizens who are against the boycott and are trying to lower the amount of nationalism in China.

At first glance, it would seem obvious that I would side with the moderates since I’ve always advocated rational thought and pragmatism above such abstract things like ‘patriotism’ and ‘national face’. However, I’ve been thinking about it a bit more and I realized I might have been a little impulsive me condemning the hoodlums who wear those anti-CNN t-shirts.

One thing that bothers me is the fact that the CCP is against the idea of boycotting Carrefour and foreign goods. There are also all these popular Chinese bloggers and government sponsored celebrities like Jin Jing who have spoken out against the rashness of the angry mob’s actions. I mean is the CCP really a moderating force in this case or are they just playing the PR game? The CCP were the ones who stirred the flames of nationalism in the first place, so why are they trying to reign it back in now? Maybe it’s be cause there are different factions fighting it out over in the National People’s Congress about what should be done, maybe they have no idea what they’re doing and they’re crossing the river by feeling for stones, or maybe they planned this all along to gain the initial support of the people before betraying patriotism for good international publicity.

Ok, so that last one is more like a conspiracy theory than anything else, but it’s fun to think about. But let me get back on track.

The nationalistic Chinese youth are raging and they can’t be controlled, right? I wrote previously that Jin Jing failed, the government failed, and any attempt to pacify them has led to denounciations that any who oppose them are traitors. In the short run, this will be a disaster for China. An ultra-nationalistic atmosphere during the Olympic games would hurt China’s image, the spread of boycotts against foreign goods would hurt China’s economy, and continued anti-foreign feeling would make China a little less attractive to investors and businessmen. So for any people who want China to have continued stability and growth would side with the CCP’s idea of ‘moderate controlled patriotism’.

However, what if all that bad stuff was allowed the happen? What if the Beijing Olympics completely failed, not because of foreign protesters waving Tibetan flags at the Birdsnest, but because angry Chinese mobs torched a busload of French atheletes? What if the economy failed, not because the west raised their tariffs and banned Chinese products because of ’safety’ issues, but because foreign businesses and investment were driven out by an environment hostile towards anything non-Chinese?

This might be the change that China needs. In a way, they will succeed in proving how strong they are, how united they are, and how patriotic they are, but at the same time remove themselves from the role as the ‘victim’. Not only would the west not be able to take the fall for China’s failure, but the government can’t be blamed either. It would be the Chinese people themselves who would have to bear the burden. There would be a new kind of self-cynacism and self-criticism that can take place. A new sense of nationalism then can be built on the identity of the Chinese people’s achievements instead of their historical exploitation by foreign powers. From such a disaster, a new society can be rebuilt which looks forward instead of backwards and outwards instead of inwards.

Jesus will then come back with his Chinese younger brother and everyone lives happily ever after.

Yeah… I guess this is what the Chinese intellectuals envisioned when the Qing began to reform, when the Nationalists came into power, when Japan was defeated, and when Mao finally died. It seems like in most cases, the brief flame of creating a new and better China would be snuffed out, may it be by the Empress Dowager, Yuan Shikai, civil war, or the conservative faction within the CCP. So while a ‘new China’ is a damn sexy idea, I think I would still have to play it safe and side with the moderates and the CCP for now.