Nationalism and its political implications in contemporary China

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, it has increasingly become the consensus among China watchers to explain the “resilience” of the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with the Party’s reliance on the dual pillars of economic growth and nationalism as a means to bolster its legitimacy. The story goes that since the adoption of reform and opening up in the late 1970s, the CCP’s imported Marxism-Leninist ideology has lost much of its appeal and, therefore, the CCP intentionally encouraged and even manufactured nationalism-or “patriotism” in the Party’s preferred wording-to fill in the ideological vacuum and provide a unifying force for an increasingly pluralistic society. Claiming to be committed to the grand cause of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, the CCP has presented itself as the only legitimate representative and defender of the national interest. As Thomas Christenson quipped, “Since the Chinese Communist Party is no longer communist, it must be even more Chinese” (1996).