What Businesses Need To Know About Chinese Nationalism

I recognize the sentiments here quite well, but its almost like sawing the limb they are sitting on. China would not be what it is today without the west investing in the gov’t. China would not be aware of its pollution issues and would not care but for western infuence. Etc etc.
I am not China bashing but pointing out that it is irrationality that can end hurting Chinese business in the future. (I can hardly wait for Africa to start blaming China or the Chinese to target their own gov’t once they rid themselves of westerners). I find this sort of sentiment to be intellectually untenable and hope that people will learn to think through things. Mistrust for foreigners is nothing new, but rising mistrust to the point where it will mess with the global economy will end up hurting their country in the long run.
I can only hope that someone turns their brain on before this sentiment destroys int’l trade relations.

I wonder if there are this much nationalism before March 14 and subsequent media incidents.

Meantime something that would otherwise have been big news is happening in Taiwan, Chen Shuibian is stepping down and Ma Yingjiu – a politician who is actually fairly popular on the mainland – is taking up the reins. A democratic transfer of power happening on ‘Chinese’ soil – sounds like a good idea doesn’t it?

“Actually most of the foreigners I know here have made very little money in China and the few that have paid dearly for it”. Go for it CLB !!!!

Thank you for this bunch of links Dan ; the multifaceted review they provide is truly fascinating. Oh and thank you for having ruined half my day of work, too.
The question of Chinese people’s relationship to / with foreigners (or “aliens”) is a huge one, and I think every laowai who has spent more than 6 months in the country could basically write a whole book about his personal experience on the topic — provided that he has set a foot out of his western-style-four-stars-your-home-away-from-home residence, that is.
As for me I have the chance of working for a western company located in a small city, so I get to meet the whole spectrum of opinions on the question : from the elderly fruit seller on my corner to my US/Europe-educated colleagues. But it doesn’t take long to notice that there actually is no spectrum and that the opinions on the matter all get to the very same bottom line : you are welcome in China, and you are welcome to make comments, but don’t fool yourself into thinking you can negatively comment on anything but the weather, the crowdedness of the streets or the smell of doufu.
After all it isn’t so surprizing : I don’t know much people who take critics against their country lightly (being French I know what I’m talking about ;) ) and I don’t see why the Chinese should be any different.
What really astonishes me, however, is how instinctive this reaction is. Bring into question the sincerity of China’s policy toward Africa, the management of the situation in the west or the true forces feeding the anti-Japanese sentiment (or any other issue more or less linked to the place of China in the world), and your interlocutor immediately becomes aggressive or sulky. And I mean immediately. Furthermore this severe touchiness to criticism often comes from people who themselves are very much aware of their country’s flaws, and who are the first ones to criticize them. Like this colleague who complained about how unreliable the press was on a particular matter, but then stared at me with a dark eye when I suggested that maybe the depiction of the situation in the western region was equally biased. This kind of situations always remind me of Cyrano’s reply, when mocked for his nose : “I take them [the pleasantries] from myself all in good part, –But not from any other man that breathes”.
In conclusion my (two cents) opinion is that Chinese people suffer from an acute superiority/inferiority complex. They know how great a people they are and how extraordinary their civilization is, but (so?) they feel somehow humiliated by the leading role Europe and America have taken in the world — a role they believe should have been taken by China. I see this resent as akin to that of an unsure teenager (that’s the last pathetic image, I swear) and I wonder what it would take for this bitterness to change into scary political or military decisions. In that I understand the concerns of the blogger you quote (BTW his blog does not seem to be available from China, even through a proxy) and I strongly believe these hard feelings will have to be overcome in the years coming for the sake of China’s stability and development. Accepting criticism and stop behaving as a permanent victim will be a tough step, but a necessary one if we don’t want to see the seeds planted for an oriental fascism.

From timesonline, concerning the reaction in Tiananmen Square after today’s three-minute silence:
“But as huge speakers announced the period of silence over, the throng erupted into chants of “Come on, Sichuan! Long live China!” They crushed in towards the flagpole and pumped their fists in the air, screaming the words until their voices cracked.”
http://tinyurl.com/4b4wsp
There is, as the original blogger indicates, a very different feeling to the nationalist sentiment sweeping China in recent weeks. I also observe that Chinese people are particularly sensitive to emotional stimuli.

Chinese nationalism and its impacts are overrated. I just don’t see how it has and will affect foreign businesses in a serious way. Boycott of Japanese products in 2005? I don’t know anybody who is boycotting Japanese-made stuff today. The French and Carrefour? It’s a joke.
By the way, who put together that list? I think one should have no illusion about why foreign businessmen came to China: Making money. Hence you see some of them fleeing China and flocking to Vietnam and India.

@Wei
you cannot expect everyone in the entire country to response to forigner in very friendly matter
I don’t think anyone expects that every single Chinese should be extremely friendly to foreigners because they are foreigners, what people has noted is a surge in nationalist and anti-foreign feelings in China. You may not be the target of racism in China, but many foreigners experience this on a daily basis and you better respect their experience in the same way as you expect Westerners to listen to complaints of racism in the West. Tolerance is a two way street.

This is a huge growing problem. If you read Chinese youth sites (as I have), you see the younger generations have strongly negative feelings about the US and foreigners. If you do business in China you already know the take-it-or-leave-it attitude has become pervasive.

I noticed Taiwan was mentioned on CLB by multiple people as an example of successful democracy for mainland China.
That’s just showed how big a chasm between what’s going in Chinese society and the perceptions among even relatively knowledgeable CLB readers.
Taiwan’s democracy is considered a complete failure and joke among mainland Chinese. The first so-called “peaceful transition of power on a Chinese soil” occurred in 1996 when Lee Tenghui was elected Taiwan president; Lee was expelled from Kuomintang after stepping down in 2000. The eight years that Chen Shuibian was in office, plus LTH’s years, are considered largely a “lost decade” for Taiwan by many Taiwanese. Chen Shuibian took office in 2000 with an approval rate of 70+% and now it stands at 13%. He will face prosecution for corruption after stepping down.
The incoming president, Ma Yingjiu, is preferred by mainland government and Chinese not because his democracy credential but his pledge not to seek independence. His main campaign platform, ironically, is a better cross-strait relationship to salvage Taiwan’s economy. I guess the once strident “Taiwanese nationalism” is no substitute for shrunken pocketbooks.
More than a decade ago, Taiwan’s experience in transitioning from an authoritative society to a democratic one held a lot appeal to many Chinese intellectuals; that appeal, like the former USSR’s transition model, all has lost their attractions.
Like it or not, China has to find its own development model to modernization for a country of its size and scale. It’ll be based on gradualism and trial-and-error, a very successful formula so far.

@Greg – The usual tropes vis-a-vis the Taiwanese economic and political situation. Let’s have some simple facts:
- At an average of 5.7% year-on-year GDP growth for the last five years, Taiwanese economic growth has out performed that of Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong.
- Taiwan is generally considered to be the biggest source of investment for the Chinese mainland when the money sent through back channels is taken into account. Chen didn’t actually do that much to stop investment, Ma can not actually do much to liberalise things, and his election certainly does not bring detente in realtions any closer.
- Taiwanese unemployment is less than that of either Japan or South Korea.
Mainlanders may consider Taiwanese democracy to be “a complete failure and joke”, but Taiwanese think much worse of the mainland political system. Measured on any scale – economic or social, Taiwan has made much greater progress since the end of the martial law period than China has made in the same amount of time.
“The first so-called “peaceful transition of power on a Chinese soil” occurred in 1996 when Lee Tenghui was elected Taiwan president”
Can I ask, in what way was this not a peaceful transition of power and why do you feel it necessary to use the term ‘so-called’?
“I guess the once strident “Taiwanese nationalism” is no substitute for shrunken pocketbooks.”
In what way has Taiwan become poorer over the last eight years? As far as I can seen, economic growth there has been reasonable for a economy at its stage of development. Likewise, Ma’s win is hardly a victory for re-unification. His campaign has been marked by an unwillingness to be seen as pro-mainland in the way that Lian Zhan was.
“The incoming president, Ma Yingjiu, is preferred by mainland government and Chinese not because his democracy credential but his pledge not to seek independence.”
Ma doesn’t need ‘democracy credentials’ to be popular, he is a handsome and charismatic personality, quite different to the geriatrics who formerly led the KMT or who are currently in charge on the mainland. This is the contrast which will be seen between Ma and Hu – the contrast between democracy and totalitarianism.
“Modern Chinese are nationalistic (or more precisely patriotic)”
People everywhere love their country, but few feel the need to engage in the rapantly nationalistic xenophobia that has marked much Chinese discourse over the last few months. Nationalism is the correct term for this phenomenon, as I and most other people familiar with the situation feel.
“With more Chinese educated and lived in the West, become wealthy and traveled aboard, and with China increasingly prosperous, more Chinese, especially the younger generations, feel good about themselves and more confident about their country and their development model, there is less patience for Western preaching. Is this necessarily a negative development?”
Any situation which leads an elite (and despite protest to the contrary, that is what they are) to believe they can ignore human rights is a negative development. It should also been recognised that this situation (a foreign educated urban elite ruling over a vast mass of rural poor) has been seen in China before. Once economic problems set in the result was disasterous.
“if there is a rising Chinese nationalism, it’s not offensive and not about imposing its model or view on other nations or people”
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? (Matthew 7:16)
@Wei – “Do I need evidence to back this up”
I think you do, since the experiences that the man describes are reflected in those of almost every foreigner who lives or has lived in China including me. Simply saying that he is ‘generalising’ is not an argument. You might have said that people in the countryside are quite different, you might have said that the people who do this constitute only a small minority – you might have said anything. What you told us was your opinion, but not what you ground your opinion on.
At any rate, it has to be said that foreign direct investment can be a fragile thing. The fall-off in investment in China during the SARS period being an example – although it did manage to end the year with total FDI above the previous one. Impressions can be everything, but I doubt that the actual facts will change that much, except maybe for more difficulty in gaining the co-operation of the government and in getting visas etc.

I am trying to understand the point of the original post. Is there nationalist or patriotic sentiment in China these days? My observation is yes. Does nationalism make the Chinese people an ungrateful bunch? Well, you have to look at the issue a little deeper. Did ALL Chinese deny that FDI played an important role in China’s development? Did ALL Chinese pin China’s problem squarely on foreigners? Was FDI aid or capital (business) investment? While one can argue that without FDI, China probably won’t have today’s economic achievement, but that does not make FDI charity. The fact that many foreign companies did not make money in China is not a proof that they did not come to China to make money. In extreme cases even if you send aid to some people they may still not so grateful for various reasons (think T1bet’s example). So I will take the original post as a vent of frustration, not an insightful discussion of Chinese nationalism.
Let me make clear that in most cases I view nationalism, Chinese or American, as ridiculous. However, we have to realize that it is a somewhat effective tool for groups to promote their interest (They may choose the tool subconsciously). Politicians in the US constantly courting support from Unions and working class by sensationalize “shipping jobs overseas”. I have yet to see one politician stand up to the misperception that “China has taken away America’s jobs”. Chinese nationalism has the underline theme to promote certain Chinese interest (in doing so perhaps against certain “foreign” interest), that is for sure. Like or not, nationalism is going to be a fact in life.
To make yourself a little tolerant towards nationalism (so you can feel less alienated in the host country), one may want to understand the origin of nationalism. Like Greg pointed out, nationalism usually comes out as reactions – reactions towards outside pressure. When the pundits and officials, on the world’s most popular TV channels, blame China for U.S.’s economic problems, when all kinds of (foreign) people, trying to humiliate (I understand that most of them want to create awareness to certain issues, but nonetheless) China when she is poised, for the first time in her long history, to host a big party for the world, when you consume Chinese goods by the ships but make it sound like the Chinese forced these “cheap and shady” good down your throat, would you expect Chinese nationalism to go up or down? The more accurate your prediction on the national psyche is, the less stressful you will be.
Therefore, my suggestion is that you embrace the psyche of your host country, trust the wisdom of the people (in that reasoning will prevail somehow). If your company is savvy enough, you might even be able to tap into nationalism by creating the perception that your company is “different” from all the others in that you stand on the “Chinese side” and stand to profit from it.

@Pfeffer – When I use the term ‘nationalism’ I use it in the same way that George Orwell did in his famous essay “Notes On Nationalism”:
By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’.* But secondly—and this is much more important—I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power.
It must be said that there is much of the first vice that Orwell describes in the writings of those critical of the Chinese government – I myself have probably been guilty of classifying people in such a way. You might even say that in supporting democracy in China I am also guilty of ‘nationalism’ in the sense that Orwell uses it – but I would counter that all I favour is giving China’s people a say in their own lives is hardly “identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests”. But the clear distinction that Orwell makes between a patriotism that is defensive of a place and a way of life and nationalism which is simply believing that one’s own coutry is incapable of doing wrong and in which all evil comes from outside is the one I fell to be active in the minds of many commentators on the Chinese side.
Take for example this recent commentry from the the blog of Song Qiang (宋强)
争你自己的自由就是争国家的自由，争你自己的权利就是争国家的权利。因为自由平等的国家不是一群奴才建造得起来的！
胡适说的，应没问题，道理是对的，但使用者的逻辑有错，胡适说“因为自由平等的国家不是一群奴才建造得起来的！”，呵呵，胡本身就是一个奴才(博主：自由主义者现在把他吹得比什么都高，比杨贵妃还美)，另外，眼前这些“恨爱国”在我看来不仅是奴才，还是洋奴，所以，再套用胡适的话说，就是：因为自由平等的国家不是一群洋奴建造得起来的！

Given most CLB readers are from US, Europe and China, we probably should have a more nuanced view about country and nationalism.
I guess most people would agree that the US and China are the more nationalistic countries. Europeans consider themselves to be post-modern states while the US and China are modern states. There are, of course, pre-modern or failed states in the world, such as Afghanistan, according to this view.
I found this article below interesting. It is written by an American living in the heart of China, Chengdu, a city far from the coastal area and is quite different from Beijing or Shanghai. This was written before the Sichuan earthquake hit Chengdu but after the Tlbet riot.
The writer also lived in Europe for quite some time and he speaks Mandarin. His observation on nationalism:
“The Sword is Blunted” (http://antiwar.com/matuszak/?articleid=12757)

I don’t think that there has been a rise in Chinese nationalism recently. For there to have been a rise in Chinese nationalism would imply that sometime in the last 170 years, Chinese were less nationalistic than they are now, and if someone can point to a period of history in which there was less nationalism than there is today, I’d like to see it.

@Twofish – However, the last 170 years has not been a particularly peaceful time, with violence both being inflicted on China and latter being inflicted by China. One more thing, I think it would be quite reasonable to say that up until the 1920′s at least, there were still parts of China in which there were whole villages where people lived who had never even heard that the country existed – I have heard this said of modern-day India. It would therefore seem reasonable to say that Chinese nationalism is not an ancient but a modern force, one born mainly out of reaction to foreign threats – both perceived and real – in the period after 1840. It is only really since the rise of the KMT that nationalism became widespread in China, and only since 1949 that it can be found universally.
@Jxie – Ooops! Sorry, it seems I mis-remembered something I had read in the Taipei Times, here’s the actual stats they gave:
“Taiwan’s economic growth averaged 4.1 percent between 2000 and 2007, and reached 5.23 percent in the last four years, outperforming South Korea’s 4.7 percent. The CPI had an average growth rate of only 0.89 percent between 2000 and 2007,”
I do not take these statistics as a sign of failure in the economy, but even if you do there are many who would blame this not on the distancing of Taiwan from China, but from the fact that Taiwan is perhaps the place with the most to lose from the growth of China. Many Taiwanese businesses have relocated their manufacturing plant to the mainland, more than 1 in 20 Taiwanese citizens now resides permanently in mainland China – even the Chen government has done little or nothing to stop this. Economies like HK and Singapore have been able to switch to more service-oriented industries, Taiwan has not been able to follow suit, and this is partly due to its isolation from world bodies like the WHO, but it is hard to see how anything short of full reunification could end this isolation – and this is not on the cards.

How is this affecting business?
Well the new visa changes for one are hurting many of my friends and their businesses in Beijing. One who owns schools has half his foreign teachers leaving. Look at the recent stats of the Canton fair…number of visitors dropped dramatically. Recent travel stats…dropped 10+% year over year, Hong Kong traffic dropped around 30%.
As for me I have lived in Beijing for over 4 years and these new visa changes make it extremely difficult to stay in China because foreigners on L/F visas now have to leave China every month. You can argue either way if these visa changes are defined through ‘nationalism’.
Nationalism around here is felt more on a personal basis. I went shopping at Carrefore the other day and got a bunch of dirty stares and negative comments from Chinese outside the store. Walking down the street with my Chinese girlfriend we are getting way more negative comments from the local guys about how she’s a sellout and not Chinese anymore because she’s with a foreigner. Sanlitun has had numerous and brutal crackdowns targeting Africans (even a diplomatics kid got beat). Many bars are getting shut down before the Olympics here in Beijing. My friends that throw parties are getting shut down. Midi festival got canceled…Many more examples but don’t want to bore you… Beijing is just not fun anymore.
The past changes in addition to higher costs, inflation, pollution, and a host of others has lead me to decide to leave China after 4 years. China has gotten the technology and money from the foreigners and now they seem to be flipping the outside world off trying to do everything on their own. So let them… half my long term friends in Beijing are also leaving this summer because of the changes.

The original blogger certainly hit a few extreme cases, if everything he says are true. Chinese people just stopped treating foreigners like first class citizens, that’s all. It has NOTHING to do with race. There is a lot of discrimation and contempt towards rural migrant workers, for example. It’s not about race, it’s about class and wealth. But that’s a problem the society is aware of and is trying to fix.
Finally, compared to the “thugs and goons” comment from CNN, compared to the “brain-washed commies”, compared to the rampage you see on western media and youtube… I say the Chinese people are sooooo slow to complain compared to whites.