Here’s something else I’ve learned from the comments left by Chinese nationalists on various blogs and news stories: they have less in common with me than I have in common with Iraqis.
Their concept of free speech is completely different. Their concept of human rights is completely different. Their concept of historic relativism is completely different.
Here’s what I see: Chinese nationalists value territorial integrity, international face, unity and harmony above all. I value individual self-determination and free speech above all - in other words, chaos over harmony.
Slashdot | Chinese Blogs, Netizens React To the Tibet Issue
As I know no Iraqis, I’m not sure about the Iraqi comment, but after experience with quite a few Chinese, I’d say, if the mainland Chinese I’ve met are representative of the general mood, (s)he’s generally correct about mainland Chinese importance of territorial integrity, harmony and face over self-determination and liberty.
The only other thing I’ve noticed is Britons generally do not equate their honour (as much as I hate that concept) to their state’s honour. The mainland Chinese I’ve met, because of their collectivity, do. This is, of course, true for anyone caught up in nationalism, though, Chinese or not.
It seems to me that this is both valuable and dangerous to the Chinese Communist Party: with enough censorship and indoctrination the Party can whip up enough nationalism to act with domestic impunity, but should the tide ever turn the backlash would become fierce.
The lynchpin to any mainly nationalist country relies on whether they can or cannot prevent their citizens from diverging from the state’s discourse.
The problem with the current approach to Chinese human rights issues is that it’s an attack on the Chinese government, and unfortunately because of the aforementioned, an attack on the Chinese people: when you fiercely accuse someone of something, that someone will automatically take to opposite position, and nationalism increases that many-fold.
