Home › Features › Essays › China's Confident Nationalism

China's Confident Nationalism

By Michel Oksenberg
America and the World 1986
Article Summary and Author Biography

There are many nationalisms in China's tradition, aggrieved, isolationist, assertive, and expansionist, all of which are possible in the future. But the nationalism of the mid-1980s is 'confident' that (1) through involvement in world affairs the PRC can attain wealth and power while preserving its national essence (2) better relations with the USSR, Japan and the USA will allow concentration on domestic development (3) the PRC's improved world and economic standing will also bear fruit with Korea, Indochina and Taiwan. Outlines the many factors, particularly generational change and greater awareness of the outside world, which support 'confident' nationalism.

Michel Oksenberg is a professor of political science and research associate of the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan. He has recently completed with Kenneth Lieberthal a study for the Department of Commerce, Bureaucratic Politics and Chinese Energy Development.

Print Email
Login or Register to leave a comment.

Sign-up for free weekly updates from ForeignAffairs.com.

Chinese foreign policy of the mid-1980s stems from four interrelated calculations. First, China’s reform-minded leaders, whom I call confident nationalists, believe that through increased involvement in world affairs China can attain wealth and power while preserving its national essence. Second, they claim that the international setting permits a concentration upon domestic development; particularly because the Soviet Union is preoccupied with other pressing concerns, China can enjoy a stable environment in East Asia for the foreseeable future. Third, they claim that China can benefit from effective participation in the international economic system and can attract foreign involvement in its economic development. And fourth, they believe that China can pursue steady, independent, pragmatic and purposeful policies not only toward the three major powers of concern to them (the Soviet Union, the United States and Japan) but also toward three areas of crucial importance (Korea, Indochina and Taiwan).

The foreign policy of the reformers that emerges from these considerations is complex and subtle. Its overriding purpose is to forge a tranquil security environment in support of ambitious domestic economic development. The reformers want to lay the foundation for the eventual attainment of modern military force and international greatness. They combine a search for military security with a desire to expand economic ties with all potential trading partners. They seek to preserve Chinese sovereignty and autonomy while accepting the constraints of increased commercial and security links with the outside world.

The key question about this foreign policy is its durability: Is it the unique product of Deng Xiaoping? How deeply wedded is Deng himself to these views? Can the reformers sustain this policy in the face of internal opposition? The launching in late 1986 of a campaign against "bourgeois liberalism" and "complete Westernization" and the sudden dismissal of General Secretary Hu Yaobang, a principal proponent of political reform, raised new questions about the stability of Chinese foreign policy.

This is a premium article

You must be a logged in Foreign Affairs subscriber to continue reading. If you wish to continue reading this article please subscribe , or activate your online account to get full online access.

Related

Response, Jan/Feb 2006
One Country, Two Prisms
Robert Lawrence Kuhn and Bruce Gilley

Bruce Gilley ("In China's Own Eyes," September/October 2005) is correct that my biography, The Man Who Changed China: The Life and Legacy of Jiang Zemin, portrays Jiang as he might see himself. My intention (as stated in the book itself, on pages 691-92) was to move beyond all the hype and bias about China so as to understand how Chinese leaders think.

But Gilley's review is weighted with conspiracy theory. He asserts that "Jiang chose Kuhn," "a secret state propaganda team oversaw the writing of the book," and that I had a "Chinese collaborator."

The truth is almost the reverse.

Read
Essay, Jul 1972
How China and Japan See Each Other
Chalmers Johnson

Over the past century the politics of East Asia have been influenced more profoundly by the Sino-Japanese relationship than by any other single factor. Because both the two present-day societies have roots in classical Chinese civilization-only a "heritage" for each today-Chinese and Japanese politicians before World War II often argued that there was a special binding relationship between them. Japan's written language and much of its religious, artistic and moral civilization derive from Chinese culture, while Japan was the primary influence both positively and negatively on whole generations of Chinese revolutionaries, some of whom are still alive and active today. Perhaps because of this common heritage of civilization and mutual influence, the enormous misunderstandings, wars, threats and depredations that have characterized Sino-Japanese relations for a century have tended to take on the ferocity of a family or civil feud. Even though well-educated Chinese and Japanese can learn each other's language rather easily, it is doubtful whether any two peoples in the twentieth century have approached each other with more profoundly misleading stereotypes.

Read
Essay, Jan 1974
The Sinic World in Perspective
Edwin O. Reischauer

Christendom, Europe, or, more broadly, the Western world is customarily balanced with the Orient, the East, or more narrowly, Asia. This equation, however, is a false one. While the various lands of the West do in fact share a common historical tradition and in many cases similar cultural traits, Asia is divided into major cultural traditions as far removed from one another as from the West. There are vast psychological and cultural gulfs between the Arabic-Islamic world of West Asia and North Africa, the Hindu-Buddhist civilization of India and Southeast Asia, and the Sinic world of East Asia. But within each of these major cultural units there do exist psychological and cultural bonds in some ways comparable to those that unite the countries of the West. This article explores the nature and strength of these bonds among the countries of East Asia-that is, China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam-and the degree to which these affect their present political and strategic relations with one another and with countries outside this cultural grouping.

Read