Back from our trip, catching up on reading. The Journal on Monday had a story about the economic implications of Chinese nationalism and in particular recent aggression towards Taiwan after the draconian Hong Kong security law.
Per Ezra Vogel -- in his monumental bio of Deng Xiaopeng -- following the events on Tiannanmen Square in 1989, the Chinese Communist Party wrestled with how best to preserve its legitimacy and popularity after its pretty brutal crackdown on a fairly popular, organic, bottom up movement. The Party settled on nationalism as the best chord to strum on. And so Chinese history has largely been recast as a story of retuning to past glory after the humiliation of its fall from grace, first and foremost from the period of the Opium Wars forward.
Once great, then humbled, now risen again. It's a classic narrative that's hard to resist. Hitler ran this play before WWII, white nationalists are running it now. There's no end to what it can't justify.
I would be interested to learn how the current spate of anti-Asian crimes in the US are being played in the Chinese state media. It's probably safe to wager that the fact of the crimes themselves is being foregrounded rather than the upsurge of popular sentiment condemning them from Western liberals.
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