The Hijacking of Chinese Patriotism

When the distinction between country and ruler is surreptitiously erased, patriotism ends up being hijacked, and then it’s easily manipulated by a narrow-minded nationalism.

By YU HUA

BEIJING — The Chinese government, adept at lodging protests in the dispute over the Senkaku Islands, on Nov. 23 demonstrated to its people that it can also take real action, declaring an “air defense identification zone” in the East China Sea. 

This has ratcheted up tensions in the area.
In my view, the main significance of the air zone is not its warning to Japan, but the patriotic stance it represents. 

For a long time a strain of popular opinion in China has criticized the government for being weak on the issue. 

The air zone can be seen as a response to these sentiments.
In this connection I am reminded of a pair of incidents that took place in China and the United States in July of this year.
On July 17, in the town of Linwu in Hunan Province in central China, a melon farmer, Deng Zhengjia, and his wife had a dispute with urban management officers by their roadside watermelon stall. 

Mr. Deng fell to the ground and died after being beaten by several officers. 

According to eyewitnesses, he had been struck on the head with a steelyard weight just before he fell.
On July 27, in a shooting in an apartment building near Miami, a gunman killed six people before being shot dead by the police.
These two episodes were quite different in nature and would seem, on the surface, completely unrelated.
But when, on July 28, Chen Mingming, deputy governor of Guizhou Province, in southwest China, posted the news of the Florida shooting on his microblog, a curious link between them was soon established.
“How come there’s yet another shooting in America?!” Mr. Chen exclaimed.
“How come there’s yet another assault by city management officers in China?!” an Internet user shot back, referencing the death in Linwu.
“Some people just can’t wait to see tragic incidents take place in our country, and then they blow things all out of proportion, ” Mr. Chen responded. 

“These unpatriotic people are degenerates — the dregs of society!”
A single comment about a melon vendor’s death in Hunan was enough to send this high-ranking Communist Party official into a paroxysm of rage.

“These people so love to badmouth their native country, but then they hang around here instead of going off to America!” he fumed. 

“Off you go, hurry up! I’m all for it. But before you leave, be sure to get some plastic surgery done — you don’t want them to see you’re a Chinese! ... These people hate their country so much they feel miserable that they’re Chinese, so let’s pack them off to America — the sooner the better! Such riff-raff!”
But Mr. Chen’s effort to frame the question as one of patriotism backfired spectacularly, triggering a huge controversy.
Among his critics, some pointed out that cursing one’s government is not the same thing as cursing one’s country. 

Others challenged Mr. Chen’s love-it-or-leave-it logic: “If your window is broken, don’t you want to fix it? Or do you move into your neighbor’s house? Or do you make a song-and-dance about how your door is intact? If you love this country, it’s natural that you take time to point out its imperfections, for that way you can make it better.” 

But the majority of critics objected mainly to the intemperance of his language and lamenting that an official at the rank of deputy governor would shout such abuse.
Mr. Chen’s supporters clearly are people who feel that the government is the country (but some of them also felt that a deputy governor needs to be careful how he expresses himself). 

Mr. Chen himself realized he had gone too far. 

He made an apologetic remark to the effect that in the future he would be sure to keep his cool.
The real topic that needs discussing is: What is patriotism? 

Does criticism of the government necessarily mean criticism of the country, and does it necessarily betray a lack of patriotism? 

But all we got was a debate about rhetoric and about whether a deputy governor had expressed himself properly.
The patriotic education promoted by the Communist Party over the last 64 years has all too successfully tempered “love for the country” in the same crucible as love for the party and love for the government. 

To sing the praises of the party and government is to sing the praises of the country, and to criticize the party and government is to criticize the country. 

When the distinction between country and ruler is surreptitiously erased, patriotism ends up being hijacked, and then it’s easily manipulated by a narrow-minded nationalism.
In August and September of last year, the Senkaku Islands controversy triggered two rounds of demonstrations in many Chinese cities, and the protests ultimately turned into attacks by violent crowds on Japanese-owned businesses and Japanese-made cars. 

In a shocking scene recorded on video, a motorist in the city of Xi’an, Li Jianli, had his skull smashed in when trying to protect his Toyota from damage.
What makes me all the more uneasy is that it’s not just ordinary citizens who confuse the two separate concepts of nation and government. 

Some intellectuals do, too. 

A scholar-friend once said to me, “Here at home we can criticize our country, but when we go abroad we need to defend it. In the same way, at home it’s O.K. to argue with one’s parents, but outside the home we never tolerate criticism of them.”
“But we’re criticizing the government, not the nation,” I replied.
Later I posted this on my microblog: “Some people still aren’t clear about the difference between nation and government. And so anyone who aims a criticism at the government gets denounced as a traitor. Let me make an analogy: The nation is like one’s parents, and the government is like a steward; loving the steward and loving one’s parents are completely different things. One can’t change one’s parents, but one has every right to replace the steward.”
One of my readers reposted my remarks, with a comment appended: “Mom and Dad, where are you? I want to file a complaint about the steward.”
But our parents will never hear the complaint, for the steward has supplanted them.
The steward, however, is beginning to have a rough time of it. 

Last year, under cover of the anti-Japan protests, some aired their disaffection. 

One slogan urging war on Japan involved a double meaning. 

“Let’s fight!” it read. 

“If we win, we get the Senkaku Islands; if we lose, we get a new China.” 

By “new China” they meant a China in which the Communist Party is no longer the dominant power.