China’s Rising Nationalism and Its Forefront

This is a sociological analysis of empirical data regarding the alleged rising nationalism in contemporary China. Different from most of the studies of Chinese nationalism with a focus on the official and elite alike, as well as eye-catching nationalistic scenes, such as, pro-China demonstrations, this study adopts a micro-sociological approach and looks into how the forefront of China’s rising nationalism, the Chinese youth, engages with notions of nation and nationalism, and when, if at all, such notions become salient to them. Through this investigation, this article finds that the nation is not something students self-consciously engage themselves with between times of overt ‘hot’ nationalism display. So far from being fervent nationalists as has been suggested by some based on eye-catching nationalistic scenes, the forefront of China’s rising nationalism, the Chinese youth, neither actively (self-consciously) engages with nation and nationalism nor do they advance these to the highest political value as fervent nationalists do. Therefore, it is the contention of this article that the usual portrayal of a rising Chinese nationalism based on eye-catching nationalistic scenes overly exaggerates the degree to which the nation and nationalism are seriously and actively engaged by the Chinese people, especially the young Chinese who are supposed to be the most active social segment of the rising nationalism.