Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The Rise of China: Political Worldview and Chinese Exceptionalism
- 2 Chinese Political Worldview: IR with Chinese Characteristics
- 3 Who is China?
- 4 Chinese National Image and Global Leadership
- 5 The Belt and Road and the Path to Chinese Greatness
- 6 Perceiving China: Case Studies from Indonesia and Vietnam
- 7 Deciphering China: Views from Singapore
- 8 Conclusion: From Chinese Exceptionalism to Chinese Universality
- 9 Afterword: Covid-19 and the Limits of Chinese Exceptionalism
- Bibliography
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The Rise of China: Political Worldview and Chinese Exceptionalism
- 2 Chinese Political Worldview: IR with Chinese Characteristics
- 3 Who is China?
- 4 Chinese National Image and Global Leadership
- 5 The Belt and Road and the Path to Chinese Greatness
- 6 Perceiving China: Case Studies from Indonesia and Vietnam
- 7 Deciphering China: Views from Singapore
- 8 Conclusion: From Chinese Exceptionalism to Chinese Universality
- 9 Afterword: Covid-19 and the Limits of Chinese Exceptionalism
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Abstract
This chapter examines Chinese national identity as a core element of China's political worldview and claims to exceptionalism. Using a sociological structure of liquid modernity, the chapter analyzes how Chinese national identity is being considered and constructed within domestic conditions and the extent to which it affects social capital and the cohesiveness of Chinese social life. I argue that liquid modernity has resulted in greater fragmentation between Chinese private and public life as well as complicating efforts to construct a unified sense of collective national identity (Chinese-ness). To remedy these challenges, the Chinese government utilizes nationalism to cultivate domestic support by projecting itself as good vis-à-vis the West, which is scapegoated as evil and the root cause of all Chinese ills.
Keywords: identity, liquid modernity, nationalism, social capital, Scapegoating
Sociological and anthropological studies of China in the late twentieth and early 21st centuries have highlighted a trend in Chinese social life : in a time of unprecedented social change, increasing numbers of Chinese citizens are asking the question, “Who am I?” According to Kleinman and others, the structural changes in Chinese society resulting from the political turmoil of the twentieth century have led to a substantial severing of ties between the individual and the family, as well as between the individual and broader society.. Among Chinese citizens there is a “curious mix of positive and negative feelings” intertwined in their understanding of Chinese politics – a “pessoptimist structure of feeling,” as Callahan puts it. What can we say about Chinese national identity and how this internal conflict is playing out in China's interactions with the wider world, particularly in the realm of geopolitics? More importantly, how is China's political worldview influenced and shaped by its national identity, and how is Chinese exceptionalism used to construct an understanding of China as “good” and “different” from the West?
As discussed in Chapter 2, Chinese international relations theories frequently allude to the need to differentiate China from the West. This is premised on the assumption that China and its citizens tend to imagine themselves in ways that are distinct from others from elsewhere in the world, thus rendering a need for scholarly insights that are peculiar to the Chinese lived experience.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- China's Political Worldview and Chinese ExceptionalismInternational Order and Global Leadership, pp. 65 - 92Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2021