For every action, there is a reaction, and so on. So there is a simple explanation for the nationalistic fervour that has led to protests and calls for boycotts against foreign businesses in major mainland cities. It is simply a reaction to what is perceived by many mainlanders as anti-China rallies that tried to disrupt the Olympic torch relay in city after city. Many take pride in the Beijing Games and have no sympathy for foreign protesters, whatever their cause.
Yet, many human right activists and media pundits in the west seem to have been surprised by this outpouring of nationalism and found it necessary to come up with convoluted theories about brainwashing and totalitarianism to explain it. Really, what did they expect? China was ready to spend billions of dollars for the world to celebrate the Beijing Games. Taxi drivers have been paid to learn English and take courtesy classes; people have been told not to spit, and every public toilet is being cleaned up. The country was, as Premier Wen Jiabao said, ready to smile on the world.
The world, however, did not smile back. Suddenly, it is conscience time for everyone. Anyone with an ideological axe to grind or a human rights cause to champion is coming out of the woodwork. I am not questioning people's right to follow their conscience. What I find egregious, and a bit absurd, is that some of them actually expect many Chinese to join them. On the other hand, most Chinese, perhaps equally deluded, expect the rest of the world to put aside its differences and join their coming-out party. What mutual incomprehension!
A campaigner for Dream for Darfur - the US-based human rights group that came up with calling the Beijing Games the Genocide Olympics - recently told The New York Times that it was already pushing an open door - meaning she expected support from at least some mainlanders. I am not debating whether it is right or wrong to link Darfur to the Beijing Games. But what supreme naivety to believe they might have mainland support when most Chinese are, in fact, deeply offended by the linkage. Her misguided belief is, until these past weeks, quite common among many western liberals.
But, following nationalistic demonstrations across the mainland and rallies by overseas Chinese students, most westerners have now been disabused of this belief. So, now, they need new theories about the Chinese behaviour. It has to be explained away as irrational and dangerous nationalism whipped up by Beijing. This is because many westerners and some mainland dissidents consider the central government as essentially a dictatorship.
A Time magazine editor has argued that mainland youths and overseas students have become nationalistic because they are being brainwashed and taught one-sided history in school; a Boston Globe editorial compares the Beijing Games to the Berlin Olympics of 1936, darkly hinting at Hitler's nationalistic pathology in light of China's supposed new nationalism. But is there really a comparison? Hitler was fashioning a totalitarian state while China has been extracting itself from Maoist, one-party totalitarianism. Hitler pursued a revolutionary foreign policy that sought to overturn a system of international treaties and alliances that disarmed Germany and restrained its expansion. China wants nothing better than to be integrated into the world economy and take its place as a respected member of the international community.