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Letters | Nationalism works, just look at China: self-loathing Americans have a lot to learn
- The extraordinary growth of China in recent decades has everything to do with nationalistic policies that put Chinese interests first
- European nations lack healthy instincts of patriotism and self-defence, and the cure is nationalism
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Your editorial, “The folly of nationalism laid bare” (November 13), misses an important point, perhaps because it is too close to home.
The extraordinary growth of China in recent decades has everything to do with nationalistic policies that put Chinese interests first.
One of the oft-unstated reasons for Facebook and Twitter being banned in China is so that Tencent, a local Chinese company, can have that market to itself. China’s immigration policies are likewise very restrictive, favouring Han Chinese above all other groups. I wonder, what would China do if a “migrant caravan” were headed for the Chinese border, brazenly flaunting its intention to break Chinese immigration law when it arrived?
US secretary of state warns China to ‘behave like a normal nation on commerce’
The contrast between Chinese nationalism and American anti-nationalism is perhaps most apparent in their different approaches to national history. Ever since the disruptive cultural changes of the 1960s, America has been questioning itself about its moral worth as a nation. There is an increasingly popular narrative of American history which only emphasises American malfeasance. This caricature informs much of the anti-Trump, anti-nationalist resistance, which shouts that “America Was Never Great.” They learned that in school – American schools.
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Imagine a truncated and distorted version of Chinese history which only talked of binding women’s feet and foreigners killed during the Boxer Rebellion. Imagine Han Chinese being told that their numerical dominance in China is a problem, and the only way that they can validate themselves as human beings is to make way for other groups to replace them. No self-respecting Chinese would accept such a narrative, nor should they.
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