A Study On The Contemporary China Nationalism With The Marxism Perspective

Nationalism, one of the key ideologies in the political and social development of China, has been adopted by many patriots to save the nation at the end of Qing dynasty, in the May Fourth Movement and in the Second Sino-Japanese War. With the development of globalization, nationalism is brought into focus again nationwide, from the responses to the post-colonial theory and Samuel P. Huntington’s article The Clash of Civilization, to the revival of New Confucianism, from the public reactions to issues like Sino-US air collision in2001, protecting Beijing Olympic torch relay in2008and Sino-Japanese Boat Clash in2010, to official reports or speeches concerning "national revival". The paper, carried out on the basis of Marxism and nationalism, comes to the following conclusions. To begin with, modern nationalism in China is closely connected with Chinese history and current reality, including safeguarding national sovereignty, pursuing national prosperity and constructing new national culture. The nationalism demonstrates various features, such as stimulus-response, nation-centered, formalism and opposition to western nationalism.In the second place, modern nationalism in China is developing into various forms and discourses. It can be classified, according to its functions, as the mainstream (patriot nationalism), non-mainstream (radical nationalism) and anti-mainstream (nationality splittism). Nationality splittism is not included in this paper since it is contrary to the value of Chinese nationalism. From the perspective of subject differences, it can be divided into three discourses:the official theme of "national revival", intellectual academic discourses and public discourse (mainly youth-centered).Besides, modern nationalism in China is based on the socialist core value system which is the leading ideology in China. The following approaches should be taken into consideration:the principle of mutual respect and tolerance, the promotion of the positive elements in nationalism, the value education for youth and the integration of ideologies, theories and practices.In the end, there are two possible tendencies for modern nationalism in China in the future. From the angle of duration, modern nationalism in China will exist for a certain period of time in reality, but is going to vanish ultimately. From the perspective of quantity, modern nationalism in China will remain stable in normality, but tend to expand in abnormal conditions. As far as quality is concerned, modern nationalism in China stays fine at the macro level, although it is probably to grow " evil" at the micro level.