Did the Patriotic Education Campaign Lead to the Rise of Nationalism in China?

• In Event: Public Opinion in Contemporary Chinese Politics

Abstract

Since the turn of the century, China's display of nationalist sentiment has attracted global attention (Chen, 2004; Gries, 2004). The intensity of nationalism expressed by the general public has been increasing, accompanied by a growing support for hawkish foreign policies. China has been considered a representative nation of the "rising nationalism" phenomenon (Johnston, 2017; Weiss, 2019). In reality, nationalism is both a product of social material conditions (Gellner, 1983, 1988) and influenced by ideas and ideologies (Kedourie, 1993; Rankin, 2004). Besides, institutions or policies can also affect people's attitudes (Bauböck, 1996). In the early 1990s, in order to prevent "Western ideological and peaceful evolution," the Chinese government launched a massive patriotic education movement, which has continued to the present day. The movement aimed to "fill the ideological vacuum, cultivate patriotic sentiment, and instill correct values" among the younger generation (Bislev & Li, 2014). The values of nationalism were "rediscovered" and became an important tool for maintaining political legitimacy. Therefore, China's rise of nationalism since this century has long been regarded as being rooted in the patriotic education movement of the 1990s. It is seen as the inevitable result of the generation (post-80s and post-90s) who received patriotic education during their childhood and have now reached adulthood (Johnston, 2017; Wang, 2008; Zhao, 1998). Nationalistic actions such as anti-Japanese and anti-American protests that emerged in the first two decades of this century have also been attributed to the anticipated effects of China's patriotic education movement in the 1990s (Li, 2015; Qian, Xu, & Chen, 2017; Weiss, 2019).

However, it is crucial to differentiate between the patriotic education movement and the social division event of the Tiananmen student movement that occurred in 1989, as the former is an educational policy closely related to the latter (Ariely, 2016). Hastily considering China's "rising nationalism" as the inevitable result of the generation that received patriotic education, without distinguishing the shock event and the subsequent political socialization educational policy, would be erroneous. Therefore, it is extremely necessary to differentiate between the student movement and the patriotic education movement to determine which event triggered China's rise of nationalism. In recent years, the development of causal inference techniques has made reliable causal inference possible, and corresponding empirical evidence will help answer the crucial question of how to attribute the nationalist social trend that emerged in China in the first two decades of this century. It can help rescue the primary issue of nationalism from endless debates and value judgments about whether its consequences are positive or negative (Hjerm, 2003) and return it to the institutional and historical context in which nationalism originated. Through empirical testing, it can contribute to understanding the origins of China's so-called "rising nationalism" today.

This study adopts the framework of national identity and political socialization theory and abstracts the patriotic education movement and its causes. It conducts a causal inference test on the competing hypotheses of cultural governance breakpoints and shock event breakpoints in the rise of nationalism. Utilizing data from the Beijing Area Study (BAS) conducted between 2007 and 2017, the study finds evidence of a breakpoint effect in the nationalist beliefs of individuals who received compulsory education before and after the Tiananmen incident. However, no breakpoint effect resulting from the patriotic education movement is observed in nationalist beliefs. This means that the breakpoint in the transformation of Chinese nationalism appeared earlier than the formal implementation of the patriotic education movement. Therefore, it is necessary to consider key conflict events when discussing the development of nationalist beliefs in China. As eyewitnesses to the Tiananmen incident, children's memories and beliefs may be complexly influenced by the shift in educational content and the social atmosphere caused by the event (Kilpatrick & Leitch, 2004; Gvirsman et al., 2016), which could weaken the expected educational effects of patriotic education. The study then discusses the theoretical and practical implications of this empirical evidence.

Authors

• Weijia Wang

• Yusi Liu, School of Journalism & Communication, Nanjing University