774 { China’s Quest
strategy. The government would probably demand a change in the policies
of the foreign transgressing state, along with an apology for the transgres-
sion. Communication with the offending party may well be refused, since
even to speak with the foreign transgressor can be seen as a sign of weakness.
There were two faces of China’s power. One face was calm and reasonable,
and sought to reassure other countries, both the United States and China’s
neighbors, that China was and would remain peaceful and nonbelligerent.
China showed its other face, an aggressive and threatening face, in response
to hot crises, when China’s government was acting under the mobilized at-
tention of its nationalist public. In these cases, the government could not af-
ford to be seen as weak. The incentive was to be stern and tough defenders of
China against ruthless foreign aggression.
It may be that nationalist bloggers critical of Beijing’s foreign policies func-
tioned as a sort of pressure group. Nationalist bloggers who felt that Beijing’s,
or perhaps the MFA’s, policies were not tough enough were, of course, a rel-
atively small number of people (perhaps a few tens of thousands). Yet when
their views were aggregated, systematized, and put in a top-secret report
under the imprimatur of the MSS, Politburo members paid considerable at-
tention to them. China’s leaders would make foreign policy moves with an
awareness of how moves would be received by a handful of cyber nationalists.
Those cyber nationalists soon come to understand this, and this sense of im-
portance and actual influence might inspire them to take even more extreme
positions.
Other scholars stress that party leaders, while using web nationalism to
legitimize party rule and mobilize support, remained in full charge of foreign
policy and continued to act on the basis of interests associated with China’s
long-term development.^24 A sort of state-tolerated civil society evolved
around this popular and spontaneous, bottom-up nationalism. Spontaneous
web-based nationalist activism, including demands for tougher state poli-
cies, erupted in response to various issues reported by the international
and Chinese media. Web-based nationalists formed organizations and un-
dertook a range of independent activities: circulating petitions; organizing
boycotts, demonstrations and protests; and lobbying state legislative bodies
and party-directed mass organizations to adopt more assertive policies on
nationalist issues. The state legitimized and in effect authorized this activity
by its own criticism of foreign actions. The state then tolerated popular na-
tionalist agitation, or even encouraged it, as long as it stayed within bounds of
not endangering social order or party authority. Freelance nationalist groups
watched state policy closely for clues of official toleration, perhaps even con-
ditional support, and responded quickly when they saw such signs. Cyber
nationalist efforts to mobilize opinion were often assisted by China’s com-
mercial press, which understood that sensationalist, nationalist content sold
papers. The state set parameters for permissible nationalist agitation, but