Fateful Embrace of Communism } 25
States, the USSR, had disappeared, and for the first several years of the 1990s,
there seemed to be the possibility that Russia might gravitate toward its
“European home” and the Western camp. Moscow’s former allies in Eastern
Europe joined the US-led camp. Indeed, former Soviet satellites became some
of the most enthusiastic members of the US-led NATO camp. Contrary to
long-standing PRC predictions of the arrival of a multipolar era, the Western
alliance system held together. Europe and Japan did not pull away from the
United States. The grand America-centric alliance of Europe, North America,
and democratic East Asia held firm. A new power, India, gravitated toward
that camp for the first time.
Survival of the CCP regime in this newly threatening environment of Act
III shaped PRC foreign relations in two main ways. First, Beijing sought to
deter, constrain, and/or defeat US “interference” in China in support of dissi-
dent elements, but to do this in ways that did not undermine US willingness
to continue supporting China’s emergence as a rich and strong power. These
conflicting objectives led to a combination of strength and toughness toward
the United States on the one hand, and search for partnership with it on the
other. The second key dimension has been CCP utilization of Leninist-style
campaigns touting aggrieved nationalism to legitimize the CCP. Assertive
nationalism uses emotionally evocative rhetoric and symbols to depict China
as the victim of assaults, aggression, insults, and injury by foreign pow-
ers, especially the United States and Japan.^25 Frequently, these depictions of
foreign moves and motives are grossly distorted or even downright wrong.
Nonetheless, these putative foreign attacks are linked to China’s “century of
national shame and humiliation” in an attempt to rouse a sense of grievance
and resentment against foreign enemies of China. The CCP’s resort to this
sort of “assertive nationalism” serves to mobilize domestic support for the
regime in an era of eroding belief in Marxism.
Since China’s opening, “Marxism-Leninism Mao Zedong Thought” has
steadily been reduced to an intra-CCP regime credo. Party members must
still master and profess belief in the ideology, and this helps provide coherence
to the party, a sort of esoteric knowledge that binds its adherents together. The
public legitimization of CCP rule, however, is no longer Marxism-Leninism
but assertive nationalism—the propensity of hostile foreign powers to harm
China and the need for a tough-minded regime like that of the CCP to de-
fend against evil foreign transgression against China. Assertive foreign poli-
cies and nationalist rhetoric are used to appeal to injured nationalist pride,
legitimizing the CCP regime that defends China so well. In line with this, the
media and state-sponsored popular culture portray the world as a dark and
sinister place, with the firm and steady CCP thwarting all sorts of nefarious
schemes against China. CCP policies that are perceived to be inadequately
resolute by the nationalist opinion fostered by the state undermine regime
legitimacy.^26