766 { China’s Quest
The Fabrication of Chinese Patriotism: The CCP
as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice?In 1797, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote a poem titled “The Sorcerer’s
Apprentice.” In it, a semiskilled apprentice magician, tired of daily chores,
takes advantage of his master’s temporary absence to magically empower a
broom to carry water and mop the floor. Once empowered, the broom soon
escapes the apprentice’s control, threatening him with disaster. Finally, the
master sorcerer returns to break the spell and save the day. The story stands as
a warning to those who unleash forces, especially in politics, that they cannot
control. In 1797, the revolutionary spell of nationalism was sweeping Europe,
toppling regimes and mobilizing whole populations for revolution and war.
Might the CCP have called forth a militant Chinese nationalism that it will
be unable to control?
The emergence of nationalism both as the major legitimization of CCP
authority and as an autonomous social force voicing foreign policy demands
on the CCP is a major characteristics of China’s post-1989 period. Nationalism
has been defined as any behavior designed to restore, maintain, or advance
the public image of a nation. Chinese nationalism is defined as determination
to wipe out the dishonor of the Century of National Humiliation and restore
China to its rightful position of high international esteem. The instrumental
goals for achieving this are national prosperity and power.^11
Patriotism in the form of a burning desire to drive all foreign imperial-
ists out of China was a primary driving force of the whole Chinese commu-
nist movement. But during the post-1949 Mao era, the CCP advanced what
has been called a “victor’s narrative,” with the Chinese people, under the
correct leadership of Mao Zedong and the CCP, advancing from victory to
victory: defeating Japan, driving out the KMT puppets of imperialism, over-
throwing the landlords and comprador capitalists linked to imperialism,
building socialism, rectifying ideological errors within the international
communist movement, winning the esteem of the revolutionary peoples of
the whole world, preparing to lead the world to the transition to commu-
nism, and so on. Within the framework of Mao’s victor narrative, the Chinese
revolution had made China strong. China, led by the CCP, had defeated
the Japanese and their KMT lackeys. China, under Mao and the CCP, was
showing the oppressed people of the world how to defeat imperialism, estab-
lish socialism, and move toward the transition to communism. China, under
the correct leadership of Mao, was the leader of the whole world’s revolu-
tionary forces. The laboring classes of the whole world loved and esteemed
Chairman Mao, in the Maoist narrative of that era. These were heady ideas.
After 1978, this victor’s narrative faded with growing awareness of how poor
and backward China actually was—a reality stressed by Deng Xiaoping and
driven home by growing contact with the advanced capitalist countries and