Quest for Modernity and the Tides of History } 767
the rapidly modernizing countries of East Asia. Themes of revolution—the
CCP defeating the KMT, China’s proletarian victory over feudal landlords and
the bourgeoisie, class struggle against hidden revisionists within the party—
faded. New nationalist themes of the century of national humiliation and the
struggle of all Chinese against that humiliation emerged. The new nationalist
narrative had the advantage of including and appealing to ethnically proud
Chinese in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia. Marxism-Leninism–
Mao Zedong Thought remained the formal ideology for performing formal
political rituals or for justifying the repression of dissent.
In terms of societal processes during the 1978–1989 period, perhaps the
most significant development was the embrace of liberal democratic ideas
by a large portion of China’s intelligentsia and youth. Within the top party
leadership there was also a set of leaders, represented by Hu Yaobang and
Zhao Ziyang, who felt the party needed to learn a new, less repressive way of
ruling, pointing toward greater political relaxation. Following 6-4, CCP lead-
ers concluded that the major political mistake purged General Secretary Hu
Yaobang had made was failure to inculcate the danger of foreign threat pos-
ing the danger of returning China to its pre-1949 condition of weakness. They
set out to rectify that mistake by a systematic “patriotic education” campaign.
After 6-4, the CCP mobilized its entire apparatus to indoctrinate via pa-
triotic education the carefully crafted historical narrative of “national hu-
miliation.” But there also existed by the mid-1990s a genuine and vibrant
nationalism which was independent of the regime, and though generally sup-
portive of the regime, at times became critical of it. It is this autonomous
and occasionally antiregime aspect of China’s new nationalism that some-
times placed foreign policy demands and pressures on the government and
was potentially dangerous for the CCP. Anti-Japanese nationalist sentiments
genuinely felt among the populace, especially Internet nationalists prone to
criticism of regime policies, also created a potent weapon for use in struggles
between members of the CCP elite.^12 Charges that a leader is irresolute in
confronting injury to China’s interests and honor, especially insults by hated
Japan, are potent precisely because anti-Japanese passions are so genuine and
widespread. Thus encouragement of petitions, letter-writing campaigns, or
demonstrations may be a tool in intraelite struggle.
The CCP’s Patriotic Education Campaign and repression of liberal ideas
and individuals cannot fully account for the rise of nationalist, anti-Western,
and anti-US nationalism in the 1990s. More important than governmen-
tal moves may have been broad intellectual deliberations underway within
China during the 1990s.^13 The difficulties encountered by Russia after embrac-
ing liberal institutions made a deep impact on Chinese intellectuals. The
Russian economy shrank by perhaps half in the years after 1991—in contrast
to China’s economy, which boomed under the guidance of its authoritarian
state. The phenomenal post-1992 pace of China’s economic growth contrasted