China's BIG victim complex
Orville Schell, old China hand, as they used to call China Watchers during the cold war get it so right on the mark in the Taipei Times that it is a little scary. Unable to assume its position as a powerful nation among many, the Chinese prefer to whip up nationalist sentiment in order to justify a kind of exceptionalism that has obeys one logic -- hegemony, or expansionism.
Schell's characterization of China's victim complex reminded me of all the times during my childhood when I heard about how Chinese and dogs were not allowed on Shanghai's legendary Bund, today home of countless Shanghai harbor cruises, the occasional beggar and reams of tourists Chinese and foreign, looking to get a good view of the Buck Rogers Pudong skyline. Were any of these complaints motivated by a demand for justice? I think not, they were, and continue to be demands for recognition -- recognition of exceptional Chinese suffering.
But the politicized inflation of historical victimization ignores and represses the present regime's brutal history. Whipping everyone up into an anti-Japanese fervor is a very calculated political strategy to justify a military and diplomatic offensive on Taiwan: because in the mind of Chinese hyper-patriots, Japan is demonically instigating Taiwan to declare independence in order that it can again dominate the once colonized island.
Finally, the Western press is waking up to this ugly and dangerous wave nationalism on the Chinese Street .
We have to denounce this for what it is -- the kind of government sanctioned rabble rousing that also made the average German citizen forget his or her woes in 1936. "Grossdeutschland" or "Greater Germany" is a concept that the Chinese government is reviving, with Chinese language and culture as the common binding trait that will allow the nation's expansionist ambitions to appear as "rescue" of Chinese culture.
Schell's characterization of China's victim complex reminded me of all the times during my childhood when I heard about how Chinese and dogs were not allowed on Shanghai's legendary Bund, today home of countless Shanghai harbor cruises, the occasional beggar and reams of tourists Chinese and foreign, looking to get a good view of the Buck Rogers Pudong skyline. Were any of these complaints motivated by a demand for justice? I think not, they were, and continue to be demands for recognition -- recognition of exceptional Chinese suffering.
But the politicized inflation of historical victimization ignores and represses the present regime's brutal history. Whipping everyone up into an anti-Japanese fervor is a very calculated political strategy to justify a military and diplomatic offensive on Taiwan: because in the mind of Chinese hyper-patriots, Japan is demonically instigating Taiwan to declare independence in order that it can again dominate the once colonized island.
Finally, the Western press is waking up to this ugly and dangerous wave nationalism on the Chinese Street .
We have to denounce this for what it is -- the kind of government sanctioned rabble rousing that also made the average German citizen forget his or her woes in 1936. "Grossdeutschland" or "Greater Germany" is a concept that the Chinese government is reviving, with Chinese language and culture as the common binding trait that will allow the nation's expansionist ambitions to appear as "rescue" of Chinese culture.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home