Nationalism has found a variety of homes over the centuries. Arising in Europe, it was originally a galvanizing resistance to Napoleon between 1800 and 1815: the bond of oppressed people against an invading oppressor.
In its next phase, nationalism was favored by political liberals, who saw it as the formation of an identity for the common people over against the aristocrats. The royal dynasties supported monarchies which were not necessary corresponding to the ethnic identities of their subjects.
This liberal nationalism saw itself as liberating and empowering people - Poland for the Poles, Russia for the Russians, Sweden for the Swedes, etc.
Metternich and the many of the nobles of Europe opposed this nationalism. Nationalism in this phase was opposed to the status quo, and was sometimes even seen as subversive or revolutionary.
That would change when nationalists obtained power.
In its third phases, nationalism ascendant gained power in many European countries, changing them from monarchies into nation-states. Once in power, nationalism became more authoritarian, moving further to the political left, skeptical of the free market.
Some consideration of vocabulary can clarify these notions of nationalism. A ‘nation’ is, for practical purposes, an ethnic group, bound by a common culture or language. A ‘state’ is a territory with a government. We can see that it is possible to be a state without being a nation, or to be a nation without being a state.
Poland between 1795 and 1919, for example, was a nation without a state. The Soviet Union, incorporating diverse groups like Estonians and Mongolians, was a state but not a nation.
When a country is both a nation and a state, we use the term ‘nation-state’ to describe it.
In its early phases, nationalism can be seen as a benign, and even healthy, patriotism: an affection for one’s native country and a cultural identity bonded to one’s fellow countrymen.
But an extreme nationalism emerged which would unleash evil and destruction.
As nationalism moved further into its third phase, its authoritarian disregard for the private sector increased. A malignant version of extreme nationalism glorified the state, moved to the extreme left of the political spectrum, and sacrificed the political, economic, and religious liberty of the individual.
This ‘national socialism’ endorsed the intervention of the government to regulate the economy and private life, and saw the individual as subservient to the state.
This dangerous form of nationalism is a value system: it asserts that the ultimate value is the existence, growth, and security of the nation-state. If that value is seen as ultimate, then logically other values can be sacrificed for it, including human life.
The word ‘Nazi’ is an abbreviation for ‘national socialism’ and embodied the idea that the government should not only regulate the individual, but should also provide for the individual - education, healthcare, etc. - thus making the individual into a creature of the state. The horrific atrocities which happened under the Nazis is the logical consequence of this type of ‘statism’ - a socialized and nationalized economy.
After 1945, central Europe learned to avoid this destructive form of nationalism, sometimes overreacting and also rejecting beneficial form mildly patriotic nationalism.
As nationalism developed through its good and evil phases in Europe, eastern Asia began to awaken to nationalism. Which forms would nationalism take in the Pacific Rim?
Mainland communist China presents as a nationalistic state: rejecting free-market capitalism for a state-capitalism, rejecting ideology for the simple guiding value of state power, and embracing a technocratic authoritarianism instead of a dynastic authority. Robert Kaplan writes:
The Chinese regime demonstrates a low-calorie version of authoritarianism, with a capitalist economy and little governing ideology to speak of. Moreover, China is likely to become more open rather than closed as a society in future years. China’s leaders are competent engineers and regional governors, dedicated to an improving and balanced economy, who abide by mandatory retirement ages. These are not the decadent, calcified leaders of the Arab world who have been overthrown. Rather than fascism or militarism, China, along with every state in East Asia, is increasingly defined by the persistence, the rise even, of old-fashioned nationalism: an idea, no doubt, but not one that since the mid-nineteenth century has been attractive to liberal humanists.
Although founded as an ideological and doctrinaire Marxist state in 1949 by Mao, modern mainland China has drifted away from ideology as its main defining characteristic. While still in some sense socialist or communist, mainland China’s rulers have become more pragmatic than ideological.
Instead of an ideology, China seems to be running on a mixture of Machiavelli’s power politics and Bismarck’s Realpolitik. Whether or not one can call that mixture an ‘ideology’ is a question for those who define words precisely.
Nationalism in Europe during the 1800s denoted a moral community against imperial rule. Now the moral community for which intellectuals and journalists aspire is universal, encompassing all of humankind, so that nationalism, whose humanity is limited to a specific group, is viewed as reactionary almost. (This is partly why the media over the decades has been attracted to international organizations, be it the United Nations, the European Union, or NATO — because they offer a path beyond national sovereignty.) Yet, despite pan-national groupings like ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), it is traditional nationalism that mainly drives politics in Asia, and will continue to do so. And that nationalism is leading to the modernization of militaries — navies and air forces especially — in order to defend sovereignty, with which to make claims for disputed maritime resources.
Both the good forms and the evil forms of nationalism were born in Europe. Bit by bit, through contact with the British Empire, and through the ideas of European political thinkers, China adopted aspects of nationalism.
In the Chinese civil war, from 1927 to 1949, both sides were influenced by concepts of nationalism which had come into China through the writings of influential political philosophers, from John Locke to Karl Marx, from Edmund Burke to Vladimir Lenin. Chinese nationalism was, and is, never quite the same as its European cousins.
Concepts of ‘nation-state’ and ‘nationalism’ found slightly different forms when they were introduced into China from Europe. Why did these ideas take on somewhat different forms? The reasons are many and complex.
Traditional Chinese culture may not have emphasized individualism to the extent, or in the way, that John Locke’s Enlightenment thinking did, and so Lockean tropes like the “consent of the governed” and “majority rule” played out different in China than in Great Britain.
Obviously, Karl Marx played a large role in shaping China after 1927, and especially after 1949. Mao, in attempting to shape China in Marx’s image, faced the paradox — faced by leaders in other nations as well — that Marxist Communism demands internationalism, but these leaders found some amount of nationalism to be a necessary ingredient in persuading people to make the great sacrifices required to build the Marxist utopia. Although doctrinaire Communism requires a rejection of nationalism in favor of internationalism, reality required some amount of nationalist spirit to motivate people to sacrifice for the Communist cause: “do this for the good of your nation.”
It was also necessary for Mao to invent a slightly different version of the “nation” for his version of nationalism. While the nationalisms of Europe worked to preserve the cultures and ethnicities of the nations — a devotion to, and adoration of, Polish ethnic culture, German ethnic culture, Italian ethnic culture, etc. — Mao did not strictly preserve, but rather altered, aspects of Chinese culture, so that the ‘nation’ in his version of Chinese ‘nationalism’ wasn’t a cultural artifact received from previous generations.
Suffice it to say that, when speaking of ‘Chinese nationalism,’ it is worth noting that it is different from the nationalisms encountered in European history.
