Chinese nationalism tends to excessively react to some specific problems which oppose to Japan, USA or West European countries in particular. This “anti-West” sentiment of the Chinese society has been regarded as the “trauma” of invasion by the Great Powers. Yet when reviewing Chinese cognition after the national foundation in 1949, there were the times when Chinese nationalism expanded without connecting to the “anti-West” assessment. For example, despite the rise of “patriotism” in the 1980s, Chinese public opinion took a conciliatory attitude to the Western countries, especially to Japan. Similarly, it was observed that while the nationalism kept on surging, Chinese public sentiments towards Japan continuously improved from 2006 to 2010. These phenomena can’t be explained by a simple logic that “the surge of nationalism promotes anti-foreignism.”
This paper hypothesizes the contemporary Chinese nationalism as multiple political thought in order to examine the dynamism of its “anti-West” logics. Here, the centripetal force of Chinese official nationalism is extracted as the four elements; national identity, socialism, economic development and notion of great power. Using these factors, this paper discusses the mechanism how Chinese nationalism links to the “anti-West” sentiments.
In conclusion, this paper argues that the “anti-West” sentiments is not only an extension of the historical trauma, but it is also promoted by official nationalism. At the same time, however, it is also pointed out two elements of the official nationalism—economic development and notion of great power—functioned to offset the public “anti-West” feelings.