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Chapter Five Imagining China (2): The CCP’s Chinese Nationalism and the Role of Intellectuals after 1949 In chapters 2 and 3, we discussed the nationalist developments in the KMT and DPP eras in Taiwan: changing from collectivistic ethnic nationalism, which emphasized authoritarianism and Chinese nationalism, toward an individualistic ethnic nationalism, which would emphasize democracy and multiculturalism. We observed that the change is still going on, and the challenge is still there as to what kind of national identity the state and intellectuals are going to build in Taiwan. In the previous chapter, we examined the historical development of nation building in China before 1949, which is characterized by a change from culturalism to nationalism, although mostly a collectivistic ethnic rather than individualistic nationalism. Since 1949, China’s nation building has gone through many stages, especially regarding Taiwan, but we can say that it is also moving toward an individualistic ethnic nationalism, in spite of all the difficulties that still remain. We will now examine the development of nationalism in this period of Chinese history. In a nutshell, the CCP’s project of nation building since 1949 has been a mixed baggage of successes and failures, however one defines these. On the one hand, the CCP government has indeed succeeded in close-to-eliminating Western influence and privileges in China and in driving the KMT to Taiwan, ridding the country of elements supposedly representing political injustice, dictatorship, and economic capitalism. The CCP claimed that, following in Sun Yat-sen’s footsteps, it was going to build an independent, free, democratic, unified, and prosperous new China (see Mao Zedong 1945). In the eyes of the CCP, in just under 60 years it has, indeed — leaving aside the case of Taiwan — built an independent and unified new China. But throughout most of its period of total rule in China, the country has been neither free nor democratic, either in the sense of worker-peasant freedom and democracy as the CCP has claimed, or in a conventional liberal sense. The CCP has mainly followed a collectivistic ethnic nationalism. Things have changed much, though, since the reform that began in the final years of the 1970s after Mao’s death. The CCP state has achieved an unprecedented level of economic prosperity, and politically it has instituted some limited reforms, including the local village level elections that began in the 1980s. In its Taiwan Wither Taiwan and Mainland China? 98 policy, the CCP has moved from an aggressive policy of military liberation to peaceful unification, toward an individualistic ethnic nationalism, although it has not given up on the use of force to achieve the goal of unification. Intellectuals in China, on the other hand, have mostly played an organic role to the state. Few have tried to be professional, for whatever reasons, and even fewer are actually critical. It is risky to follow the liberal tradition of the May 4 Movement and to advocate an individualistic ethnic nationalism. Let us examine what actually happened in this period regarding China’s nation building and the role of the CCP state and intellectuals. Independence, Unification, and the Problematic Han-Minority Relations Ever since 1840, the Chinese made persistent efforts in building a nation and seeking “independence,” meaning ridding themselves of or at least limiting what they perceived to be foreign interferences in Chinese affairs, through the SelfStrengthening Movement, the Hundred Day Reform, and the Republican and Communist Revolutions, as we examined in the last chapter.All of these movements attempted to fortify China against the perceived imperialist domination and colonial exploitation, as Sun Yat-sen’s and the communists’ nationalism meant it to be. Now, finally, the CCP was able to declare that the imperialists had been driven out of China. So independence was achieved. It indeed was, although the revolution was bloody and the number of deaths, in millions, was high, and the killings were largely between the Chinese themselves rather than between the “imperialists” and the Chinese. The unification of all provinces has also been largely achieved, with Taiwan as an exception, as well as the unification of nationalities, or at least on the surface. Soon after it took over China, the CCP government started to identify various minorities and finally came up with 55 of them (for an example of the often unscientific ways of identifying nationalities, see a discussion of the nationality of Tujia in Brown 2004:170–9; see also Suisheng Zhao 2004:181–2 for other problems of the identification issue...

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