Suisheng Zhao

Bio: Suisheng Zhao is an academic researcher from University of Denver. The author has contributed to research in topics: China & Nationalism. The author has an hindex of 21, co-authored 58 publications receiving 2145 citations. Previous affiliations of Suisheng Zhao include Academia Sinica & Colby College.

A Nation-State by Construction: Dynamics of Modern Chinese Nationalism

Abstract: This is the first historically comprehensive, up-to-date analysis of the causes, content, and consequences of nationalism in China, an ancient empire that has struggled to construct a nation-state and find its place in the modern world. It shows how Chinese political elites have competed to promote different types of nationalism linked to their political values and interests and imposed them on the nation while trying to repress other types of nationalism. In particular, the book reveals how leaders of the PRC have adopted a pragmatic strategy to use nationalism while struggling to prevent it from turning into a menace rather than a prop.

A state-led nationalism: The patriotic education campaign in post-Tiananmen China

Abstract: The decline of Communism after the end of the post-Cold War has seen the rise of nationalism in many parts of the former Communist world. In countries such as the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, nationalism was pursued largely from the bottom up as ethnic and separatist movements. Some observers also take this bottom-up approach to find the major cause of Chinese nationalism and believe that “the nationalist wave in China is a spontaneous public reaction to a series of international events, not a government propaganda.” (Zhang, M. (1997) The new thinking of Sino–US relations. Journal of Contemporary China , 6 (14), 117–123). They see Chinese nationalism as “a belated response to the talk of containing China among journalists and politicians” in the United States and “a public protest against the mistreatment from the US in the last several years.” (Li, H. (1997) China talks back: anti-Americanism or nationalism? Journal of Contemporary China , 6 (14), 153–160). This position concurs with the authors of nationalistic books in China, such as The China That Can Say No: Political and Sentimental Choice in the Post-Cold War Era (Song, Q., Zhang Z., Qiao B. (1996) Zhongguo Keyi Shuo Bu (The China That Can Say No) . Zhonghua Gongshang Lianhe Chubanshe. Beijing), which called upon Chinese political elites to say no to the US, and argue that the rise of nationalism was not a result of the official propaganda but a reflection of the state of mind of a new generation of Chinese intelligentsia in response to the foreign pressures in the post-Cold War era. Indeed, Chinese nationalism was mainly reactive sentiments to foreign suppressions in modern history, and this new wave of nationalist sentiment also harbored a sense of wounded national pride and an anti-foreign (particularly the US and Japan) resentment. Many Chinese intellectuals gave voice to a rising nationalistic discourse in the 1990s (Zhao, S. (1997) Chinese intellectuals' quest for national greatness and nationalistic writing in the 1990s. The China Quarterly , 152 , 725–745). However, Chinese nationalism in the 1990s was also constructed and enacted from the top by the Communist state. There were no major military threats to China's security after the end of the Cold War. Instead, the internal legitimacy crisis became a grave concern of the Chinese Communist regime because of the rapid decay of Communist ideology. In response, the Communist regime substituted performance legitimacy provided by surging economic development and nationalist legitimacy provided by invocation of the distinctive characteristics of Chinese culture in place of Marxist–Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. As one of the most important maneuvers to enact Chinese nationalism, the Communist government launched an extensive propaganda campaign of patriotic education after the Tiananmen Incident in 1989. The patriotic education campaign was well-engineered and appealed to nationalism in the name of patriotism to ensure loyalty in a population that was otherwise subject to many domestic discontents. The Communist regime, striving to maintain authoritarian control while Communist ideology was becoming obsolete in the post-Cold War era, warned of the existence of hostile international forces in the world perpetuating imperialist insult to Chinese pride. The patriotic education campaign was a state-led nationalist movement, which redefined the legitimacy of the post-Tiananmen leadership in a way that would permit the Communist Party's rule to continue on the basis of a non-Communist ideology. Patriotism was thus used to bolster CCP power in a country that was portrayed as besieged and embattled. The dependence on patriotism to build support for the government and the patriotic education campaign by the Communist propagandists were directly responsible for the nationalistic sentiment of the Chinese people in the mid-1990s. This paper focuses on the Communist state as the architect of nationalism in China and seeks to understand the rise of Chinese nationalism by examining the patriotic education campaign. It begins with an analysis of how nationalism took the place of the official ideology as the coalescing force in the post-Tiananmen years. It then goes on to examine the process, contents, methods and effectiveness of the patriotic education campaign. The conclusion offers a perspective on the instrumental aspect of state-led nationalism.

The China Model: can it replace the Western model of modernization?

Abstract: China's economic success under an authoritarian political system in the past 30 years has raised a question about whether the China model will replace the Western model of modernization. This paper seeks answers to this question by exploring to what extent China offers a distinctive model of economic and political development and whether the China model represents a successful co-existence of a free market and an authoritarian state in order to maintain economic growth and political stability, as well as discussing what the appeals and limitations of the China model are.

Chinese Nationalism and Its International Orientations

Abstract: The end of the cold war has precipitated an epidemic of nationalist conflict in many parts of the world Nationalism has hardly been quiescent during the twentieth century At times, it functioned to free nations from alien rule, to create a state of its own, and to contribute to the process of modernization' In international relations, it also appeared as a relatively peaceful doctrine to express a political desire for national independence among people who believe they have a common ancestry or a common political destiny in a territory peculiarly identified with their history and their fulfillment However, the prevailing image of nationalism in the contemporary world is negative It is seen as fueling interstate warfare and has been responsible for many human tragedies Nationalism is associated with the destructive warfare of the first half of the century and the bloody and tragic ethnic conflict in former Yugoslavia and the Balkans after the end of the cold war There has been a burgeoning literature on nationalism and war2 However, the direct linkage between nationalism and international aggression is by no means convincing In the discussion of the emergence of nationalism in many parts of the world, aggressive and war-causing behavior of nationalism is often taken for granted without explanation

Foreign Policy Implications of Chinese Nationalism Revisited: the strident turn

Abstract: This paper revisits the debate about foreign policy implications of Chinese nationalism in the context of China's increasingly confrontational and assertive behavior in recent years. It argues that while the Chinese government made effective efforts to control popular nationalism and Chinese foreign policy was therefore not dictated by emotional nationalistic rhetoric before 2008, it has become more willing to follow the popular nationalist calls to take a confrontational position against the Western powers and to adopt tougher measures in maritime territorial disputes with its neighbors. This strident turn is partially because the government is increasingly responsive to public opinion, but more importantly because of the convergence of Chinese state nationalism and popular nationalism calling for a more muscular Chinese foreign policy. Enjoying an inflated sense of empowerment supported by its new quotient of wealth and military capacities, and terrified of an uncertain future due to increasing social, ...

Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security

Abstract: Part I. Introduction: Developing a Regional Approach to Global Security: 1. Theories and histories about the structure of contemporary international security 2. Levels: distinguishing the regional from the global 3. Security complexes: a theory of regional security Part II. Asia: 4. South Asia: inching towards internal and external transformation 5. Northeast and southeast Asian security complexes during the Cold War 6. The 1990s and beyond: an emergent east Asian complex Conclusion Part III. The Middle East and Africa: Introduction 7. The Middle East: a perennial conflict formation 8. Sub-saharan Africa: security dynamics in a setting of weak and failed states Conclusions Part IV. The Americas: 9. North America: the sole superpower and its surroundings 10. South America: an under-conflictual anomaly? Conclusion: scenarios for the RSCs of the Americas Part V. The Europes: Introduction: 11. EU-Europe: the European Union and its 'near abroad' 12. The Balkans and Turkey 13. The post-Soviet space: a regional security complex around Russia Conclusion: scenarios for the European supercomplex Part VI. Conclusions: 14. Regions and powers: summing up and looking ahead 15. Reflections on conceptualising international security.

Growing Like China

Abstract: This paper constructs a growth model that is consistent with salient features of the Chinese growth experience since 1992: high output growth, sustained returns on capital investments, extensive reallocation within the manufacturing sector, falling labor share and accumulation of a large foreign surplus. The theory makes only minimal deviations from a neoclassical growth model. Its building blocks are financial imperfections and reallocation among firms with heterogeneous productivity. Some firms use more productive technologies than others, but low-productivity firms survive because of better access to credit markets. Due to the financial imperfections, high-productivity firms - which are run by entrepreneurs - must be financed out of internal savings. If these savings are sufficiently large, the high-productivity sector outgrows the low-productivity sector, and attracts an increasing employment share. During the transition, low wage growth sustains the return to capital. The downsizing of the financially integrated sector forces a growing share of domestic savings to be invested in foreign assets, generating a foreign surplus. We test some auxiliary implications of the theory and find robust empirical support.

Growing Like China

Abstract: This paper constructs a growth model that is consistent with salient features of the recent Chinese growth experience: high output growth, sustained returns on capital investment, extensive reallocation within the manufacturing sector, falling labor share and accumulation of a large foreign surplus. The building blocks of the theory are asymmetric financial imperfections and heterogeneous productivity. Some firms use more productive technologies, but low-productivity firms survive because of better access to credit markets. Due to the financial imperfections, high-productivity firms — which are run by entrepreneurs — must be financed out of internal savings. If these savings are sufficiently large, the high-productivity firms outgrow the low-productivity firms and attract an increasing employment share. The downsizing of the financially integrated firms forces a growing share of domestic savings to be invested in foreign assets, generating a foreign surplus. A calibrated version of the theory can account quantitatively for China’s growth

Judicial Review in New Democracies: Constitutional Courts in Asian Cases

Abstract: New democracies around the world have adopted constitutional courts to oversee the operation of democratic politics. Where does judicial power come from, how does it develop in the early stages of democratic liberalization, and what political conditions support its expansion? This book answers these questions through an examination of three constitutional courts in Asia: Taiwan, Korea, and Mongolia. In a region that has traditionally viewed law as a tool of authoritarian rulers, constitutional courts in these three societies are becoming a real constraint on government. In contrast with conventional culturalist accounts, this book argues that the design and functioning of constitutional review are largely a function of politics and interests. Judicial review - the power of judges to rule an act of a legislature or national leader unconstitutional - is a solution to the problem of uncertainty in constitutional design. By providing 'insurance' to prospective electoral losers, judicial review can facilitate democracy.