Cat fights over nationalism

SHANGHAI, China-- In Chinese language class the other day, we were talking about finding a husband for our teacher's cat -- one of those silly exercises that language courses always involve. One of my classmates suggested the teacher's cat could marry his cat. "He's American, handsome and smart," he said.\nOur teacher, an attractive, young and single graduate student, demurred. \n"I think my cat is very traditional," she said. "She wants to marry a Chinese cat."\nMaybe there was a little bit of subtext there. Just a bit.\nI can't imagine this kind of exchange taking place in many countries in the developed world, and certainly not in rich countries' most international cities. The concepts of race and nationality are understood differently here. There are sound historical and cultural reasons for that difference, but a rising tide of Chinese nationalism coupled with the country's growing regional power could result in a foreign policy disaster.\nIn Mandarin, China is called "Zhong Guo," the Central Kingdom. Traditionally, China believed itself to be at the center of the civilized world. Western military superiority, expressed in a series of decisive wars in the 19th century, ended this sense of Chinese supremacy. The Chinese regard the period between about 1850 and 1950 as a century of humiliation, when European superiority effectively turned China into a colony. Many Chinese welcomed the 1949 founding of the People's Republic of China under the Communist Party led by Mao Zedong because it was, in their eyes, a Chinese government, not one beholden to the West.\nZedong's regime was a disaster for ordinary Chinese. Tens of millions of people died from famine and government-sponsored violence under Zedong's rule, and it was only after China embraced free-market reforms in the late 1970s that the country's economy began to expand.\nYet China's newfound openness to foreign trade coexists uneasily with the Chinese Communist Party's emphasis on absolute national sovereignty. Many in the West endorse a limited idea of sovereignty: If a government grossly violates the human rights of its people, the theory holds, then the global community can intervene in that country's internal affairs.\nChina rejects this idea. What happens within a country's borders, Beijing claims, is the business of that country alone. This isn't just a moral stance -- it's a reflection of Beijing's insistence that the United States and other countries have no business criticizing China's human rights record or its occupation of Tibet and other minority areas.\nThe government promotes the idea of unlimited national sovereignty and Chinese national pride through the schools and the government-run media. The proposition that only China's government can rule China is convenient for the Communist Party, and it resonates with the Chinese people's desire to reassert Zhong Guo's centrality on the world shade.\nChina's national pride shades into nationalism. This could be a major problem for the Chinese government and for other countries in East Asia region (and also the United States). Nationalistic beliefs create an expectation that the government will always take a hard line on settling foreign policy disputes. A growing nationalist movement in China has already taken to the Internet to express its voice on foreign policy, and strongly anti-American and anti-Japanese sentiments are perfectly acceptable here. \n Other nationalist activists have taken rash actions, like visiting the Diaoyu Islands, claimed by both China and Japan -- the sort of incident that, in different circumstances, could spark a major crisis. And in a future crisis, China's leaders could find nationalistic expectations have boxed them into a corner. To paraphrase Bismarck: If there is another war in Asia, it will be over some silly island China claims to own.\nI'd be less frightened of such a conflict if my teacher hadn't refused to consider the very idea of marrying an American.\nI mean, letting her cat marry an American cat.