Research Portfolio Post #5: Research Topic Post

I am studying nationalist protest in China because I want to find out how recent cases of nationalist and antiforeign protest in China have affected China’s foreign policy outcomes in order to help my reader understand recent trends in China’s foreign policy.

In her article, “Authoritarian Signaling, Mass Audiences, and Nationalist Protest in China,” Jessica Chen Weiss argues that the decision to allow or suppress nationalist protest is a form of costly signaling because the protests are more likely to pose a risk to stability — or even to the existence of the regime — if the government allows them but does not stand up to whichever country is being cast as the foreign aggressor.(1) While she does take aim at the gap in scholarship on the subject of Chinese nationalism in international relations, Weiss does not analyze any cases since Xi has come to power.(2)

While Weiss views antiforeign sentiment as a relatively constant force that needs only to be given a “green light” from the government to boil over onto the streets, in his article called “An Angle on Nationalism in China Today: Attitudes Among Beijing Students after Belgrade 1999,” Dingxin Zhao disagrees.(3) He uses the attitudes towards America of Chinese students after the diplomatic crisis (in which American planes bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade) to argue that antiforeign attitudes among Chinese are surface-level, temporal, and not part of some deeply-rooted ideology.(4) Zhao’s assessment seems to at least partially negate that of Weiss. That an authoritarian regime should allow expressions of popular dissent at all is somewhat counterintuitive — and could be a puzzle itself. Moreover, it seems unlikely that protests could act as a credible signal if — as Zhao argues — protests are not representative of deeply held beliefs and so do not pose a large threat to regime stability.(5)

In an news article titled “Chinese Protest Against South Korea’s Lotte,” the Straits Times accounts how, in the wake of Lotte Group, a South Korean company, allowing the construction of an American missile-defense system (which is designed to defend against North Korea, but could also interrupt China’s deterrence) protesters gathered for a protest and called for a boycott of Lotte’s establishments.(6) This is an outlier from the cases discussed by Weiss because these protests — allowed by the Chinese government — were targeted South Korea (a country that has not historically been the subject of excessive Chinese public ire) and took place under a new regime — that of Xi Jinping.(7)

In an account of the same incident in an article called “China is Whipping up Public Anger Against South Korea,” The Economist takes a stance relatively consistent with that of Weiss — arguing that the protests served the political purpose of signaling resolve to South Korea’s next president, but does not place this argument in much wider context in terms of the policy of Xi Jinping.(8) Thus, scholars have done significant research into the rise of Chinese nationalism and even the effects on international relations of its previous cases, but little exploration of recent cases and trends.(9) However, while new sources have done significant coverage of recent cases, there has been a lack in the study of its wider implications and trends.(10)

Does Wiess’s explanation of historical Chinese protests hold true for the South Korean case; or has the signal lost credibility with its repeated use in a kind of the-boy-who-cried-wolf effect? South Korea is a new target and China is under new leadership, suggesting that this case — among others — requires further analysis of the above questions and of the decision making process of a new administration. It could lend credibility to Weiss’s assessment of the Chinese government’s motivations, or it could render some aspects of her theory products of context.

In terms of practical significance, a study of recent trends and continuities in Chinese nationalist as it pertains to international relations is important because nationalist protest has historically been a tool of China, yet the scholarship on the issue has so far failed to analyze recent cases.(11) Xi Jinping may or may not be more willing to use nationalism that his predecessors, which could have significant implications for Weiss’s theory and for current understandings of China’s nationalism — and is exactly why the scholarship on the issue requires an update in that regard. The relationship between China and America is the most important in the world and is increasingly so, making it very important that the two be able to correctly calibrate their respective foreign policies — something that this study should assist by shedding light on recent cases and trends.

This paper’s proposed research questions are the following:

-Under what conditions do Chinese nationalist protests lead to favorable foreign policy outcomes for China?

-Why did the Chinese government decide to allow protests against South Korea and Lotte Group in 2017?

1. Jessica Chen Weiss. “Authoritarian Signaling, Mass Audiences, and Nationalist Protest in China.” International Organization 67, no. 1 (January 2013): 2-5. doi:10.1017/S0020818312000380.
2. Ibid., 16.
3. Dingxin Zhao. “An Angle on Nationalism in China Today: Attitudes Among Beijing Students after Belgrade 1999.” The China Quarterly 172 (December 2002): 885–905. doi:10.1017/S0009443902000542.
4. Ibid., 902-905.
5. Ibid.
6. “Chinese Protest against South Korea’s Lotte.” Text. The Straits Times, March 5, 2017. http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/chinese-protest-against-south-koreas-lotte.
7. Weiss, “Authoritarian Signaling, Mass Audiences, and Nationalist Protest in China,” 15-25.
8. “China Is Whipping up Public Anger Against South Korea.” Text. The Economist, May 17, 2017. https://www.economist.com/news/china/21718876-it-wary-going-too-far-china-whipping-up-public-anger-against-south-korea.
9. Weiss, “Authoritarian Signaling, Mass Audiences, and Nationalist Protest in China,” 15-25.
10. “Chinese Protest against South Korea’s Lotte.”; “China Is Whipping up Public Anger Against South Korea.”
11. Weiss, “Authoritarian Signaling, Mass Audiences, and Nationalist Protest in China,” 15-25.