Editing Chinese nationalism (section)

==Historical development==
{{See also|History of China}}
[[File:岳飞像.jpg|thumb|Qing dynasty illustration of [[Yue Fei]] who led Chinese [[Southern Song]] army against [[Jurchens]]]]
[[File:A Seated Portrait of Ming Emperor Taizu.jpg|thumb|Portrait of the [[Hongwu Emperor]], who led Chinese movement against [[Mongol]] [[Yuan dynasty]]]]
The first state of China was confirmed as the [[Shang dynasty]] (c. 1570 BC-c. 1045 BC). The Chinese concept of the world was largely a division between the civilized world and the barbarian world and there was little concept of the belief that Chinese interests were served by a powerful Chinese state. Commenter [[Lucian Pye]] has argued that the modern "[[nation state]]" is fundamentally different from a traditional empire, and argues that dynamics of the current [[People's Republic of China]] (PRC) – a concentration of power at a central point of authority – share an essential similarity with the [[Ming Dynasty|Ming]] and [[Qing Dynasty|Qing Empire]]s.<ref>{{cite book |title=Asian power and politics: the cultural dimensions of authority |last1= Pye|first1= Lucian W.|author-link1= Lucian Pye|last2 = Pye | first2 = Mary W.|year= 1985 |publisher=Harvard University Press |page=184}}</ref>

As it emerged in the early 20th century, Chinese nationalism was modeled after [[Japanese nationalism]], especially as it was viewed and interpreted by [[Sun Yat-sen]]. In 1894, Sun founded the [[Revive China Society]], which was the first Chinese nationalist revolutionary society.<ref name=":022">{{Cite book |last=Yang |first=Zhiyi |title=Poetry, History, Memory: Wang Jingwei and China in Dark Times |date=2023 |publisher=[[The University of Michigan Press]] |isbn=978-0-472-05650-7 |location=Ann Arbor}}</ref>{{Rp|page=31}}

Chinese nationalism was rooted in the long historic tradition in which China was considered the center of the world, in which all other states were offshoots of China and owed some sort of deference to it. That sense of superiority underwent a series of terrible shocks in the 19th century, including large-scale internal revolts, and more grievously the systematic gaining and removal of special rights and privileges by foreign nations which proved their military superiority during the [[First Opium War|First]] and [[Second Opium War]]s, based on modern technology that was lacking in China. It was a matter of humiliation one after another, the loss of faith in the Qing dynasty. By the 1890s, disaffected Chinese intellectuals began to develop "a new nationalist commitment to China as a nation-state in a world dominated by predatory imperialist nation states."<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Meisner |first=Maurice J. |author-link=Maurice Meisner |title=Mao's China and After |title-link=Mao's China and After |date=1999 |isbn=0-02-920870-X |edition=3rd |location=New York |pages= |oclc=13270932}}</ref>{{Rp|page=12}} Overall, their concern was not in preserving a traditional Chinese order but instead the construction of a strong state and society that could stand in a hostile international arena.<ref name=":3" />

Unlike many nationalist projects in other countries, the trend among Chinese intellectuals was to regard tradition as unsuitable for China's survival and instead to view tradition as a source of China's problems.<ref name=":3" />{{Rp|page=13}} For the Qing dynasty, ethnicity was a troublesome issue. Some of the ethnic groups within the empire were identified according to language and culture, including the Manchus who originated in a non-Han Chinese population and ruled the dynasty. Most citizens had multiple identities, of which the locality was more important than the nation as a whole.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Westad |first=Odd Arne |author-link=Odd Arne Westad |title=Restless Empire: China and the World Since 1750 |date=2012-09-06 |publisher=[[Random House]] |isbn=978-1-4464-8510-1 |language=en}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=29–30}} Anyone who wanted to rise in government non-military service had to be immersed in Confucian classics, and pass the [[imperial examination]]. If accepted, they would be rotated around the country, so the bureaucrats did not identify with the locality. The depth of two-way understanding and trust developed by European political leaders and their followers did not exist.<ref>On how Confucianism was an invented tradition in China see [[Lionel M. Jensen]], ''Manufacturing Confucianism: Chinese traditions & universal civilization'' (Duke UP, 1997) pp. 3–7.</ref>

China's defeat by Japan at the end of the [[First Sino-Japanese War]] (1894–1895) was fundamental to the development of the first generation of Chinese nationalists.<ref name=":22" />{{Rp|page=132}} The most dramatic watershed came in 1900, in the wake of the invasion, capture, and pillaging of the national capital by the [[Eight-Nation Alliance]] that punished China for the [[Boxer Rebellion]].<ref>Mary Clabaugh Wright, ed. ''China and revolution: the first phase, 1900–1913'' (1968) pp. 1–23.</ref> During the [[Late Qing reforms]], the rise of the national education trend emphasizes instilling national values in education and inspiring patriotic sentiments. For example, the Chinese geography textbooks published during the period usually praised China's superior geographical conditions, and such texts generally came from the first chapters of the textbooks, which were convenient for guiding students to develop a love for their motherland when they first came into contact with China's geography.<ref>{{cite web | url = https://www.sohu.com/a/127415152_488316 | title = 地理书写与国家认同：清末地理教科书中的民族主义话语 | website = [[Sohu]] | access-date = June 5, 2024 | archive-date = 5 June 2024 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240605050419/https://www.sohu.com/a/127415152_488316 | url-status = live }}</ref> Chinese nationalists drew inspiration from Japan's victory in the [[Russo-Japanese War]], which they broadly viewed as demonstrating the fallacy of a European-centric racial hierarchy.<ref name=":022"/>{{Rp|page=30}}

The [[Second Sino-Japanese War|Second Sino-Japanese war]] was one of the most important events in the modern construction of Chinese nationalism.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Mitter |first=Rana |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1141442704 |title=China's good war : how World War II is shaping a new nationalism |date=2020 |publisher=The Belknap Press of [[Harvard University Press]] |isbn=978-0-674-98426-4 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |pages=32 |oclc=1141442704 |access-date=14 October 2022 |archive-date=2 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230402121743/https://www.worldcat.org/title/1141442704 |url-status=live }}</ref> The Chinese experience in the war helped create an ideology based on the concept of “the people” as a political body in its own right, “a modern nation as opposed to a feudal empire.”<ref name=":0" />