This dissertation examines the relationship between cyberspace and nationalism in China. It analyzes how Chinese nationalists express xenophobic views online and how the isolation of China's cyberspace through censorship and language may contribute to increasing xenophobia. The study reviews literature on Chinese nationalism and cyberspace controls. It analyzes nationalistic comments responding to foreign crises from 2001 to 2011 and how their xenophobia relates to changes in online openness over time. The research aims to show how nationalism evolves digitally and how an isolated Chinese cyberspace facilitates aggressive xenophobia with implications for China's international relations.

1. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CYBERSPACE AND NATIONALISM IN
CONTEMPORARY PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
CHU WAI YENG KAREN
MASTER OF ARTS IN CHINA DEVELOPMENT STUDIES DISSERTATION

2. “The Relationship Between Cyberspace and Nationalism In Contemporary
People’s Republic of China”
Submitted by
CHU WAI YENG KAREN
for the degree of Master of Arts in China Development Studies at The University
of Hong Kong in August 2011
Since the proliferation of the Internet in China in the late 1990s, Chinese nationalists
had begun to choose the cyberspace as the venue to vent their nationalistic views,
which counts xenophobia as one of the main attributes. This thesis seeks to determine
the relationship between cyberspace and nationalism in contemporary People’s
Republic of China by establishing the degree of the lack of the openness in the
Chinese cyberspace in terms of written language and state censorship, and the
comments which showed xenophobic Schadenfreude that appeared in Internet
discussion forums and bulletin boards in reaction to the national crises in the U.S. and
Japan during the period from 2001 to 2011. The empirical results of the study
indicates that the Chinese cyberspace is isolated from the universal Internet through
the use of the simplified Chinese script and state-enforced control, namely censorship
and the filtering system known as the Great Firewall of China. Further study through
a vertical analysis of the extreme xenophobic nationalistic comments from Internet
users in the PRC and the development of the state control and censorship over the
period from 2001 to 2011 found that the degree of xenophobic Schadenfreude of the
Chinese nationalists in the online environment increases with a decreasing degree of
openness in the Chinese cyberspace.
Keywords: Chinese cyber nationalism, Chinese cyberspace, Schadenfreude,
xenophobia

3. Chapter 1
Introduction
As the People’s Republic of China’s economic, cultural and political role in
the international arena rises in prominence since the open door policy was
implemented in the late 1970s, the sense of nationhood and national identity of the
Chinese people has evolved. The result was a new strain of nationalism that counts
xenophobia as one of the main attributes. The sense of “us against them” is not new
to modern China; for thirty years behind the iron curtain, the national imagining of
itself is founded on the communist/capitalist ideological dichotomy. Yet, it was
shocking to see nationalistic responses on mainland Chinese Internet forums and
bulletin boards that exhibited a higher degree of xenophobia and Schadenfreude in
reaction towards foreign catastrophes than could be considered civilized. Appalling
for many as it might be, “Enthusiastic celebration of earthquake in Japan” was the
headline of many a Chinese mainland online forum after the natural disasters of
earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in March 2011. The vitriol spewed was deplorable
yet not unprecedented; the frequency and inevitability of which it occurred warranted
investigation and close reflection.
Chinese nationalism has long been a widely examined and studied topic in
academic research. Numerous facets of Chinese nationalism has been explored, from
its origin when China came face to face with the rest of the world in the mid to late
nineteenth century, a weakened and dejected Chinese national self image in the early
twentieth century, to the aspirations to the return to greatness in the late twentieth
century. From different standpoints, such as racial nationalism, the idea of “face” that
played in the national self imagining in relation to the world, or the influence of past
humiliation in the hands of foreign invaders in the late nineteenth and mid twentieth
centuries in the national psyche, the characteristics of Chinese nationalism had been
dissected; its various stages of evolution were put under scrutiny. In recent years,
ever since the proliferation of the Internet in China in the late 1990s, the forms and
purposes of Chinese nationalism as expressed online had roused the interest of a
number of scholars. Some research revolved around the question of whether Chinese
online nationalism had been posing a challenge or a threat to the state’s authority; the
exchange of ideas between individuals in an online environment and the power of

4. mobilization of the Internet social media and discussion boards as a grassroots
movement had come under inspection. Other research focused on how the nature of
the Internet itself had influenced and transformed Chinese nationalism as an ideology
and a movement, changing it irreversibly into a form singularly embedded in its
medium, which some termed Chinese cyber nationalism.
However, little had been said about the unique peculiarities of the Chinese
cyberspace, or how it had affected the nature of Chinese cyber nationalism. The
xenophobic and aggressive trait of online Chinese nationalism, made possible and
facilitated by the anonymity of the Internet environment, had been left unexamined.
Therefore, it is the objective of this research to explore the relation between
Chinese nationalism expressed online and the xenophobic aggression displayed
therein. After this introduction in the Chapter 1 of the thesis, the research will begin
with a review of the existing literature in Chapter 2, which will draw on the evolution
of Chinese nationalism when it entered the Internet age, and the new characteristics
that had emerged. The review will be continued with an examination of the current
academic literature on the various aspects of the Chinese cyberspace, including the
state-control, censorship, and state-imposed firewall. The review will proceed to
identify the gaps within the existing literature, in order to show the significance and
necessity of this research.
Chapter 3 will be a section detailing the research design, data and
methodology, including the research questions and hypotheses of the research. But
before the thesis goes into the body of the research, Chapter 4, which is a section that
provides an overview of the development and proliferation of the Internet in China,
the major state regulations and policies on Internet control, as well as Chinese
nationalism in the Chinese cyberspace, will be given. In Chapter 5, the main body of
the research, the first task will be to seek to demonstrate that the cyberspace populated
by Chinese mainland residents is a closed up and non-open space, carried within the
fibre of its being an ingrained and historical sense of isolation and presently separated
from the cyberspace at large through written language – simplified Chinese script; a
state-enforced filtering system – the fabled Great Firewall of China; and state
censorship. The research then will explore in Chapter 6 the demonstration of the
xenophobic Schadenfreude the Chinese cyber nationalists displayed online. The next
step of the research, presented in Chapter 7, will be to examine the relation between
the xenophobic Schadenfreude of the nationalistic sentiments displayed in the Chinese

5. cyberspace and the isolation of the Chinese cyberspace through a vertical analysis of
the of the malevolent nationalistic comments of the Chinese Internet users in the
Chinese cyberspace in response to international events in overseas nations over time,
in order to establish a relationship between the two, followed by a conclusion of the
research in Chapter 8.
Nationalism is the ideology that had come to take the place of communism as
the form of legitimation for the Chinese state. As will be demonstrated in this
research, as nationalism evolves through the online assertion of national identity, it
takes on facets of its medium and the peculiarities of its distinctive cyberspace that
gives rise to an aggressive xenophobia, which would render problematic China’s
relation with the world.

6. cyberspace and the isolation of the Chinese cyberspace through a vertical analysis of
the of the malevolent nationalistic comments of the Chinese Internet users in the
Chinese cyberspace in response to international events in overseas nations over time,
in order to establish a relationship between the two, followed by a conclusion of the
research in Chapter 8.
Nationalism is the ideology that had come to take the place of communism as
the form of legitimation for the Chinese state. As will be demonstrated in this
research, as nationalism evolves through the online assertion of national identity, it
takes on facets of its medium and the peculiarities of its distinctive cyberspace that
gives rise to an aggressive xenophobia, which would render problematic China’s
relation with the world.