Age of Rages: Nationalisms

Webinar 1: Nationalisms in Hong Kong and China

Moderator:

Terri-Anne Teo is a Research Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She holds a PhD in Politics and an MSc in International Relations from the University of Bristol, UK. Her research interests include multiculturalism, citizenship, migration and identity politics. Her most recent publications include a monograph titled Civic Multiculturalism in Singapore: Revisiting Citizenship, Rights and Recognition (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), a co-edited volume titled Postcolonial Governmentalities: Rationalities, Violences and Contestations (Rowman and Littlefield International, 2020) and journal articles in Global Society and Asian Studies Review on multiculturalism and perceptions of meritocracy in Singapore respectively.

Abstract/ Speakers:

From Localism to Stateless Nationalism: Paradigm shift of Hong Kong identity in post-handover years

This presentation outlines a paradigm shift of Hong Kong identity in its post-handover years under Chinese sovereignty: the rise of localism and its transformation into stateless nationalism. Both political ideologies stem from the pursuance of Hong Kong identity, and its cultural uneasiness to Chinese identity in response to the rising China’s influence over the political system and socio-economic sphere of this city. Yet they make a fundamental difference.

While localism is still subject to the cultural imagination of national-local dichotomy, stateless nationalism is an intellectual attempt to establish Hong Kong identity as an indispensable stakeholder in contemporary world order. Localism positions Hong Kong identity as a reactive cultural entity vis-à-vis China’s national and international power. Stateless nationalism repositions Hong Kong as a political community which makes unique contribution to democracies amid the rise of hybrid regimes such as China and Russia.

Drawing upon the social movement discourses of Hong Kong’s Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (Anti-ELAB) in 2019, this presentation explicates how the ideology of stateless nationalism extends the international leverage of Hong Kong identity. Stateless nationalism invites researchers of international relations to revisit the political value of Hong Kong in the world apart from being an international financial hub.

Chi Kit Chan is Associate Professor in the School of Communication, the Hang Seng University of Hong Kong. His research interests include journalism, media sociology, cultural identity and nationalism. He has published articles in academic journals such as Journalism, Chinese Journal of Communication, China Perspectives and Social Transformation in Chinese Societies. His commentary is also seen in Ming Pao Daily, Radio Television Hong Kong, and other media organizations.

China’s Digital Nationalism and its Implications for Hong Kong

The Hong Kong protest movement has shone a spotlight on how divided political opinions are across the Chinese-speaking world, often along fault lines created by nationalist attitudes and shaped by official propaganda. These attitudes have long been a feature of Chinese politics, but they have taken on new dynamics in online contexts, from where they at times powerfully affect domestic and foreign policy alike.

Nationalism, in China as much as elsewhere, is today adopted, filtered, transformed, enhanced, and accelerated through digital networks, and it interacts in complicated ways with traditional nationalism ‘on the ground’. Based on recent observations about the Hong Kong protest movement and the reactions it has elicited, as well as on detailed analyses of Chinese online nationalism vis-à-vis Japan, this talk asks: what happens to nationalism when it goes digital?.

Florian Schneider, PhD, Sheffield University, is Senior University Lecturer in the Politics of Modern China at Leiden University. He is managing editor of the academic journal Asiascape: Digital Asia, director of the Leiden Asia Centre, and author of Staging China: The Politics of Mass Spectacle (Leiden University Press 2019), China’s Digital Nationalism (Oxford University Press 2018), and Visual Political Communication in Popular Chinese Television Series (Brill 2013, recipient of the 2014 EastAsiaNet book prize). His research interests include questions of governance, political communication, and digital media in China, as well as international relations in the East-Asian region.

Discussant:

Dr Li Mingjiang is an Associate Professor at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is also the Coordinator of the China Programme at RSIS. He received his PhD in Political Science from Boston University. His main research interests include China-ASEAN relations, Sino-U.S. relations, Asia Pacific security, and domestic sources of Chinese foreign policy. He is the author (including editor and co-editor) of 12 books. His recent books are New Dynamics in US-China Relations: Contending for the Asia Pacific (lead editor, Routledge, 2014) and Mao’s China and the Sino-Soviet Split (Routledge, 2012). He has published papers in various peer-reviewed journals including the Journal of Strategic Studies, Global Governance, Cold War History, Journal of Contemporary China, The Chinese Journal of International Politics, the Chinese Journal of Political Science, China: An International Journal, China Security, Harvard Asia Quarterly, Security Challenges, and the International Spectator. Dr Li frequently participates in various track-two events on East Asian regional security.