State rhetoric, nationalism and public opinion in China
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3696742 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rachel Neo (0000-0002-6418-4350), Ric Neo, Chen Xiang (0000-0002-5469-5739) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 98 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 1327-1346 |
| Publication date | 2022-07-05 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Affairs (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-5850 • E-ISSN: 1468-2346 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ia/iiac105 |
| OpenAlex | W4283819021 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
The Chinese government is fond of invoking the 'hurt feelings of 1.4 billion Chinese citizens' to protest foreign actions and policies. However, this rhetoric might be nothing more than propaganda and attempts to leverage nationalist sentiment. How much do citizens in China actually care about issues completely unrelated to their daily livelihoods? To answer this, the study employs a representative survey to investigate the extent to which rhetoric about 'hurt feelings' is consistent with public opinion on four contemporary socio-political disputes involving the NBA, Marriott International, Mercedes-Benz and the city of Prague. Across the scenarios, we found that the Chinese government did not exaggerate the displeasure of audiences-citizens are aware of the cases, were indeed upset by them and advocated for retaliatory measures that were surprisingly more forceful than those adopted in reality. These emotions were largely driven by nationalistic sentiment rather than personal experiences or encounters, suggesting the success of state propaganda in steering the public opinion toward outcomes favourable to the state. These findings support recent studies highlighting the peculiar case of rising nationalism in China, and have important implications for the impact of public opinion on Chinese policymaking
China · Dissenting opinion · Feeling · Government (linguistics) · Leverage (statistics) · Nationalism · Nothing · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Public opinion · Rhetoric · Sociology · State (computer science) · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Psychology · Rhetoric and Communication Studies · Social Psychology
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| Unique citing works | 9 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 9 |