CDT last week posted a series of interviews with Chinese journalists, including one with a (more or less) anonymous Chinese journalist. (Read other interviews here, here, and here.) It’s a good read, as this particular journalist gives, to my mind, a pretty balanced perspective on the problems between Chinese nationalists and the Western media, while providing a good accounting of the misconceptions and misunderstandings from both sides of the ledger. I did like his take on nationalism, in part because it more or less jibes with what I’ve been writing this past year:
CDT: WHAT APPROACH WOULD YOU PREFER THE CHINESE TO TAKE?
Journalist: First of all they should figure out where this kind of nationalism came from. I think there are two reasons. The first is that the Chinese people have been educated by this kind of patriotism or nationalism in their textbooks, which teach how China had suffered from its past history. They tell about China’s humiliating history, being invaded by Japan and western countries. This kind of education easily gives its people an impression that they should fight against any disrespect or invasion. So people become very sensitive about these international issues.
The second part is that