Evan Osnos, the New Yorker’s China correspondent, has launched a new blog on the New Yorker’s website. Today’s dispatch from Beijing addresses the rise of China’s new new nationalism:
It does not help that the first publicized words on China from the incoming U.S. Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, accuse China of manipulating its currency. In that atmosphere, the appeal of nationalism begins to reach far beyond young activists. (Predictably, Su Ning, a senior official at the People’s Bank of China, called Geithner’s remarks “out of keeping with the facts,””and said they could become an obstacle in managing the economic crisis.) China shows no sign of changing course under pressure, which leaves Beijing University’s Michael Pettis, a reliable voice on how developing countries respond to economic crisis, especially concerned. “I am afraid that there is no way for this process to end. It will descend into trade war.” Whether or not it goes that far, we should brace for a new wave of economic nationalism in China. If unemployment continues to rise and enough new college graduates are left to idle in the street — or, more volatile perhaps, online — expect to see Chinese authorities do what they can to steer resentment in the direction of a target as far from home as possible.
