The minzu net: China's fragmented national form (in Nations and Nationalism roundtable discussion on Chinese nationalism and national identity)
Academic Article
Han
majority nationalism poses a significant yet under-theorized challenge to state
sovereignty and territorial integrity in China, especially in the era of the
Internet. By shifting our focus from minority secessionist movements on the
ground in Xinjiang and Tibet to a group of Han nationalists active in
cyberspace, this article probes the friction between three distinct yet
interrelated ideologies of spatiality in contemporary China: the processes and
practices of state territorialization; counter-narratives and geographies of
Han cybernationalism; and the transnational flows of the Sinophone Internet. It
argues that the Internet empowers yet ultimately blunts the threat of Han
nationalism, rendering it largely impotent when faced with the hegemony of state
territorialization.
