| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article contributes to the debates on China's socio-political transformations by tracing the link between China's modernization and nationalism, and
analysing their mutual interplay. Many recent studies discuss post-Mao China's
development as a unique model challenging earlier development approaches. Instead,
the argument pursued here points to the dependence of China's dominant development
thinking on the paradigm of modernization and its symbolic celebration in official
discourse and public rituals. By tracing the impact of the modernization paradigm in
the influential annual publication China Modernization Report and in the 2009
National Day mass parade, the article shows how and what kind of Chinese nation is
produced. I argue that China's ostensibly unique development model is constrained by
the modernization thinking underlying it. Analysis of the discourses on modernity and
'scientific development' and the symbolism associated with them reveals a series of
dichotomies and oppositions underpinning China's nation-building. China's pursuit of
modernization relies on the suppression of other possible development paths within
China and subsumes Chinese development experiences under those of the generalised
West, thereby restricting development alternatives to those allowed within a
hierarchical view of the world.
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