In 'A Beijing Man in New York' Beijingren zai Niuyue , China's popular tele-series, the protagonist Wang Qiming, a man on his way to making a fortune after a train of failures and betrayals, hires a New York prostitute. She is white, blonde and buxom. Wang decides to take some of his frustrations out on her.
While thrusting himself onto the prostrate prostitute, Wang showers her with dollar bills. As the money swirls around the bed, Wang demands that she repeatedly cry out: 'I love you'. Reportedly, this was an extremely popular scene with mainland audiences, in particular with the Chinese intelligentsia. It could be argued that by having his way with an American whore while buying her endearments with a shower of greenbacks, Wang Qiming's action is the most eloquent recent statement and inversion of the century-old Chinese-foreign dilemma.
It represents the coming of age of Chinese narcissism, and it bespeaks a desire for revenge for all the real and perceived slights of the past century. Questions of racial and political impotence have been central to Chinese thought and debates ever since. Most of the ideologically contending groups in China have, despite ideological clashes and heated debates, essentially pursued similar nationalistic goals. The end of the Cold War has seen the revival throughout the world of national aspirations and interests; developments in China have certainly not occurred in isolation.
The rapid decay of Maoist ideological beliefs and the need for continued stability in the Chinese Communist Party have led to an increased reliance on nationalism as a unifying ideology. But whereas throughout the s the Communist Party emphasized its role as the paramount patriotic force in the nation, 9 mobilizing nationalistic symbols and mythology to shore up its position, by the s the situation had altered. Patriotic sentiment is no longer the sole province of the Party and its propagandists.
But it is a consensus that for the time being at least benefits the Party. Both economic realities and national priorities call for a strong central state and thus tend to give an ideologically weakened Communist Party a renewed role in the broader contest for the nation. Since there has certainly been an erosion of the authority of the Party-state, but it could also be argued that attempts are being made to reformulate and broaden the basis of national authority as the ambit of what constitutes 'patriotic' becomes greatly expanded.
