This article started from a critical consciousness, ‘How patriotism attracted Chinese people strongly and still does in China‘. It would be probably because of their historical experiences of failure in nation-building and loss of national sovereignty caused by invasion of imperialism. The disgraceful experiences in modern China left a big scar on Chinese people, and such a psychological scar appeared as a rhetorical expression emphasizing China and Sino-centrism and developed to patriotism.
Most countries would stimulate national emotion to use that to keep their cohesiveness. At the point, patriotism as a historical experience is called again according to national need, and the public are mobilized under the name of patriotism. The typical case is large-scaled patriotism campaign conducted under the slogan of the War to Resist America and Aid Korea by the Chinese Communist Party in 1950.
To mobilize the public more efficiently and attract them to its system, the Chinese Communist Party made a climate of tense and fear first, hunting counter-revolutionists down through sweeping ideological conflicts. At the same time, they developed patriotism campaign to mobilize the public and organize them through mass movement. It was because the emotion, patriotism was the point where Chinese Communist Party and all walks of life in Chinese society make empathy best.
The Korean War was a good chance for Chinese Communist Party to rally the public. The people felt ardent patriotism as they regarded the country as being sacred after going through the severe experience of failure in nation-building and loss of national sovereignty. As a result, Chinese Communist Party could settle the early political situation that was unstable that time, and establish the foundation to rule China continuously. That is, patriotism was the idea for public mobilization and national integration.
As shown above, Chinese Government would use the public as national resource on the pretext of nation-building or overcoming a national crisis by utilizing a historical experience called patriotism. The history shows that Chinese people can explode with patriotism whenever Chinese society is in chaos or crisis, and the government can induce the outburst. It can be said that the historical experience is why Chinese patriotism shows resistant and self-display evolution.