Nationalism vs. democracy : China’s bloggers and the Western media

Abstract

Over 300 Million Chinese access the Internet regularly. While these netizens (Internet + citizens) have often been portrayed as a potential force for democracy, this changed with the unrest in Tibet, and the run-up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008. As this chapter shows, many Chinese netizens began to defend China’s honour against the perceived betrayal and attacks by the Western media. They began to see democracy and the protection of Chinese interests as polar opposites as Western comments on China damaged democracy’s reputation among the upwardly mobile, emerging Middle Class active in Chinese cyberspace.