The Chinese Communist Party did not have to work hard at mobilising nationalist resentment against Tibetan attempts to disrupt the Olympic torch relay across the continents. For most Chinese, hosting the Olympics was to be a proud moment of national glory. They are seething with anger against the Tibetans for spoiling the occasion and the international media for being so critical of Beijing.

Many in the West who see China’s internal politics in terms of Communist authoritarianism versus popular aspirations for democracy are surprised at the internal support that has quickly rallied round the government.

Like Indian nationalism, the Chinese variant too is prickly — and takes offence at any real or presumed slight. During moments of tension with the West, Japan, Taiwan or Tibet, Chinese websites are lit up by the vituperative Han response.

The galvanisation of the nationalist sentiment, however, is not an unmixed blessing for the CCP. Once unleashed, the nationalist sentiment in China tends to be unpredictable. Shanghai, for example, was rocked by anti-Japanese protests nearly three years ago. The provocation was Tokyo’s approval of new school textbooks that the Chinese argue played down Japan’s wartime atrocities. When these protests gathered momentum in the spring of 2005, the CCP had to quickly clamp down.

The CCP also stepped in when protests in Beijing during 1999 against the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade turned violent. Earlier in 1988, the CCP banned protests against the killing of the Chinese diaspora in Indonesia. Uncontrolled protest, the CCP believes, could easily turn against itself.

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