Chinese Nationalism and the Belgrade Embassy Bombing

Over the last century or more, Chinese nationalism has been fuelled by (if not entirely born from) various international ‘events’ that have brought a perceived physical or psychological harm to the Chinese people. The Opium Wars were arguably the first triggers of nationalism in China. These imperialist aggressions and the unequal treaties that followed inspired China’s first nationalists to challenge the Dragon Throne in the second half of the nineteenth century. The Versailles decision of 1919 that granted Japan Germany’s former concessionary rights in Shandong sparked the May Fourth demonstrations that today’s Chinese claim as the birth of the modern Chinese nation. In the 1930s and 1940s, Japanese aggressions, beginning with the Manchurian Incident of 1931, excited the nationalism of both communists and nationalists.