Is Nationalism A Dependent Variable or An Independent Variable?

The association between nationalism and economic development does not always appear straightforward for many. For scholars who find it so, very often, they consider nationalism as the result of economic development. In his well-known book, Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson (Reference Anderson1983) attributed the birth and spread of nationalism to the so-called “print capitalism,” i.e., the development of the print industry in Europe and later across the world. Similarly, Ernest Gellner (Reference Gellner1983) concluded that nationalism was the result of industrialization and the “high culture” following industrial development. Treating nationalism as an outcome of, hence secondary to, material foundation, both Anderson’s and Gellner’s study approaches were materialist and economic-determinist in nature. As two prominent scholars of the field, their approaches have been influential in the studies of nationalism. Many followers have applied their theories in case studies of specific countries and regions (e.g., Kitromilides Reference Kitromilides1989; Acharya Reference Acharya1999; Sarsembayev Reference Sarsembayev1999; Kanno Reference Kanno2003; Gruzd & Wellman Reference Gruzd, Wellman and Takhteyev2011).

Viewing the economic basis of nationalism from a constructivist perspective, Yoshiko Herrera (Reference Herrera2005) differed from the static and materialist interpretation of political economy and argued that both economic advantages and disadvantages were “imagined” in historical, institutional and local contexts. Accordingly, she coined the term “imagined economies” and asserted that, like nations, economies were imagined (Herrera Reference Herrera2005). Herrera’s constructivist understanding of political economy acknowledged the subjective nature of human reality, challenging the materialist approach dominating the field. However, she still considered nationalism a dependent variable – i.e., an outcome of the constructed economic conditions. To take the constructivist approach a step forward, this paper explores the possibility for nationalism to be an independent variable – i.e., the cause of economic development.

Is Nationalism A Proxy?

Studies of nationalism in different countries and regions have suggested that both elites and the public instrumentally used nationalism to meet their political and economic needs (Meadwell Reference Meadwell1989; Haas Reference Haas1993; Treisman Reference Treisman1996; Dimitrov (ed.) Reference Dimitrov2013). Due to the deep-rooted principle of pragmatism in Confucianism, many particularly argued about the pragmatic nature of Chinese nationalism (Weiss Reference Weiss2014; Zhao Reference Zhao2005 & Reference Zhao2021). Without doubt, historically, nationalist causes have been advanced by many to serve personal or group interests. The instrumental usage of nationalism, however, does not deny its empirical existence. Nor does it negate its independent effects. In most parts of the world, nationalism has become a socially accepted idea, affecting the ways most people think and act consciously or unconsciously. Liah Greenfeld’s historical research revealed that nationalism granted people unprecedented dignity and the social status to be fundamentally equal with the elites as national members (Greenfeld Reference Greenfeld1992). This makes nationalism appealing to most societies and spread across the globe (Greenfeld Reference Greenfeld2018 & 2019). Andrea Wimmer (Reference Wimmer2019, 28) echoed this, “Nationalism is not an irrational sentiment that can be banished from contemporary politics through enlightening education; it is one of the modern world’s foundational principles and is more widely accepted than its critics acknowledge.”

Meanwhile, there have been empirical studies focusing on nationalism in people’s everyday life, observing how nationalism justifies and “rationalizes” people’s “irrational” behaviours on a daily basis, ranging from reacting to national anthems and flags with special emotions to consuming the nation in the form of panic buying and conspiracy theories during the pandemic (Fox & Miller-Idriss Reference Fox and Miller-Idriss2008; Bonikowski Reference Bonikowski2016; Van Ginderachter Reference Van Ginderachter2019; Goode & Stroup & Gaufman Reference Goode, Stroup and Gaufman2022). The key question is thus not whether a specific individual genuinely embraces nationalism, but how nationalism, as a socially accepted orientation, influences individuals’ thinking and acting, which then result in other political and economic phenomena at an aggregated level. To answer such a question, logically, one needs to first address how nationalism spreads to the general population and becomes socially accepted.

Most scholars in the field of nationalism, particularly the “modern school,” believed that elites acquired nationalism first due to, among others, their higher literacy rate (Anderson Reference Anderson1983), better access to modern education/ “high culture” (Gellner Reference Gellner1983), or earlier experience of social mobility (Greenfeld Reference Greenfeld1992). In the spread of nationalism across the world, elites indeed played a significant role due to their leading positions in most transforming events and capabilities of shaping the official narratives. Nevertheless, to complete the social transformation, the spread of nationalism to the general public is critical. According to Weber (Reference Weber2005 [1930]), it was the ideational reorientation toward “the spirit of capitalism” at the social level that distinguished the modern capitalistic system from the pre-modern economic system. To quote his words, “the spirit of capitalism” was rationalized at the social level and to such a degree that it made that “an individual capitalistic enterprise which did not take advantage of its opportunities for profit-making would be doomed to extinction” (Weber Reference Weber2005 [1930], xxxii). In line with Weber’s observation, this study is focused on the ideational shift of the Chinese masses, although it acknowledges the leading role of the elites. In particular, it examines how economic nationalism spread to the Chinese commoners and reoriented them toward “the spirit of capitalism.”

How to Define Economic Nationalism?

Conventionally, economic nationalism has been associated, if not equated, with mercantilism or protectionism (Gregory Reference Gregory1931; Keynes Reference Keynes1933; Gilpin Reference Gilpin2016 [1987]). It is often juxtaposed against economic liberalism and measured by state-intervention or protectionist policies in existing literature (Johnson Reference Johnson1982; Kohli Reference Kohli2004; Lardy Reference Lardy2019). Associating economic nationalism solely with mercantilism or protectionism, however, neglects the opposite effects – i.e., economic liberalization and globalization – of economic nationalism (Nakno 2004; D’Costa Reference D’Costa2012; Duara Reference Duara2018). In practice, it also stigmatizes economic nationalism as a notorious ideology and subjugates nationalist leaders who adopted relevant measures to prejudices in the world of liberal democracy (Seers Reference Seers1983; Wimmer Reference Wimmer2019).

Historically, driven by the desire to support national industries and outcompete other countries, many liberal economies today, including the UK and the US, were mercantilist states opting for protectionist measures in the early stage of their economic development (Chang Reference Chang2003). They started to advocate for economic liberalism only when they became competitive enough and when global trade and the practice of free market favoured their interests (Chang Reference Chang2002; Greenfeld Reference Greenfeld2019). More recently, in face with the intensive competition from a rising China, the US, together with other liberal economies, have again resorted to mercantilism and protectionism to various extents (Bouët & Laborde Reference Bouët and Laborde2018). In explaining the historical changes of different countries’ economic policies, economic liberalism or realism alone proves to be inadequate (Abdelal Reference Abdelal2005). Reducing economic nationalism to the opposite of economic liberalism is both unempirical and theoretically counterproductive in that it limits the explanatory power of economic nationalism. In history, economic nationalism resulted in all kinds of policies serving the national interests of particular countries and these policies could be associated with economic liberalism, socialism, realism, mercantilism, protectionism, or a mix of any of them. To inquire about the effects of economic nationalism empirically, this paper does not adhere to the conventional understanding. Instead, it defines economic nationalism literally as a kind of nationalist aspiration that prioritizes economic development as the chief means to achieve a nation’s higher national strength and international status.

One National Goal, Two Different Nationalist Orientations

Having been born and grown up in late-Qing China when the country was invaded by foreign powers, both Mao and Deng witnessed the history of national humiliation. Being leading figures of major historical events that saved China from the hands of foreign invaders, both Mao and Deng were political elite members who acquired nationalism early on. Although they embraced different kinds of nationalist aspirations, they yet shared the same national goal: to achieve China’s dignity vis-a-vis foreign powers and secure its sovereignty and international status.

As a 15-year-old student, Deng first participated in China’s nationalist movement – the May 4 Movement – in 1919. He was then influenced by the high spirit of the time, “to save the nation through industry” [shiye jiuguo], which was an expression of economic nationalism in Republican China (Zanasi Reference Zanasi2006). Deng thus decided to study overseas to learn Western technologies and skills like many others did (Li and Wang (eds.) Reference Li and Wang1990). During his time in France, Deng witnessed the Marxist movements there and got interested in Marxism as an alternative for national salvation. He then went off to the Soviet Union for Marxist studies (Vogel Reference Vogel2011). In distinction, Mao did not study overseas. He was more of a home-grown nationalist and learned about Marxism in Peking University after the Bolshevik Revolution succeeded in Russia in 1917. Being a leader in the May 4 Movement, he understood the event first as a cultural and social transformation in China and later recalled it as a turning point where Chinese intellectuals came to unite with the proletariat to fight against the imperialists (Mao Reference Mao1939).

Like Lenin and Stalin in the Soviet Union, both Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping were nationalists in the guise of Communism (Yahuda Reference Yahuda1993; Wu Reference Wu2008). Due to their different experiences, however, their understandings of Marxism were different. Mao rejected the historical materialism of Marxism, the belief in the material forces of production as drivers of the historical process and in capitalism as a universal stage of historical development. Having studied, worked and learned about Marxism in France and the Soviet Union, Deng, in contrast, accepted it wholeheartedly and often used this to argue for market-oriented reform even before 1978. A believer in the magic power of ideological re-education and class struggle, Mao used ideological campaigns for both political and economic mobilization, and was determined to eliminate all elements of capitalism in socialist China (Mao Reference Mao1997 [1952], 65). In distinction, Deng, ever since he witnessed the disastrous consequences of the “Great Leap Forward” and the failure of the commune system in the early 1960s,Footnote ¹ had insisted upon the importance of economic incentives and saw the essence of socialism as the liberation and development of the forces of production. According to Barry Naughton (Reference Naughton1993, 491), “Though Deng lacks vision, there are nevertheless certain areas where he is extremely clear-sighted. The most striking example is his insistence on the need for real incentives and delegation of authority in order to motivate individual effort.”

During Cultural Revolution and right after Mao’s death, Deng’s sympathy toward economic incentives and individual initiatives was widely condemned as counter-revolutionary revisionism, economic opportunism, and, worst of all, treacherous “comprador capitalism” (People’s Daily 1976). For this, Deng was twice sent down to local factories for re-education (Vogel Reference Vogel2011). Deng’s return to the political center in late 1976 and his rise afterward, to a certain extent, were a reflection of a fundamental shift in official ideologies, or, more precisely, from Mao’s anti-capitalist nationalism to Deng’s economic nationalism.

Ideological Debate after Mao’s Death

Whatever ills it brought, the Cultural Revolution during 1966-1976 unified China politically and ideologically under Mao’s absolute authority. Mao’s death, following that of the much revered Premier Zhou Enlai in early 1976, resulted not only in power struggle among political factions,Footnote ² but also in ideological confusion. After the fall of the Gang of Four in late 1976, Hua Guofeng, as Mao’s successor according to his will, was committed to maintaining Mao’s authority and legacy. He clearly announced his continuing and absolute loyalty to whatever Mao said and decided in the past and accordingly established the so-called “two whatever-isms” as the guiding principle of the CCP and the state.Footnote ³ Vividly remembering the Cultural Revolution when those who ever disagreed with Mao were branded “counter-revolutionary revisionists” and ostracized, losing their political positions and social status, many followed Hua’s lead. The “two whatever-isms” became the dominant position in 1977, although, around the same time, Hua had shifted his attention to the economy under the competing pressure from Deng (Meisner Reference Meisner1996).

As Deng consolidated power with the support from veteran leaders both within the Party Political Bureau and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Hua found his position at odds with the central government’s increasing emphasis on economic development (Vogel Reference Vogel2011). On 11 May 1978, an article titled ‘Practice is the sole criterion of truth’ was published in Guangming Daily, the official intellectual newspaper. It triggered heated debate. Followers of the “two whatever-isms” attacked the article, calling it revisionist (Sun Reference Sun1995, 28). Its author, Hu Fuming, however, was a true Maoist, trying to defend the late leader’s position by distinguishing it from the ideologies propagated by the Gang of Four.Footnote ⁴ The paper started with an assertion that Maoism, together with Marxist-Leninism, was objectively true as tested by practice. Hu cited Mao: “The consistency between theory and practice is one of the most basic principles of Marxism…practice is the sole criterion of truth…” (Guangming Daily Reference Daily1978).

Having endorsed the publication of the article in Guangming Daily, the then Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang circulated it among party leaders and re-printed it in People’s Daily as well as other official media, intending to stir up a nationwide debate on Mao’s legacy. Deng was first shocked by the fact that writing about the consistency between theory and practice as a basic idea of Marxism was considered controversial. He then seized the opportunity the ongoing debate offered him to criticize the dogmatism of the “two whatever-isms” openly. To “bring order out of chaos,” Deng encouraged everyone “to start everything from practice” (Deng Reference Deng1994 [1978], 126-128).

Under Deng’s encouragement, critical reviews of policies and events under Mao appeared from all sectors. Economists, recently restored to their positions, such as Sun Yefang, announced, “Economic theories and policies that have been tested true in improving real productivity should be fully recognized; those proven otherwise should be removed or revised” (People’s Daily 1978a). Four months later, People’s Daily also republished Sun Yefang’s academic article “Feel justified to gain socialist profits,” where Sun legitimized profit as part of the material wealth produced by lowering cost and improving productivity (Sun Reference Sun1978).

Ideological Debate and Economic Setback in the Late-1980s

After 1978, despite the consensus on prioritizing economic development among the Chinese ruling elites, there were constant debates about the means to develop the economy and the extent to which the economy should be opened up to Western influences. While party conservatives insisted upon the socialist nature of the Chinese economy and objected to further market-oriented economic reform, the progressives wanted to push for more radical transformation, including political democratization (Sullivan Reference Sullivan1988; Ding Reference Ding1988). Prioritizing economic development, Deng was pragmatic about all policies and ideologies, supporting only those he thought were conducive to economic growth and criticizing those considered otherwise. Aware that ideological debates might lead to political confusion and division, consequently hampering the momentum of economic development, Deng kept ideological and political wavering within limits and would put a stop to debate whenever necessary (Vogel Reference Vogel2011).

Still, the political divisions between the conservatives and the progressives would eventually result in economic and political consequences beyond Deng’s control. While controversies on the economic front led to a short period of economic recession between late 1985 and early 1986, by the end of 1986, students went to the streets to express their dissatisfaction with the political corruption and growing economic inequality under the economic reform.Footnote ⁵ In response, on the last day of 1986, Deng gave a speech which categorically condemned what he named “bourgeois liberalism” – that is, the idea of full development of capitalism in China, including political democratization modelled on Western liberal democracies (The Central Committee of the CCP 1986). He pointed out that students’ protests were the result of the over flooding influences of “bourgeois liberalism” as well as some party members’ insensitive response to such influences. Deng called upon ideological educators and related party organs to eradicate this ideological trend and mitigate its influences, stressing the importance of unifying people’s thinking which had to be focused on economic development (People’s Daily 1987).

Deng’s emphasis on the economy suggested his intention to leave political reform off the government’s top agenda. This, though understandable if one favoured his economic nationalism, aroused more frustration and triggered further protests from students and liberal intellectuals across the country. Consequently, it would lead to students’ nationwide pro-democracy movement and the Tiananmen Incident in 1989. When the students’ movement was cracked down, Deng’s leadership and China’s economic reform were seriously questioned both at home and abroad. Within China, the conservatives saw the opportunity to mount their opposition to further market-oriented reform, while the progressives were bitterly disappointed with the central leadership’s political conservatism (Fewsmith Reference Fewsmith1994). Internationally, following the lead of the US, many liberal economies started sanctioning China and accusing the Chinese government of violating human rights. As a direct result, economic growth slowed down, resulting in significant drops in China’s GDP in the three consecutive years from 1989 to 1991.Footnote ⁶

Deng’s Southern Tour in 1992

To overcome domestic opposition, win over the support of both the conservatives and the progressives, and break through international sanctions, Deng decided once again to “seek truth from practice” (Zhao Reference Zhao1993). At the age of 88, Deng, for the second time, toured southern cities including Wuhan, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Guangzhou, and Shanghai in 1992, intending to demonstrate to the world the transformation China had achieved under his “Reform and Opening-up policy.” Throughout the tour, Deng repeatedly reasserted his nationalist aspiration to change China’s position in the world by making it a “wealthy and powerful” nation, insisting on the CCP’s determination to achieve economic modernization.

“Development is the hard truth,” Deng announced in his influential “Southern Speech,” stressing, “Our Party must continue to uphold the basic blueprint laid out in the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee in 1978 and to focus on economic development for the next one hundred years” (Deng Reference Deng1993[1992], 371). In response to the conservatives’ opposition to market-oriented reforms, Deng (Reference Deng1993[1992], 372-373) said, “Both plan and market are economic means to the goal of the ‘three benefits,’” which include, 1) the improvement of socialist production forces, 2) the strengthening of the comprehensive power of socialist China, and 3) the increase of Chinese people’s living standards.

Deng’s southern tour has been considered as one critical event in post-reformed China. His speeches were believed to have had a profound effect, answering questions that had long been on people’s minds and pushing China’s economic reform to a new stage (Zhao Reference Zhao1993; Naughton Reference Naughton1993). In reality, the party-state’s determination to further Deng’s “Reform and Opening-up policy” ended the debate. It gave green lights to the emerging “spirit of capitalism” in China. Consequently, both government officials and the masses responded to the party-state’s approval of money-making with ever higher enthusiasm, quickly bringing back the two-digit GPD growth rates of the Chinese economy in 1992 and in the years to follow.Footnote ⁷

Poor Peasants Taking the Lead and Getting Rich

Existing literature often starts the account of China’s economic reform with the story of eighteen peasants in Anhui province, who, prior to the Third Plenum, illegally contracted to divide the land of the commune into family plots, with each household responsible for its own plot, handing over some outputs to the commune to meet the required production quotas, but keeping the surplus for themselves (e.g., Naughton Reference Naughton1995 & Reference Naughton2007). This illegal arrangement, however, soon yielded a significant increase in the total production of involved peasants and quickly spread to other parts of the country, bringing the family-based agricultural production back to China’s countryside.Footnote ⁹ For their transformative individual effort, the eighteen peasants have been considered the harbingers of China’s economic reform, or more specifically, the so-called “household responsibility system.”

A more thorough historical study of economic policies in Mao’s era, however, would find that a similar responsibility system had already been experimented with in some parts of the countryside as Deng and other leaders attempted to adjust the central government’s economic policies after the Great Famine in the early 1960s.Footnote ¹⁰ Had there been no interruption of the Cultural Revolution, a similar responsibility system might have been put into practice ten years earlier. It is, therefore, possible that the eighteen illegal contractors were not conscious innovators, but simply poor peasants who were desperate enough to revive a formerly disrupted system in early 1978 when the political order of the day was yet to be settled. What made them national heroes instead of counter-revolutionary “capitalist roaders” as they would have been contemptuously called in Mao’s period were the central government’s immediate approval of their personal initiative and the 1982 official legalization of their illegal contract.Footnote ¹¹

Statistical Evidence

If “the spirit of capitalism” was only shared by some of the reform-minded Chinese leaders in 1978, when Deng passed away in 1997, it had spread to most of the Chinese population, particularly among those who had become rich first under the early economic reform. In a national survey of private enterprises and their owners in 1993, among the total 1,440 private entrepreneurs surveyed, almost 67 per cent were born in small towns and villages. In addition, 31 per cent had a father who was a peasant, and another 24.3 per cent had a father working as an ordinary worker. Before they started their private businesses, 15.3 per cent were peasants and 32.7 per cent had worked in a factory (Privately Owned Enterprises Research Project Team 1993).

In Mao’s China, the majority of the population lived in the countryside, with peasants and workers being the two major poor yet honourable occupations for most people. The rural origin of most private entrepreneurs and their occupational background were thus not surprising. The real surprises, however, were found in the fundamental changes and the positive correlations among the new private business owners’ perceptions of their incomes, social status, and political participation.

Results of a correlation analysis of the survey data demonstrate that the way these private-business owners perceived their incomes compared with others was significantly and positively correlated with their perception of their status in society (see Table 1). So was their perception of incomes positively correlated with the perception of their political participation. These statistical results suggest that, unlike peasants and workers in Mao’s China, a large portion of the Chinese population had come to connect social status and political power positively with personal wealth under Deng’s reform. They also revealed that, fifteen years into the reform era, the once silent Chinese rural population was now vocally proud of their new wealth and convinced that their new material fortune could be considered good fortune. Unlike the despised Chinese merchants in the old days and the shamed “capitalist roaders” under Mao, entrepreneurs nowadays could take pride in their new identity as businessmen or businesswomen. What’s more, economic success had also brought them political power. According to various empirical studies, different parts of the country witnessed a rapid rise of private entrepreneurs and other economically successful individuals into the core leadership of the CCP’s grassroots organizations since the early 1990s (Yan Reference Yan2012). In this sense, as Yan Xiaojun (2012, 324) put it, “To get rich is not only glorious,” but also powerful.

Table 1.

Pearson Correlations among Self-Perceptions

*** p<0.001.

Source: CPES (1993).

With strong policy support and encouraging official and social discourse, people pursued personal wealth openly. According to the National Statistics Bureau, by 1997, the number of private enterprises rose to 0.96 million, employing 13.5 million employees (National Bureau of Statistics 1997a). The number of self-employed business owners was even larger, reaching above 28.5 million, with some 54.4 million employees (National Bureau of Statistics 1997b). These were just the number of private businesses oriented toward profits for individuals. Meanwhile, there were numerous state capitalists working in state-owned enterprises, which were the major players in the Chinese economy at the time, pursuing profits for the state and the collective while realizing their personal ambitions (Dickson Reference Dickson2008).

In all, the number of capitalists was rapidly growing under Deng’s reform. Together, they had formed a new generation in post-Mao China, who connected their personal prosperity with national wealth proudly and whose rising national pride and consensus regarding the importance of national prestige were well reflected in various public opinion surveys. According to the World Value Surveys conducted respectively in 1990 and 1995, for instance, not only did above 90 per cent of the Chinese respondents feel proud of being Chinese, but the majority of them also believed that the country should make achieving a high level of economic growth its first priority in the next ten years.Footnote ¹⁵

These survey results were further reflected in people’s tributes to Deng in 1997. When Deng’s funeral was held in the capital, people around the country went into the street, shedding tears and expressing emotions they had never expressed on the death of other leaders, not even the much revered Premier Zhou Enlai. In Beijing, for example, more than 3,000 scientists and engineers came to express their appreciation of Deng’s emphasis on science and technology as the No. 1 production force, declaring, “Only by gaining China’s share in the world’s advanced technologies can we scientists and engineers best pay our tributes to comrade Deng Xiaoping.” In the countryside, hundreds of millions of peasants expressed their gratitude to Deng for their personal prosperity that they could never have dreamed of, while local party representatives vowed to continue Deng’s path to make local villagers rich and the country strong. Private entrepreneurs were explicit: “To hold on to Deng’s policy is a guarantee for the rejuvenation of our nation and the building of a country with wealth and power” (People’s Daily 1997).

A Case Study: Liu Chuanzhi and Lenevo

To demonstrate the exact mechanism through which the change in official narratives, which made economic strength the chief path to China’s status in the world, encouraged individuals to connect their personal prosperity with national wealth, creating the motivation for sustained economic growth on both personal and national levels, let us, to the end, review the triumphant story of China’s currently biggest computer company, Lenovo, and its founder, Liu Chuanzhi.

In 1998, a year after Deng’s death, Liu recalled:

Like many poor peasants mentioned above, Liu was sensitive to the ideological shift at the top in the late 1970s. Unlike the peasants in rural China, however, Liu was then a researcher at the Science Academy in Beijing. He spent 13 years working on a magnetic tape recorder, only to find it lagging behind foreign technologies when China started to open up to the outside world in the early 1980s. In 1984, the then Party General Secretary, Zhao Ziyang, did not bother attending the Science Academy’s exhibition. Since then, Liu understood that the Party leaders had no more interest in political shows, only expecting to see science and technology join the forces of production. He thus decided to leave the Science Academy and set up a company in the Zhongguancun street of Beijing, which, later, became China’s first “Silicon Valley” (Youth Literator 2011, 8-11). In the next 13 years, Liu created China’s version of Microsoft and gave it the name Lenovo (in Chinese, 联想), literally meaning “connected imagination.”

On 6 May 1998, Lenovo celebrated the production of its one millionth computer; it took the company only four years to reach this mark. The event was reported in an article titled “The rising dragon in the East” in People’s Daily. In this report, Lenovo was praised for achieving “the glory of one million” and demonstrating Chinese companies’ potential to reach the top of the world’s computer manufacturing. “‘Lenovo’ is one of the few companies capable of producing the Pentium II computers in the world,” the report cited the excited comments from the CEO of America’s Intel company, followed by a long list of Lenovo’s “secrets” to succeed on the global stage in a very short period of time (Ren Reference Ren1998).

When Lenovo became a national brand, its founder, Liu Chuanzhi, was praised as a national hero facing up to challenges and competition from famous foreign enterprises, overcoming difficulties and setbacks, and finally creating a miracle that contributed to China’s economic modernization (Yang Reference Yang1998). In 1998, Liu was also elected a representative of the Ninth National People’s Congress where he proposed strategies for China to compete with advanced countries in the new age of “knowledge economy.” “From Lenovo’s experience of combining trade, engineering, and technology,” concluded Liu, “technological innovation must ultimately land on economic efficacy, not just on the level of technology itself” (Wen and Ren Reference Wen and Ren1998). Clearly, Liu kept in mind the lesson he learned from Zhao Ziyang’s absence in the Science Academy’s exhibition back in 1984. In his opinion, the secret to Lenovo’s success was not just technological innovation, but the orientation to eventual economic growth. Liu’s remarks as a representative of the National People’s Congress not only reflected his personal “spirit of capitalism,” but also proved that Deng’s economic reorientation had profoundly affected the new generation of glorified capitalists who were committed to the country’s economic development and invested in the sustained growth of Chinese economy.

Like many others who rose in status thanks to Deng’s reform, Liu was extremely grateful to the party-state. He stressed, “One had to realize that the major part of one’s achievements must be attributed to the state” (Youth Literator 2011, 9). “To create a great enterprise,” he said on another occasion, “one needs a group of people who would fight for national wealth and power, and consider their jobs a mission” (Youth Literator 2011, 11).

Whether these comments were simply lip-service to political correctness is hard to verify. What is significant is that, unlike in Mao’s China, thinking about one’s profit-making activity as a mission and a fight for the national wealth and power has become politically correct in today’s China. Liu was a typical example of those newly emerging national capitalists who came to proudly connect their personal success with the rise of China, mixing aspirations for personal prosperity and status with the commitment to the nation’s sustained economic growth.