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BEIJING — Like so many Chinese, Meng Huizhong was horrified by the violent Tibetan protests in Lhasa. She cringed at videos of Tibetan rioters attacking a Chinese motorcyclist. Her anger deepened as Tibet dominated her online conversation groups, until it settled on what might seem like an unlikely target: the Communist Party. “We couldn’t believe our government was being so weak and cowardly,” said Ms. Meng, 52, an office worker, who was appalled that the authorities had failed to initially douse the violence. “The Dalai Lama is trying to separate China, and it is not acceptable at all. We must crack down on the rioters.” For two weeks, as Chinese security forces have tried to extinguish continuing Tibetan protests, Chinese officials and state news media have tried to demonstrate the party’s resolve to people like Ms. Meng. They have blasted the foreign news media as biased against China, castigated the Dalai Lama as a terrorist “jackal” and called for a “people’s war” to fight separatism in Tibet. If the tough tactics have startled the outside world, the Communist Party for now seems more concerned with rallying domestic opinion — both by responding to the deep strains of nationalism in Chinese society and by stoking it. Playing to national pride, and national insecurities, the party has used censorship and propaganda to position itself as defender of the motherland, and at the same time to block any examination of Tibetan grievances or its own performance in the crisis. But the heavy emphasis on nationalism is not without risks. With less than five months before the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing, the sharp criticism of the foreign news media comes precisely when it wants to present a welcoming impression to the outside world. Instead, Chinese citizens, including many overseas, are posting thousands of angry messages on Web sites and making crank calls to some foreign news media offices in Beijing. The Chinese state news media also have inundated the public with so many reports from Lhasa about the suffering of Han Chinese merchants and the brutal deaths of Chinese victims — but with no coverage of Tibetan grievances — that critics have accused the government of fanning racial hatred. In the recent past, nationalist surges have focused on outsiders, especially the Japanese, but Tibet is part of China, so the effect is to sharpen domestic ethnic tensions. “When a big crisis happens here, they show their true nature,” said Liu Xiaobo, a liberal dissident and government critic. “I am really shocked by the language they used concerning the Dalai Lama. They are talking about a ‘people’s war.’ That is a phrase from the Cultural Revolution.” Analysts have long debated how often the Communist Party steers and inflames nationalism, versus how often nationalist public attitudes are beyond its control. As the Olympic Games approach, the steady criticism of China on issues like Darfur, global warming, air pollution and human rights abuses has increasingly been interpreted by many Chinese, including those overseas, as an unfair attempt to undermine China’s Olympic moment. But the Tibet crisis has touched directly on the raw nerve of separatism at the core of Chinese nationalism. Tibet is usually a low-profile issue within China, especially compared with Taiwan. But most Chinese, influenced by the government, are interpreting the Tibetan crisis as an attempt to split China. For now, public anger about the Tibetan protests is mostly confined to the Internet, but the enormous domestic media attention on Tibet has also focused the public on how the issue is being treated abroad. “If Bush meets the Dalai Lama right now, or if the Congress does anything, the Chinese people might do something,” said Tong Zeng, who is not active on the Tibet issue but who helped organize anti-Japanese protests in the last major nationalism campaign in 2005. Mr. Tong said the Internet was filled with angry comments about the recent meeting between the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and the Dalai Lama. “My thinking is that if there is anything passed in the House, the Chinese people will take to the streets,” Mr. Tong predicted. The French news media have noted an anti-French sentiment on Chinese Web sites, including calls for boycotts of French goods as well, in the days since President Nicolas Sarkozy publicly left open the possibility of boycotting the Olympic Games. Communist Party leaders have hoped the Olympics would showcase China as a modern, confident and nonthreatening emerging world power, while also validating the party’s hold on power. President Hu Jintao has advocated a “harmonious society” to signal a new government effort to address inequality. At the same time, China’s soft power abroad is rising, with its bulging foreign exchange reserves and its increasingly active diplomatic role on issues like the North Korea nuclear problem. But the Tibet crisis has shown a leadership that has seemingly stepped back into the party’s harsher past. Buddhist monks in Tibet are being subjected to punitive “patriotic education” campaigns. The paramilitary police and soldiers have swept across huge areas of western China as part of a broad crackdown. Party leaders, including Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, have vilified the Dalai Lama and accused the “Dalai clique” of trying to sabotage China’s Olympic moment. “The language they are using about everything has been Cultural Revolution hyperbole,” said Susan Shirk, a former assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs and author of “China: Fragile Superpower.” “This does not look like the reaction of a strong, confident leadership.” Last week, a group of prominent Chinese intellectuals offered a rare contrary voice by issuing a petition that called on the government to allow Tibetans to express their grievances and to respect freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Mr. Liu, who helped draft the petition, said the government’s attacks on the Dalai Lama and its censorship of state news media coverage is the same strategy it used during the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989 when it jailed pro-democracy leaders as “black hands” and did not televise video of soldiers firing on students. “You can see the propaganda machine operating in full gear,” Mr. Liu said. “That shows the true nature of the government. It hasn’t changed at all.” Scholars often describe nationalism as China’s state religion, now that the Communist Party has shrugged off socialist ideology and made economic development the country’s priority. Dibyesh Anand, a Tibet specialist, said modern Chinese nationalism could be traced to Sun Yat-sen, the Chinese revolutionary who described the country’s main ethnic groups — the Han, Manchu, Hui, Mongolian and Tibetan peoples — as the “five fingers” of China. Today, Han Chinese constitute more than 92 percent of the population, but without one of those five fingers, China’s leaders do not consider the country whole. “The Communist Party has used nationalism as an ideology to keep China together,” said Mr. Anand, a reader in international relations at Westminster University in London. He said many Chinese regarded the Tibetan protests “as an attack on their core identity. “It’s not only an attack on the state,” he continued, “but an attack on what it means to be Chinese. Even if minorities don’t feel like part of China, they are part of China’s nationality.” This logic helps explain why Chinese nationalist sentiment has been inflamed by perceived Western sympathy for the Tibetan protests — an anger that has mostly focused on the foreign news media. Chinese media commentators have accused foreign news coverage of being more sympathetic to Tibetans in Lhasa than to Chinese who lost their lives and property in the riots. Meanwhile, Chinese from around the world were infuriated when several Western news organizations mislabeled photographs of police officers beating pro-Tibet protesters in Nepal as being from China. Last week, Qin Gang, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, described the foreign coverage of Tibet as a “textbook of bad examples” — even as the government refused to allow journalists free access to Tibet or other restive regions in western China to investigate the crackdown. There are a few signs that party leaders are becoming concerned about the effect of their harsh statements. Last week, China Daily, the official English-language newspaper, switched tone and ran a front-page article highlighting that some Tibetans had also died at the hands of rioters in Lhasa. And Sunday, Mr. Wen, the prime minister, made a more conciliatory comment toward the Dalai Lama, according to reports in Hong Kong. Party leaders know the volatility of nationalism from 2005. The government tried to control — some would say manipulate — the anti-Japanese protests that escalated during a tense diplomatic tussle between China and Japan. But the protests became violent and grew so rapidly that the government finally forced them to end. Mr. Tong, the organizer, said the anti-Japanese movement is continuing today, if modestly at a time when the government is trying to improve relations with Japan. But he said the nationalism that infused the anti-Japanese movement was deeply rooted and transcended divisions that could separate people in China. “In our group, we have the right, we have the middle and we have the left,” Mr. Tong said. “It is similar to the Tibet issue. For most Chinese people, the bottom line is, ‘You should never divide China.’ ” Many Chinese people know little about Tibet’s different interpretation of its history, partly because China’s textbooks reflect only its version of events. They also regard Tibetans as having been granted special subsidies and benefits from the government because of their ethnic status. For many Chinese, the protests come across as ingratitude after years in which China has built roads, a high-altitude railroad and other infrastructure for Tibet. “Our country is very tolerant to all kinds of religions,” said Ms. Meng, the office worker. “And the Tibetans are taking advantage of this.” Ms. Meng said she got her information about Tibet from state media and various postings on the Internet. After the Lhasa riots, she was infuriated when she saw a photograph of policemen cowering behind riot shields without fighting back. But she said her attitude toward the government’s response began to change when she saw Mr. Qin, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, take a tough line on Tibet and also accuse the foreign news media of distorted coverage. She said she was also pleased to see that Mr. Hu had rejected a request from President Bush to open a new dialogue with the Dalai Lama. Still, she said she wanted even tougher action. “I want the killers to be executed,” she said. “Well, I know it is just my wish because the government will not go that far because of the ethnic issue.”
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