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Digital Dragons and Cybernetic Bears: Comparing the Overseas Chinese and Near Abroad Russian Web Communities

2006; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 12; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13537110600734703

1557-2986

Robert A. Saunders, Sheng Ding,

Social Media and Politics

This article compares and contrasts the Internet-based national identity projects of overseas Chinese and near abroad Russians. Our study, which is based on two diasporic communities of similar size and both characterized by a historical weakness of national identity, finds that while Internet use seems to be increasing nationalism and reifying national identity among the ethnic Chinese living in the Pacific Rim, it is paradoxically dampening nationalism and weakening national identity among the Russians living in post-Soviet space. Our thesis is that this divergence results from a combination of factors rooted in the real world, not the virtual. These factors include: the perceived benefits of stressing national identity in ingroup/outgroup interactions, conflicts or competition with other identity anchors, and the political and economic stature of their respective ethnic homelands. Notes 1. Emil Payin, “The Empire and the Russians: Historical Aspects,” in Vladimir Shlapentokh, Munir Sendich, and Emil Payin, eds, The New Russian Diaspora: Russian Minorities in the Former Soviet Republics (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1994). 2. The term near abroad (“blizhnee zarubezh’e”) or, less often, new abroad, is commonly used by Russians both in and outside of the Russian Federation to refer to those states which formerly comprised the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (excepting Russia itself). The term, however, is controversial for many living in the Newly Independent States as it is seen to connote that these areas remain with the exclusive realm of Russian influence. 3. See, for example, Liu Hong, “New Migrants and the Revival of Overseas Chinese Nationalism,” Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 14, No. 43 (2005), pp. 291–316 and Gungwu Wang, The Chinese Overseas: From Earthbound China to the Quest for Autonomy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000). 4. There are no official statistics on the number of overseas Chinese from Beijing or other countries. Some estimate the number of American Chinese at more than 2.5 million. According to the unofficial statistics released by the “Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission” (Taiwan), there were a total of 34,505,000 overseas Chinese around the world as of the end of 1999. Residents of Asia topped the list, with 26,788,000 ethnic Chinese living in countries other than mainland China and Taiwan. Overseas Chinese residents of the Americas were the second most populous. The total there came to 6,013,000, a 19.8 percent increase on the 1998 figure of 5,020,000. Europe was third in terms of total population of overseas Chinese, with 968,000 residents. Oceania came in next, with 605,000 people, and Africa trailed the list, with only 132,000 ethnic Chinese residents. 5. There relevant distinctions between the two. Prior to the twentieth century, Russian identity had a strong religious flavor whereas Chinese identity was primarily culture-based with a strong racial component. 6. Jodi Aronson, “A Pragmatic View of Thematic Analysis,” The Qualitative Report, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Spring 1994). 7. Laura E. Kauppila, “The Baltic Puzzle: Russia's Policy towards Estonia and Latvia, 1992–1997.” Pro Gradu Thesis in Political History, Department of Social Science History, University of Helsinki, 1999, pp. 9–11. 8. Benson Tong, The Chinese Americans (Boulder, CO: the University Press of Colorado, 2003), p. 17. 9. Sen-dou Chang, “The Distribution and Occupation of Overseas Chinese,” Geographical Review, Vol. 58, No. 1 (1968), pp. 89–107. 10. Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission (Taiwan), The World Ethnic Chinese Populations Statistics (2003), [accessed 22 June 2005]. 11. Laurence J.C. Ma, “Space, Place, and Transnationalism in the Chinese Diaspora,” in Laurence J.C. Ma and Carolyn Cartier (ed.), The Chinese Diaspora: Space, Place, Mobility, and Identity (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield., 2003). 12. Wang, 2000. 13. Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission (Taiwan), Overseas Chinese Economy Yearbook 1997. 14. A typical example is the overseas Chinese community in New York City. The old Cantonese-dominated Chinatown in downtown Manhattan has been gradually replaced by a larger multidialectal Chinatown in the last several decades, and a multitude of new Chinese communities have emerged in various parts of the New York metropolitan area. 15. OCAC, 2001. 16. See Aihwa Ong, Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), p. 90. 17. Cindy C. Fan, “Chinese Americans: Immigration, Settlement, and Social Geography,” in L.J.C. Ma and C. Cartier, ed., The Chinese Diaspora: Space, Place, Mobility, and Identity (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield., 2003). 18. Ma, 2003, p. 23. 19. A national or ethnic minority is defined as any group that (1) forms a numerical minority in a given state; (2) does not dominate politically; (3) differs from the majority population due to ethnic, linguistic or religious characteristics; and (4) expresses feelings of intra-group solidarity in preserving their own culture, traditions and language. Minority Rights Group, World Directory of Minorities (Harlow, Essex: Longman, 1999). 20. Christoph Engel, “The Internet and the Nation State,” in Christoph Engel and Kenneth H. Heller, eds, Understanding the Impact of Global Networks on Social, Political and Cultural Values (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgellschaft, 2000). 21. Saskia Sassen, “The Impact of the Internet on Sovereignty: Unfounded and Real Worries,” in Christoph Engel and Kenneth H. Heller, eds, Understanding the Impact of Global Networks on Social, Political and Cultural Values (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgellschaft, 2000), p. 198. 22. See, for instance, Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996); Rohan Jayasekera, “Waiting for the Kingdom: Nations in Cyberspace Are No Substitute for the Real Thing,” Index on Censorship, Vol. 29, No. 3 (2000); Michael Dahan and Gabriel Sheffer, “Ethnic Groups and Distance Shrinking Technologies,” Nationalism & Ethnic Politics, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Spring 2001), pp. 85–107; Joshua Kaldor-Robinson, “The Virtual and the Imaginary: The Role of Diasphoric New Media in the Construction of a National Identity during the Break-up of Yugoslavia,” Oxford Development Studies Vol. 30, No. 2 (2002), pp. 177–87; Donna M. Kowal, “Digitizing and Globalizing Indigenous Voices: The Zapatista Movement,” in Greg Elmer, ed., Critical Perspective in the Internet (Lanham: Roman & Littlefield, 2002). 23. Robert A. Saunders, “Nationality: Cyber-Russian,” Russia in Global Affairs, Vol. 2, No. 4 (2004), pp. 156–66. 24. We should note that Russian identity transformation in the Slavic republics of Transdniestria, Belarus and Ukraine has been less pronounced due to preservation of many aspects of the Soviet system. Additionally, there has been a less pejorative approach to nationalization of the state in the post-1991 time frame (at least in the Russophone and ethnically-Russian dominant parts of these countries). Anecdotal evidence suggests that our findings are not completely applicable to these Russian populations. 25. See, for instance, Mikula Polyuha, “Ukrainian Internet Identity,” Western Journal of Graduate Research, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2005), pp. 82–91 for a discussion of Russian Internet users and their attempts to reintegrate the Ukrainian nation into the fold of the “eternal Ukrainian-Russian brotherhood.” 26. Saunders’ research also focused on Russians who did not use the Web in order to provide a control group to compare with the cyber-Russians. 27. See, e.g., Shlapentokh, Sendich,and Payin, 1994; Pal Kolst⊘, “The new Russian diaspora—an identity of its own?” Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 19, No. 3 (July 1996); Jeff Chinn and Robert J. Kaiser, Russians as the New Minority: Ethnicity and Nationalism in Soviet Successor States (Boulder: Westview Press, 1996); Laitin, 1998; and Louk Hagendoorn, Hub Linssen, and Sergei Tumanov, Intergroup Relations in States of the Former Soviet Union: The Perception of Russians (Hove, East Sussex: Psychology Press, 2001). 28. Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper, “Beyond ‘Identity,’” Theory and Society, Vol. 29 (2001), pp. 1–47. 29. Saskia Sassen, “Globalization or Denationalization,” Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 10, No. 1 (February 2003), p. 10. 30. Loong Wong, “Belonging and Diaspora: The Chinese and the Internet,” First Monday, Vol. 8, No. 4 (April 2003), p. 10. 31. See Wei-ming Tu, “Cultural China: The Periphery as the Center,” in Tu Wei-ming, ed., The Living Tree: The Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994), p. 2. 32. Guobin Yang, “The Internet and the Rise of a Transnational Chinese Cultural Sphere,” Media, Culture & Society, Vol. 25, No. 4 (2002), pp. 469–70. 33. Tom Spooner, Asian-Americans and the Internet: The Young and the Connected (Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2001). 34. See, for instance, Ian Buruma, “China in Cyberspace,” The New York Review of Books, Vol. 46, No. 17 (4 November 1999); Kewen Zhang and Xiaoming Hao, “The Internet and the Ethnic Press: A Study of Electronic Chinese Publications,” The Information Society, Vol. 15, No. 1 (1999), pp. 21–30; Wong, 2003; Qiu, 2003; Yuan Shu, “Reimagining the Community: Information Technology, and Web-based Chinese Language Networks in North America,” in Rachel C. Lee and Sau-ling C. Wong, eds, AsianAmerica.Net: Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Cyberspace (New York: Routledge, 2003). 35. See Wang Gungwu, “Introduction: Migration and New National Identities,” in Elizabeth Sinn, eds, The Last Half Century of Chinese Overseas (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1998), p. 10. 36. Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor C. Boas, Open Networks, Closed Regime: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003). 37. Shu, 2003. 38. Qiu, 2003, p. 151. 39. Frank N. Pieke, Pal Nyiri, Metto Thuno, and Antonello Ceccagno, Transnational Chinese: Fujianese Migrants in Europe (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004). 40. Shu, 2003, p. 151. 41. Yang, The Internet and the Rise of a Transnational Chinese Cultural Sphere. 42. Wong, 2003, p. 10. 43. Zhang and Hao, 1999. 44. James Glave, “Cyber Vandals Target Indonesia,” Wired (18 August 1998). 45. Ibid. 46. In Harrison, NJ, the actual number of ethnic Chinese is much higher than the number listed in the United States Census 2000. It is estimated that there are up to 2,500 ethnic Chinese who have American citizenship or permanent residence status. Besides this, there are also up to 3,000 ethnic Chinese who hold an F-1 student visa or H-1 professional visa, and their family members. 47. Wong, 2003. 48. Ibid, p. 11. 49. Buruma, 1999. 50. See Xu Wu, “American Patriotism and Chinese Nationalism: What If These Two Forces Clash over the Taiwan Issue?” Perspective, Vol. 6, No. 1 (31 March 2005). 51. Shanthi Kalathil, “Community and Communalism in the Information Age,” Brown Journal of World Affairs, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Spring 2002). 52. Michael Chase and James Mulvenon, You’ve Got Dissent! Chinese Dissident Use of the Internet and Beijing's Counter-strategies. (Arlington, VA: RAND, 2002). 53. Guobin Yang, “The Internet and Civil Society in China: A Preliminary Assessment,” Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2003), pp. 453–475. 54. J.C. Turner, R.J. Brown, H. Tajfel, “Social Comparison and Group Interest in Ingroup Favouritism,” European Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 9 (1979), p. 190. 55. Brubaker and Cooper, 2000, p. 7. 56. Ibid. 57. Ibid., p. 12. 58. Turner, Brown, and Tajfel, 1979, p. 187. 59. Ibid., p. 190. 60. Tajfel and Turner quoted in Nancy K. Rivenburgh, “Social Identity Theory and News Portrayals of Citizens Involved in International Affairs,” Media Psychology, Vol. 2 (2000), pp. 305–6. 61. Ong, 1999, p. 68. 62. Sassen, 2000, p. 197. 63. David Brandenberger, National Bolshevism: Stalinist Mass Culture and the Formation of Modern Russian National Identity, 1931–1956 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002); Aurel Braun, “All Quiet on the Russian Front?” in Michael Mandelbaum, M., ed., The New European Diasporas: National Minorities and Conflict in Eastern Europe (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 2000); Astrid S. Tuminez, Russian Nationalism since 1956: Ideology and the Making of Foreign Policy, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000); Taras Kuzio, “Russian National Identity and Foreign Policy Toward the ‘Near Abroad,’” Prism, Vol. 8, No. 4 (30 April 2002). 64. Kuzio makes an analogy to the vibrant Irish national identity (colonized) versus the more passive British identity (colonizer); the latter can also be said to be diluted by its constituent parts (English, Welsh, Scottish). 65. Valery A. Tishkov, “Forget the ‘Nation’: Post-Nationalist Understanding of Nationalism,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 23, No. 4 (July 2000), p. 632. 66. See J.K. Fairbank, China: A New History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992). 67. See Lucian Pye, “How China's Nationalism was Shanghaied?” in Jonathan Unger, ed., Chinese Nationalism (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1996). 68. Frank Dikötter, “Culture, ‘Race’ and Nation: The Formation of National Identity in Twentieth Century China,” Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 49, No. 2 (1996), p. 593. 69. Ong, 1999, p. 56. 70. See Peter Harris, “Review Article: Nation and Nationalism in China,” Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Vol. 39, No. 1 (April 1998), p. 114. 71. Mínzú is one of three principles in Sun Yat-sun's political philosophy, which can be loosely translated as “Government of the People” or nationalism. By this, Sun meant China's freedom from imperialist domination. 72. See, e.g., Benjamin R. Barber, “Jihad Vs. McWorld,” The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 269, No. 3 (March 1992), pp. 53–65. 73. Ong, 1999, p. 59. 74. Ibid, p. 7. 75. Theodora Lam and Brenda S.A. Yeoh, “Negotiating ‘home’ and ‘national identity’: Chinese-Malaysian transmigrants in Singapore,” Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Vol. 45, No. 2 (August 2004), p. 148. 76. Zheng Bijian, “China's ‘Peaceful Rise’ to Great-Power Status,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 5 (2005). 77. Evan S. Medeiros and M. Taylor Fravel, “China's New Diplomacy,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 82, No. 6 (2003), pp. 22–35. 78. Ong, 1999, p. 41. 79. Ibid. 80. Qiu, 2003, p. 157. 81. See Ong, 1999, p. 67 for more on this concept. 82. Ibid., p. 122. 83. The implementation of soft power is established through attraction (rather than coercion) and agenda setting. See Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990), pp. 31–2; Joseph S. Nye, Jr. The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 12; and Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2004), p. 46. 84. Appadurai, 1996, p. 166. 85. A potential clearly intimated in Brubaker, 1996, as well as other works on the near abroad Russians.