Beijing Olympics signifies the first day that Chinese nationalism is marketed to the world, on a popular cultural level. At this moment, China is taking advantage of the global attention that they are receiving to imbed the assumptions and rhetoric of Chinese nationalism into the global mind. The marketing is brilliant. As we have just witness the opening of Beijing Olympics, a spectacular fantastical show of a “scroll” of “5,000 years of Chinese history that uses past events of “East meets West” - from the silk road to past sea explorations - to deliver the Chinese nationalistic history for the world. Chinese nationalistic history, a prerequisite to the construction of the language of Chinese nationalism is now beginning to become global.

Indeed, even the CBC broadcast echoes the rhetoric of Chinese nationalism, as they even claim to have witnessed “5,000 years of Chinese history”. As if one can roll up 5,000 years of history - of cultures, destruction of cultures, shift of cultures, of Mongolian rule, of Manchu rule, of fragmentation, of ethnic divisions, of incredible ununified complexity - into a scroll that identifies present day China. The connection between a Chinese person today and one 5,000 years ago is difficult to imagine. But China has done it, the flattening and linearization of “5,000 years of history” into one cohesive narrative.

For the past 15 years, Chinese nationalism has been on the rise and the Chinese population, from the intellectuals to the general public (urban to be specific) has increasingly embracing it as their cultural, national and personal identity. Not only is the Beijing Olympics a further strengthening of Chinese nationalism within the Chinese people, it is also the day it is brought forth onto the world stage. It is a critical step culturally as well as politically, in how Chinese (especially those in power, i.e. the urbanites) constructs their own image and projects their positioning onto the world. It defines how China relates with itself and with the rest of the world. More importantly however, the Olympics is an avenue for China to shape how the world views it. The more the world views China as how China views itself, the less international relations will be dictated by other powers and more by China.