Nationalist Fervor Gains Ground in China

Disturbing happenings in the land of the crazy Capitalist Communists. Also great investment opportunity to bring Nationalistic Cable TV to China. The Arab countries have Al-Jazera, the US has Fox news, now China needs a "news" channel to ferment nationalist fervor. Rupert Murdoch, are you listening?

Among the marchers was one of their chief organizers, an earnest 29-year-old computer programmer named Lu Yunfei. His boyish face, with his conservative haircut and wire-rim glasses, is the new face of China's resurgent nationalism: a well-organized movement that exploits Internet technology to launch petitions and verbal attacks against Japan and the United States.

As communism slides into irrelevance, the new nationalists are emerging as a powerful force in China, with ominous implications for its neighbors.

After a soccer match between China and Japan in Beijing this summer, hundreds of angry Chinese men chanted "Kill the Japanese" as they pelted Japan's team bus with plastic bottles and forced Japanese fans to hide behind a police barricade for hours.

A few years ago, Lu spent his weekends strumming his guitar and singing karaoke at Beijing nightclubs. Now, he spends his spare time -- up to 50 hours a week -- on his work with the Patriots Alliance, a network of nationalist activists with close to 100 volunteer workers and 79,000 registered supporters on its Web site.

It was further evidence of Beijing's semiofficial approval of the new nationalists. The Communist leaders are seeking to harness Chinese nationalism as a unifying force, a sentiment that can be tapped by authorities to build loyalty, to quell opposition and to fire the passions of young people who might otherwise drift into dissent.

via Seattle PI