Make China Great Again: Online Alt-History Fiction, National Revival and Popular Authoritarianism

In a Foreign Affairs article, Andrew Nathan discusses the alternate history of China, asking: Could Beijing have taken a different path? As tempting as it is to China observers, the question is not completely new. In the past two decades or so, millions of Chinese netizens have raised and explored similar questions through the popular genre of Internet literature—the alter-history fiction that often involves going back in time and saving China from various crises. By producing and consuming such works, the writers and readers not only take a collective imaginary journey to “make China great again,” which echoes the state ideology of  “Chinese dream,” but also task themselves with questions such as whether China could have taken different paths of development and how they would change the nation’s history were they ever offered the opportunity. 

This talk, based on the recently published book Make China Great Again, examines such a phenomenon and its implications for authoritarian politics. In doing so, it aims to offer new insight into how state power, market, and popular participation may negotiate ideational governance in contemporary China as well as how this process may help co-produce a form of “pop hegemony” under which authoritarian rule is popularly accepted and justified. This potential scenario is not the Orwellian 1984 or Huxley’s Brave New World, but the Brave New World of 1984. Meanwhile, by underscoring how popular aspirations for national revival can bolster undemocratic politics, the talk also makes it relevant to the “Make America Great Again” phenomenon in the U.S., compelling us to reckon with the times and the world we live in.

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This program is part of China Center's "Considering China Webinar Series", exploring important topics related to China's many facets with the local community.