The Richness of Financial Nationalism – The Case of China

Financial nationalism has received little attention in the literature on Chinese nationalism.  Nor has China been a focus of the emerging literature on comparative financial nationalism. This is surprising as financial matters were central to modern Chinese nationalism when it began to take shape in the 19^th and the 20^th centuries and financial nationalism remains an influential ideology in contemporary China, which has undoubtedly become a major actor in the international financial system today.  Our exploration of Chinese financial nationalism seeks to begin to fill this gap in both sets of literature. This article examines three areas of concern shared by Chinese financial nationalists past and present – currency, foreign financial institutions in China, and international borrowing/lending. We find that, as China’s position in the international power hierarchy has evolved, the nature of financial nationalism has changed, from a largely inward and defensive orientation to an increasingly outward orientation. Our study also reveals diverse strands of thinking among Chinese financial nationalists, both now and in the earlier historical era, according to whether they hold a zero-sum or positive-sum conception of international financial relations. The case of China shows the richness of financial nationalism and highlights the importance of a nuanced understanding of this phenomenon.

金融民族主義的豐富性：中國案例

關鍵詞： 金融民族主義，民族主義，中國，貨幣，國際金融。

在中國民族主義研究中金融民族主義幾乎沒有受到任何關注，而在新興的比較金融民族主義研究中中國也不是關注的焦點。 這相當出人意料，因爲在19世紀和20世紀現代中國民族主義開始形成的時期，金融事務就占有中心地位，并且在無疑已經成爲當今國際金融體系中的重要行動者的當代中國，金融民族主義依然是一種有影響力的意識形態。 我們對中國金融民族主義的探索力圖著手填補這兩個研究領域中的空白。 本論文審視了以往與當下的中國金融民族主義者所關注的三個領域： 貨幣，外國駐中國的金融機構，以及國際借貸和國際放貸。 我們發現，隨著中國在國際權力等級體系中的地位逐漸演化，金融民族主義的性質已經發生了變化，從主要是對内並且防禦性的定位變得越來越外向。我們的研究也根據其對國際金融關係的認識采取的是零和還是正和概念，揭示出中國現在和早期歷史時期的金融民族主義者各種思想脈絡。中國案例顯示出金融民族主義的豐富性，并且凸顯了對這一現象的精細入微的理解的重要性。

Translated from English by Li Guo