Branding Chinese Products: Between Nationalism and Transnationalism

This paper examines how Chinese advertisers include concepts of both nationalism and transnationalism in recent Chinese advertisements. I situate my research in the context of China's search for modernity, and its historical and contemporary relations with the West. I argue that the marketing of nationalism and transnationalism represents contradictory concepts of China as a nation and a state. It also symbolizes China's deep anxiety and ambivalence toward its own tradition and global capitalism. On one hand, Chinese advertisers sell nationalism by celebrating Chinese history, contemporary events, and Chinese lineage. On the other hand, Chinese advertisers use Western symbols and values to elevate the status of advertised products. Chinese advertisers also sell a hybrid form of nationalism and transnationalism in an attempt to reconcile 'Chineseness' with global capitalism. To some extent, nationalism and transnationalism emerge as competing sites for ideas about China as a nation and a state in a globalized world characterized by unequal power relations between China and the West. Models for understanding the relationship of advertising to national identity historically focus on the selling of patriotism in a landscape of industrial and global capitalism. In the United States, for instance, the equation of brands with patriotism has been a strategy since the early 20 th century and there had been a common practice to fuse nationalism, consumption and citizenship (McGovern, 2006). In addition to American consumer society analyzed by scholars such as Stanley Rosen for their tremendous support. Laurie Duthie gave me many valuable ideas on how to revise the paper. Michael Bruner, Xu Wu and Alessandra Raengo provided useful comments. I also want to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. century has also been described as a " consumers' republic, " where civic-minded citizens and social policies are replaced by consumer citizens and practices of consumption (Cohen, 2003). In the weeks after the 9/11, not only did the U.S. President George W. Bush urge citizens to consume as a civic duty, but also numerous campaigns capitalized on patriotism and linked spending to nationalism and American brands to national pride. Consumption, to some extent, becomes a basis of " a reconstituted modern citizenship " (McGovern, 2006, p. 5). However, in a nation such as China, in which capitalism has emerged through a different hybrid model that is characterized by a decentralized economy and a centralized one-party political system, the selling of nationalism and …