THE CHINA JOURNAL, NO. 63, JANUARY 2010 CHINA’S COSMOPOLITAN NATIONALISTS: “HEROES” AND “TRAITORS” OF THE 2008 OLYMPICS Pál Nyíri and Juan Zhang with Merriden Varrall ∗ In March and April of 2008, cheerful, miniskirted and spiky-haired Chinese student demonstrators filled city streets and university campuses from San Francisco to Sydney, waving red flags and chanting patriotic songs while snapping photos of each other. The students, and graduates, were protesting at Western media coverage of recent rioting in Tibet, and “protecting” the Olympic torch relay from hecklers. When they returned home from the demonstrations, they posted their accounts on blogs, online bulletin boards and discussion forums and uploaded video clips and photos. Millions of Chinese Internet users read their stories, circulated their pictures and cheered them on to “fight” for the nation. The overseas rallies became a national affair. Demonstrators were applauded with admiration and encouraged to persevere when facing confrontations, while their opponents, if Chinese, were condemned as traitors. This display of nationalism against a background of glamorous global cities and in cyberspace invites reflection on existing theoretical frameworks of Chinese nationalism. In this article, we argue that nationalism has become part of a cosmopolitan Chinese youth identity in overseas locations. Based on ethnographic observation of two demonstrations and analysis of discussions that surrounded the worldwide events on the Chinese Internet, we address three distinguishing factors of this nationalism. The first is generational. The youngsters might have been singing songs or chanting slogans from the Maoist era, but their attire, attitude and practice were in tune with the confidence and poise with which they took temporary possession of “global cities”. Internet accounts by demonstrators and in personal conversations emphasized this cosmopolitanism: students stressed their international experiences and open-mindedness, rejected suggestions that they were acting on behalf of the Chinese government, and contrasted themselves with ∗ The authors thank members of the University of Amsterdam’s Trans-Asia Cultural Studies reading group, especially Markha Valenta and Stefan Landsberger, as well as Luigi Tomba and two anonymous reviewers for The China Journal.