Powerful Patriots: China's Management of Anti-Japanese Protest, 1985-2012

China and Japan have entered a dangerous standoff in the East China Sea. As China launched a series of unprecedented maritime patrols, anti-Japan protests erupted in more than 200 Chinese cities to condemn Japan's nationalization of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. What missed signals and domestic political pressures led to this crisis? Why did Chinese authorities tolerate widespread anti-Japanese protests in 2012 after restraining protests in earlier crises, including the 2010 dispute over a Chinese fishing captain's arrest? Drawing on material from her forthcoming book, Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China's Foreign Relations (Oxford University Press, Summer 2014), Professor Jessica Chen Weiss will trace China's management of anti-Japan protest from 1985 to 2012, discussing the role of nationalism and public opinion in Chinese foreign policy.

Jessica Chen Weiss is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University and Research Fellow at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies. Her research interests include Chinese politics and international relations, nationalism, and social protest. Her book, Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China's Foreign Relations, is forthcoming with Oxford University Press (Summer 2014). The dissertation on which it is based won the 2009 American Political Science Association Helen Dwight Reid Award for best dissertation in
international relations, law and politics. Her research has appeared in International Organization and has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Princeton-Harvard China  & The World Program, Bradley Foundation, Fulbright-Hays program, and the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Before joining the Yale faculty, she founded FACES, the Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford, while an undergraduate at Stanford (B.A., 2003). She teaches courses on Chinese foreign relations, state-society relations in post-Mao China, and anti-Americanism in world politics.