CHUCKY DOES CHINA:

Chinese nationalism: Protests carry a risk (Joseph Kahn, April 15, 2005, The New York Times)

Enraged about tendentious textbooks and territorial disputes in the East China Sea, Sun Wei, a college junior, joined thousands of Chinese protesting Japan in a rare legal march on the streets of Beijing last weekend.

Yet he said his enthusiasm waned when an overwhelming force of police and plainclothes security officers herded the crowd into tight groups, allowing people to take turns throwing rocks and eggs at the Japanese Embassy.

Told that they had "vented their anger" long enough, Sun and others were later shuffled onto buses and driven back to campus.

"It was partly a real protest and partly a political show," Sun said in an interview this week. "I felt a little like a puppet."

In one of its boldest political and diplomatic gambles in years, China has tapped a deep strain of nationalism among its people. It is gambling, analysts say, that it can propel itself to a leadership role in Asia while cloaking its rising power in the guise of wounded pride and popular will.

But Beijing also seems to have taken steps to control - some say manipulate - a nascent protest movement to prevent a genuine grassroots challenge to the Communist Party.

It's all fun and supermarionation games until the puppets get minds of their own.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 15, 2005 10:04 AM