Divided National Identity and COVID-19: How China Has Become a Symbol of Major Political Cleavage in the Czech Republic

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F62156489%3A43310%2F21%3A43919970" target="_blank" >RIV/62156489:43310/21:43919970 - isvavai.cz</a>

Alternative codes found

RIV/61989592:15210/21:73607038

Result on the web

<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/794497/pdf#info_wrap" target="_blank" >https://muse.jhu.edu/article/794497/pdf#info_wrap</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Divided National Identity and COVID-19: How China Has Become a Symbol of Major Political Cleavage in the Czech Republic

Original language description

The COVID-19 pandemic has been discussed as strengthening nationalist as opposed to globalist forces around the world. While this may be the case in some countries, in others we can observe an increasing political polarization between the &quot;globalists&quot; and &quot;nationalists&quot; rather than a unification against an &quot;outside enemy.&quot; The article presents a case study of the Czech Republic, which has long had a turbulent relationship with China. We show how the coronavirus pandemic has escalated the polarization of Czech politics, in which China has become a symbol of the major political fault line. We argue, first, that the vastly different attitudes of Czech officials vis-a-vis China are not the result of their changing opinions in time. Instead, the electoral reshufflings elevate politicians with significantly different views of China. Second, we argue that although the political division may today appear to be symbolized by its approach toward the Communist legacy, the division actually goes to the 19th-century debate about the Czech national identity. Eventually, we end up with a discussion on how the image of China in a faraway country is being formed to a large extent following the domestic political dynamics rather than being driven by the significantly more powerful China.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

50701 - Cultural and economic geography

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2021

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

China Review

ISSN

1680-2012

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

21

Issue of the periodical within the volume

2

Country of publishing house

CN - CHINA

Number of pages

29

Pages from-to

35-63

UT code for WoS article

000656309700003

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85109169425