ABSTRACT
In April 2008, only a few months before the Beijing Olympic Games, a series of riots broke out between pro-Tibet and pro-China protesters in a number of major cities in North America, Europe, Australia, and East Asia. Various Chinese communities living outside China from different ideological allegiances, socio-economic backgrounds, and migratory trajectories were united in the pro-China rallies, spontaneously voicing strong opposition to the Western media’s pro-Tibet stance in the coverage of the Olympic Torch Relay. Most Chinese-language newspapers and publications in these global cities, with the exception of pro-Falun Gong publications, provided effective discursive space to accommodate as well as mobilize anti-Western and pro-China sentiments. These displays of strong nationalism, observed by manyWestern bystanders, formed a stark contrast to the diasporic Chinese communities’ explicit denouncement of the heavy handed crack-down on pro-democracy students on Tiananmen Square by the Chinese government.
