Nationalism and internationalism : thoughts on Zhang Chengzhi’s work and Afro-Asian Writers’ Conference

Nationalism in the Third World is shaped through the processes of anti-imperial and anti-feudal modernization, and is closely connected with communist internationalism. It differentiates from the nationalism formed in the context of the European modernization. Nevertheless, with the establishment of the nation-state, in the context of international politics and geopolitics and during the construction of modernization in the realms of politics, economy and culture, progressive nationalism can be reactionary. Via analysing the emotions and thinkings of Zhang Chengzhi’s writing on Japan and reviewing the history of Afro-Asian Writers’ Conference in 1950s and 1960s, this essay argues that internationalism is the effective thinking resource to overcome reactionary nationalism.