Mao vs. Jasmine: Transnational Orbits of Revolutionary Symbols in the Cold War and 2011

• In Event: Media, Activism and the New Political: Inter-Asian Perspectives

Abstract

In the Cold War era, China was actively exporting revolution to the world. An important aspect of these efforts was the exportation of the revolutionary symbols of Mao and the Little Red Book. In the wake of the Tunisian “Jasmine Revolution” and the “Arab Spring” in 2011, China found itself on the receiving end of the exportation of a “Jasmine-style” revolution. This paper compares these two historical moments, with a focus on the symbolic interactions between China and several Asian nations in the 1960s and China and the world in 2011. We find that in each historical moment, the transnational spread of revolutionary symbols met with serious opposition at the receiving end and the extent of its success depended significantly on the support of state or non-state entrepreneurs of symbolic production, their use of media, and domestic and international political contexts. We discuss the implications of this finding for understanding internet memes and virality in current scholarship.

Authors

• Guobin Yang, U of Pennsylvania

• Min Jiang, U of North Carolina - Charlotte