The Olympic torch has scaled Mount Everest and is now making its sojourn through all the provinces of China, including Tibet. Returning the flame that symbolises the Olympic spirit to Chinese soil must have brought a sigh of relief to the Chinese, since the international reception for the torch has not always been friendly.

After protesters dogged the London leg of the relay, and sought to extinguish the flame in Paris, authorities in San Francisco spirited the torch on a hide-and-seek that not only eluded protesters, but also deprived supporters of the opportunity to participate in this historic procession.

In Islamabad, the relay was unceremoniously confined to the grounds of a stadium, where it was witnessed only by invited guests. In Delhi, the torch was passed through a main thoroughfare that had become uncharacteristically quiet, emptied of the usual crowds by heavy security. Ironically, concern for the security of the torch had deprived the relay of one of its most important elements – cheering boisterous crowds.

Some of the festivity was recovered on the Thai and Malaysian legs of the relay, as local ethnic Chinese populations and expatriate Chinese nationals celebrated the passage of the torch. While protesters were not absent, the massive security presence ensured that they did not steal the limelight away from the torch and the celebrity torch-bearers.

The 2008 Beijing Olympics has been touted as China’s coming-out party, a showcasing of its economic progress exactly 30 years after Deng Xiaoping announced the Open Door Policy in 1978. As a prelude to the party, the Chinese planned the most extensive torch relay ever to bring the Olympics to the furthest corners of the world. Symbolically, this ritual is also to be interpreted as a call for global endorsement of China’s achievements.

Thus, when protesters or heavy security deny the torch relay of an approving, cheering public, they deny China of exactly the kind of global endorsement that is desired. The passing of the torch without the prestige conferred by an approving public is synonymous with the denial of honour, or the “loss of face”, a metaphor the Chinese are only too familiar with.

It is no wonder then that the Chinese reacted with outbursts of nationalistic rage. Apparently, their spot on the stage of history, procured through meticulous planning and the mobilisation of massive resources, has been hijacked by a mere spate of provincial unrest. The anger was evident from messages posted on internet blogsites to calls for the boycott of French retailer Carrefour.

In the case of the latter, the conflation of a retail business of French origins with the French government reveals a form of nationalism that has become rather undiscerning. It is also a form of nationalism that has become rather intolerant, even of reason, as in the case of the Chinese freshwoman at Duke University who was condemned by her countrymen for trying to mediate between pro-Tibet protesters and pro-China demonstrators.

In facing the world system of nation-states, Chinese national pride will have to come to terms with contrarian voices. The Olympic torch would have been meaningless if it had belonged to China alone and not the world at large. To announce the emblem of international friendship is also to embrace the possibility of international dissent. It would have been unrealistic to expect the rest of the world to give the torch a reception like North Korea, where only neatly dressed well-wishers would line the streets and wave dutifully as the torch passed by.

Even in Hong Kong, which marked the return of the torch to Chinese territory on 30 April, the reaction was mixed. In response to the earlier disruptions to the torch relay, some netizens have spontaneously formed a voluntary group to guard the safe passage of the torch. On the other hand, other Hong Kong Chinese have made use of the occasion to demonstrate, the most graphic of which was a Hong Kong University student who wrapped herself in a Tibetan flag.

In contrast with some who chanted “Go, China” or sang the Chinese national anthem as they witnessed the torch relay, there were others, such as supporters of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, who chose to demonstrate against their country’s problematic human rights record. Taking their cue from the slogan for the 2008 Olympics, their refrain was:

“One world – the same human rights
One dream – to rehabilitate the June 4th (Incident of 1989)
Go, Olympics; go, human rights
Go, democracy; go, Chinese”

This slogan conjoins patriotism with protest, echoing the political tonality of the Democratic Movement of June 4th, 1989, when students and workers came out in force to protest against rampant corruption in the establishment. This time round, such reflective nationalism is not widespread, perhaps because the average Han Chinese finds it difficult to identify with the plight of ethnic Tibetans.

China’s real gross domestic product may have risen at an average annual rate of over 9.8% since 1979, but it is obvious that to the international community, and to some sectors of civil society within China, progress is not measured in economic terms alone. Similarly, the torch relay is not merely about transmitting the Olympic flame from one point to another; it is about winning respect along the way.