Opinion | The politics of 'Chinese New Year' vs. 'Lunar New Year'

By Tom Fowdy

It is that time of the year again. While Chinese New Year is a wonderful celebration of culture, family, and heritage, it has also become an increasingly tedious political football to the point of annoyance. That is because some people are intent on redefining it to push the idea that Chinese New Year is not in fact, "Chinese" at all, and thus push the revisionist title: "Lunar New Year." While it is obvious to everyone that the lunar calendar and the accompanying Zodiac are of Chinese origin, the political effort to change this is motivated by the psychological implication that to recognize it as "Chinese New Year" is in fact giving political legitimacy to China itself and the Communist Party, ironic of course from people who claim they "love the country, but hate the government."

And it was on Tuesday night in my Cantonese class that the teacher, a Hong Konger who has recently migrated to Britain (presumably because of the BNO scheme) made an explicit comment saying that "calling it Chinese New Year suggests support of the Chinese government", when exploring ways to wish people a happy new year in Cantonese. Of course having lived in Hong Kong I am very familiar that driven by Anti-China sentiment, the term "Spring festival" is predominantly used in this identity-based dynamic to disassociate it from China, and of course, this same sentiment is reflected in South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, all who utilize the festival but seek to adjust it to their own identity.

To some extent, this is a natural reaction, for each concerned party regards the specific holiday as an intrinsic part of their own culture, but nonetheless struggles with the identity dynamic that while the festival is "culturally Chinese" they nonetheless do not see themselves as "being part of China" which is what leads to the disassociation. After all, do Europeans consider themselves Roman for the adoption of their ideas, customs, and festivals over time? The answer is of course that identities are relative and constantly in flux, and just because a certain group of people adopt a significant idea or practice does not mean that they therefore flag loyalty to its point of origin.

Of course, there's something more than that going on just here. While the regionalization of "Lunar New Year" has long been a contemporary thing in countries surrounding China, the political push to nonetheless delegitimize "Chinese New Year" as a whole is more overt, sinister, and political and is being driven by people who do not have an Asian background. Yes, I am talking about the United States. It has been noteworthy now that the US Department of State of course officially pushes the "Lunar New Year" expression, and does so of course with the deliberate intention of focusing on friendly countries and removing China from the equation, as US foreign policy is of course to contain, diminish and undermine China's international standing and influence. It has nothing nice to say about Beijing.

This, in turn, reveals a wider truth, that it is now increasingly politically incorrect to say "Chinese New Year" because in framing it that way, you are unavoidably, therefore, expressing support for the country, as the Cantonese teacher stated. In other words, the West has become so hostile to China that it has become inconvenient to acknowledge the festival is Chinese, especially because in doing so it thus confers legitimacy over its cultural soft power, as well as its positions regarding Hong Kong and Taiwan. In other words, Chinese New Year is being spoiled by the political conflicts stemming from America's efforts to degrade China and the negativity campaigns pushed by the mainstream media.

As much as Chinese New Year is a benign, apolitical festival designated for family reunions, it has now regretfully become a cynical tool of geopolitics and identity conflict. To Chinese people themselves, this makes it extremely offensive and upsetting because they see the push to disassociate it from their homeland and thus disregard their identity, in favor of supporting movements which of course are in opposition to the idea of "China." Even a horrifically ignorant YouTube channel, "China Uncensored" was pushing a video last week titled: "CHINESE NEW YEAR IS FAKE" which shows where the debate is at and of course the dog whistle politics underneath the surface of the effort to discredit this. Those who claim that their only grievance about China is the "Communist Party" tend to hate and revile every single from China anyway.

I hope, despite this, everyone had a wonderful Chinese New Year and family reunion!

The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.

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