For now, this essay will set aside the question—common among many Chinese people (citizens of the People’s Republic of China)—of what exactly a “nation” is, not least because whether “China” is a nation at all remains debatable. Here, let us assume that China is a European-style nation-state, predominantly Chinese-speaking, with a collective memory of being invaded.

Where, then, are this “nation’s” boundaries drawn? Here, we will also set aside the southeast, southwest, northeast, and northwest. In the incident at Dalian Polytechnic University, where a female student was expelled for having sexual relations with a foreigner, it is plain that the nation’s boundary has already become the female body: her free body is forced into the political, made into “proof” that the nation’s dignity has been insulted.

In male-dominated communities, one often hears arguments like these: women who have sex with foreigners are plastered with stigmatizing labels, while men who do so are said to “bring glory to the nation.” Such labels reveal a typical nationalist mentality: women of one’s own country/people exist as resources that must be “protected” or may be “conquered.” Those resources are plainly sexual and reproductive. This woman who allegedly “insulted the nation’s dignity” was not only expelled under the university’s absurd rules; she was also attacked and slandered online by men in a frenzy laced with anxiety. That blend of ecstasy, rage, and unease in fact lays bare a deep, collective, unconscious insecurity.

China, as a nation-state, was forged precisely amid upheaval and insecurity. Its national idea took shape along the path of pursuing republican democracy and resisting foreign invasion. Yet the twin aims—political transformation and pursuit of global standing—have never been fully balanced. Put differently, China’s deepest anxiety lies in whether a once-oppressed people can contend with, even dominate, outsiders. In this historical process, the goal of political reform has been all but abandoned, and even in an era of rapid economic growth it has received scant attention. Where authoritarian rule persists, civil rights movements inevitably face dire straits, to say nothing of the pursuit of equality. Such a country is an ideal habitat for patriarchy. In the dominant values of a patriarchal-nationalist society, women’s bodies are not vessels of subjectivity but the nation’s sensitive “source of pain.” The moment a woman has sex with a foreigner, the traumatic memory of past invasions surges through the nation’s collective subconscious like a torrent. A woman who has sex with a foreigner must be either “raped” or “collaborating with the enemy”—and in contemporary parlance “collaboration” becomes “seduction” or “craven worship of the West.” For women in such situations there is no third option: they are forced into one or the other.

I must mention a 2024 performance by Donald Trump. At a rally, he first set up a premise: someone had told him that saying “protect the women” was “inappropriate.” Then he said, “Well, I’m gonna do it whether the women like it or not. I’m gonna protect them from migrants coming in. I’m gonna protect them from foreign countries that want to hit us with missiles and lots of other things…” From the floor came screams, as if a savior had descended from the heavens. But for people who cherish freedom and reject authority, that “whether they like it or not” is profoundly inappropriate—indeed nauseating. These two seemingly unrelated events illustrate the same point: under patriarchal nationalism, women as assets of the state are either “national assets” to be protected or “national shame” for consorting with the enemy. In this case, neither “the state” nor Dalian Polytechnic University pursued (or even condemned) the Ukrainian esports player Zeus who spread the video, but instead punished the victim directly. For them, a freely chosen sexual act admits no middle ground; it can only be classed as “national shame.”

Contemporary Chinese metropolises are deeply capitalized, and masses of urbanites face manifold struggles for survival; many...