Pandemic Nationalism as Digital Agitprop: Anti-Western Sentiment and the Rhetoric of Superiority on Weibo During COVID-19

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese social media became the main arena for nationalist sentiment and ideological contestation, revealing perceptions of the West and emergent forms of participatory digital politics. The neologism ‘white left’ ( baizuo 白左 ), was used by netizens to critique liberal values, scrutinize Western governance, and assert Chinese moral and civilizational superiority. Drawing on a discourse analysis of Weibo content in 2020–2023, this article traces how baizuo served as a diagnostic shorthand for Western decline, reframing a global health crisis as a contest between a decadent West and a disciplined, virtuous China. Rather than reproducing state propaganda, these interventions emerged through affectively charged, bottom-up exchanges that drew upon and exceeded the boundaries of official nationalist discourse. By centring the communicative agency of netizens, this study examines anti- baizuo discourse as grassroots networked agitprop, contributing to the literature on digital nationalism, mobilization, and relations between China and the West.