This article develops the concept of everyday techno-nationalism to explain how national pride is generated through daily engagements with Chinese AI chatbots rather than through state mobilization or hostile cyber-nationalist campaigns. Using the January 2025 “DeepSeek moment” as an entry point, it shows how the public celebration of a domestic large language model became a widely shared experience of China’s technological capability under US-led semiconductor constraints. The study analyses 110 highly liked Zhihu responses across 11 questions and supplements them with 16 follow-up interviews, using textual analysis to identify recurring themes and rhetorical strategies. Three discourses structure everyday techno-nationalism: Chinese AI as a smarter lifestyle, experiencing national revival in everyday use of AI, and technology speaking for itself. It claims that technology goes beyond a symbol of national development, and becomes the medium through which citizens experience it and reaffirm it.

Authors:
Renyi He, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

About the Presenter(s)
Dr.Renyi He is currently a postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Journalism and Commiunication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Sunday Schedule

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