Doklam standoff: China must remember grievance-based nationalism is a double-edged sword

Army planners would do well to seal and localise Chinese incursions and retaliate in kind elsewhere on the border

Those wishing to sense the contemporary public mood in China should watch the classic propaganda documentary, Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will), made on Adolf Hitler’s orders by German actress-turned-filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl. This enduring record of the euphoric 1934 Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg is on YouTube. It starts dramatically, referencing a resurgent Germany shrugging off the humiliation of World War I. In successive screens, set to a Wagnerian score, German angst plays out: “On 5th September 1934… 20 years after the outbreak of the World War… 16 years after the start of German suffering (the Treaty of Versailles)…