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The Journal of the Royal Institute of Thailand Volume II - 2010 Public Opinion and the Limit of China’s “Peaceful Rise” 42 redirect their frustrations towards their own government and the CCP’s authoritarian rule would face a crisis of legitimacy. Hughes (2006) calls this phenomenon “the powerlessness of the powerful” because elite discourse is challenged by popular nationalism. In addition, the Chinese people have ambivalent attitudes towards their country’s fate, described by Callahan (2010) as “pessoptimist” structure of feeling, which is a result of their country’s grievous experience during “the Century of Humiliation”. They are, on the one hand, confident about China’s prosperous future. On the other hand, however, they feel that China has always been victimized by foreign powers. Their victim mentality thus easily leads to an outburst of anger and violence. In other words, the Chinese people do not always conform to the concept of China’s “Peaceful Rise” propagated by their leadership. Conclusion Public opinion has played an important role in the making of Chinese foreign policy since Deng Xiaoping’s institution of economic reform in 1978. Chinese citizens, with the coming of commercialized media and information technology, have more latitude to express their own views on international affairs, which are sometimes different from those held by the authorities. Therefore, it is difficult for the Chinese leadership to get the people to conform to official foreign policy orthodoxy, including the concept of “Peaceful Rise” propagated by the CCP and the government. Emotional outbursts during the anti-American and anti-Japanese protests in 1999 and 2005 respectively remind us that China’s “Peaceful Rise” has been challenged by the violence and anger of its own people. References Thai materials Khamchoo C, 2005. China and Japan: A Background History of Conflicts between the Two Major Powers and Implications for Asia in the 21 st Century (จีน - ญี่ปุ่น: ประวัติศาสตร์เบื้องหลังความขัดแย้งของสองมหาอำนาจและนัยต่อภูมิภาคเอเชียในศตวรรษที่ 21) . Bangkok: Openbooks. Theeravit K, 2006. New China in the 21 st Century (จีนใหม่ในศตวรรษที่ 21) . Bangkok: Matichon Publishing House. Utamachan V, Utamachan N, 2006. Chinese Media in Depth (เจาะลึกสื่อจีน) . Bangkok: Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University.