How important is "Century of Humiliation" in China?

Will China use history to ask for reparations?

I forget exactly when the term “Century of Humiliation” became a phrase widely cited by Western intellectuals to talk about China. But I have to admit, when I first heard of this term, I struggled to find the exact Chinese word for it.

To be clear, without being reminded, I know exactly what this term refers to: roughly a century of humiliation, unequal treaties, wars, and suffering when China was weak, stretching from the 1840 Opium War all the way to (arguably) the end of WWII.

What I mean is that I struggled to find the corresponding Chinese phrase that is as popular in China as the “Century of Humiliation” in the West. The fact that I struggled here, while many of you might assume an average Chinese person should instantly know the corresponding phrase, is a telling sign that I wish to explore in this essay.

To be fair, this phrase does exist in China. After some research (but only after some research), you can find it somewhere. For instance, in Xi Jinping’s 2015 speech commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII, he said:

The victory of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was a triumph for the entire Chinese nation. It not only completely shattered Japanese militarism’s attempt to colonize and enslave China, but also abolished the unequal treaties signed with imperialist powers since modern times, allowing China to wash away a century of national humiliation. This marked a major turning point in history—never again would China return to the era of repeated defeats in the face of foreign invasions. The victory laid a solid foundation for China's independence and liberation, established a historic turning point for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and provided the essential precondition for its realization.

中国人民抗日战争的胜利，是整个中华民族的胜利。它不仅彻底粉碎了日本军国主义殖民奴役中国的图谋，而且废除了近代以来与列强签订的不平等条约，使中国得以洗雪百年国耻。历史因此而发生重大转折，近代以来中国人民抗击外来侵略屡战屡败的历史一去不复返了！抗日战争的胜利，为中国的独立和解放奠定了坚实基础，为实现中华民族伟大复兴确立了历史转折点，提供了根本前提。

But sheer existence does not mean significance. In the speech above, Xi Jinping used the word “百年国耻”, which literally translates as “A century of national humiliation/shame.” But this is not a very famous phrase, at least not in contemporary China. A more often cited one is “百年屈辱 A century of disgrace/humiliation”. And another phrase that I hear much, much more often than these two is “勿忘国耻 Never forget national humiliation”.

What’s even more noteworthy is that it’s not those phrases that make up the bulk of contemporary Chinese imagination of that period. It’s the imagery. While Westerners may refer to this period with a single phrase, the Chinese think of this period in terms of images. It’s the image of Qing officials signing unequal treaties with the British in Nanjing and with the Japanese at Shimonoseki. It’s the image of the Summer Palace on fire. It’s the image of the Qing Navy destroyed. It’s the image of Versailles, which demanded that China cede Shandong to Japan. It’s the image of September 18, 1931, when Zhang Xueliang, the Young Marshall, effectively gave away Manchuria to the Japanese without firing a shot. It’s the image of the total destruction of China’s best-equipped armed forces in the Battle of Shanghai across the river from colonial quarters, where Western revelers live their lives as usual by stark contrast. It’s the image of severed heads and mutilated bodies in Nanjing in 1938.

Signing of the Treaty of Nanjing, 1842

“Century of Humiliation”, as an English term, is a catch-all phrase that’s designed to contain all of these images above and serve as a framework of explanation for the motivations of modern-day China. But I have to say, though, this phrase appears much more (perhaps 100 times more, even 1000 times more) frequently in Western discourse of China than it does in actual China. The Chinese economy is developing rapidly? They are responding to the Century of Humiliation. The Chinese government mandates a strong industrial policy? This is because they are thinking about the Century of Humiliation. China is having border disputes? They want to avenge the Century of Humiliation, of course!

I asked around a bit about the origin of the popularity of “Century of Humiliation” in the West, but haven’t received a satisfactory answer yet. Maybe one of you could help me here. (Regarding “勿忘国耻” though, someone told me Wang Zheng’s 2012 book Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations was influential for those in Anglophone academia who study the historical memory of modern Chinese history.)

At this stage, it seems to me that the English term “Century of Humiliation” has all the hallmarks of a linguistic device found and popularized by Western intellectuals themselves to encapsulate their own understanding of China, and then took the central stage in the discourse environment.

Similar things happen in reverse, too, and Chinese scholars are not immune to this practice either. For example, when I wrote the piece discussing Ne Zha 2, and there was a paragraph where I discussed the differences in historical political systems between China and Europe. There, I tried to invoke a line that many high schoolers in China learned from textbooks about the fundamental feature of the old feudal system of Europe:

“The lord of my lord is not my lord, the vassal of my vassal is not my vassal.领主的领主不是我的领主，附庸的附庸不是我的附庸.”

To research for that piece, I tried to find the original text from the West about this line. Only that I couldn’t, and to my great surprise, my AI told me it seemed that the line was coined by some Chinese scholars(!)

In both “Century of Humiliation” and “Lord of my lord is not my lord”, the observing side tries to understand the observed side by creating simple abstractions. But this “observer-imposed abstraction” in turn becomes the reality that the observers live in.

We should always be mindful of these oversimplified, manufactured realities that we create. At least when it comes to the “Century of Humiliation” narrative, I can see there are at least three major perils associated with it.

First, it trivializes the experience of the observed side. There is a whole body of rich experiences and real human emotions that can also point to many different directions. All these details are lost: Oh, so that’s Century of Humiliation. I got it!

The more obvious problem is that fixation on a single phrase also runs the risk of over-representing what it actually is. There is no denying that the images and memories represented by “Century of Humiliation” are a key component of the modern Chinese mind, a key building block of modern Chinese nationhood, and a lot of our actions and choices today are responding to these memories. But it’s not the only building block. It’s not even the most important building block. Contemporary Chinese people live in a far, far more complex world, and our mental worlds juggle between personal dreams, familial duties, self-growth, material desires, entertainment, aspirations for a just and fair society, curiosity, over-competition, safety, personal well-being, memories of Confucian doctrine, memories of cosmopolitanism like that of the Tang as well as memories of both brotherly camaraderie as well as unscrupulous scheming like that from the Romance of Three Kingdoms -- all alongside our unconscious response to the “Century of Humiliation”, which is but one page in our recent history.

Finally, this narrative and over-representation will blow the fear of it out of proportion. I can vaguely sense that the Western world fixates so much on this term because of fear: fear of China rising and eventually taking revenge for the West’s past crimes.

A lot of the discussion of China by the West serves more like a mirror for the West to look at itself, a recurring theme in this newsletter.

For instance, when I discussed that many Western intellectuals seem to assume China would be an externally aggressive power because China has an authoritarian system, I wrote:

In the case of China, our system is authoritarian (or patriarchal), but decidedly not expansionist. Sometimes, I think the Western intellgentsia has often projected their own worst fear - the fear total loss of liberty under an authoritarian system - onto China to extrapolate that China will extend its not-so-inspiring governance model to other people. In fact, we worry too much about internal disorders to care about others, and we are not interested in converting others into our way of life at all. (There was projection of another kind of fear, a fear of other people repeating the same crimes Western predecessors did. They assumed that since the West rose through colonialism and plunder, then China probably will repeat the same path.)

A few weeks ago, when discussing why China would refrain from meddling in the Israel-Iran War, I wrote:

China is neither plotting to take over the world, nor does it care about claiming some kind of leadership role. For those of you who believe otherwise, I find that you are often projecting yourself onto understanding China. You are only looking at yourself in the mirror here.

In the case of “Century of Humiliation”, I find most of its advocates are looking into the mirror again. Behind the repeated chanting of this term, I can see a real fear that China would use history as an excuse to ask for reparations.

Asking for reparations may be the natural urge under the Western-style framework that’s more based on reciprocity, contract, and exactitude. Within such a framework, it made perfect sense, for example, for the British and French to ask for hundreds of billions of gold marks in reparations from Germany in the Treaty of Versailles (It would make zero sense to a Chinese mindset).

If Chinese people think like the West, then yes, you should be very careful here, because we are coming after you! But that’s not how we think about things. When Chinese pupils learn the lessons about that “Century”, the focus is not about “we should get stronger and finally kick those Western oppressors in their asses!” The focus is always clear and much more reactive, and is well represented by a much, much more widely used phrase:“落后就要挨打 Backwardness will invite aggression”.

Notice the framing of this idea. We do not talk about any desire to oppress others when we are strong, but only about the need not to be oppressed when we are weak. Power becomes a means to defend, rather than a tool to offend. And the “Century of Humiliation”, whatever it means, becomes a perpetual reminder for self-growth as well as a dark warning for non-growth, rather than a call to arms for revenge.