Well written Robert. Your distinctions are extremely cogent and add much to how China should be perceived by Westerners. Just like the concept of good vs. evil, the lack of an absolute definitional boundary in the Chinese discourse requires the illustration of subtlety and forebearance.
I can’t say I agree too much with the general shade to your critics, as usual — I think you’re overindexing on the dumbest and loudest voices from the West, which to be fair often end up being the morons running the show, but should also not be overestimated or assumed to be ALL of us. After all, not to crow about it or anything, but the plain fact is that our political classes are just a fraction of our populations, and as we saw in WWII the great “normie” masses are perfectly capable of showing up and just being halfway decent. Not perfect, just decent.
However, that last bit about how “backwardness invites aggression”… yeah, we in the West aren’t doing too hot on that front. I honestly wish Sherman had somehow managed to burn that lesson into every holler and plantation throughout the South and Appalachia about 160 years ago — we’d be doing a lot better by now, and probably would never have had Trumpism.
The Euros are at least processing illiberalism better, but their own insane degrowth attitudes are hamstringing them. Less overtly, though, the cost of all that focus on consensus and diplomacy has been that they still treat crises like Ukraine embarrassingly slowly.
Anyways, good article tho! As always, it’s nice to be able to read someone who has their head on straight but comes from a wildly different — though not wholly alien — perspective. Cheers!
This is very good. I am married to a history professor and hang around with the history departments of a half dozen universities (in China) and don't recall anyone ever using the term.
[Quote:] 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. [end of quote]
I don't think I'll be terribly insightful, but even a small piece in the puzzle can help. The UK journalist Martin Jacques described that term as a Chinese one. at least since 2008: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/mar/17/tibet.china ... And given that he became very interested in China in the mid-1990s, while being a regular columnist for the major mainstream media, and lived in China for years before moving back to UK 2002-2003 (my personal recollection, as I had a short exchange with him upon his return), he may have popularised the phrase and the idea that it's Chinese from much earlier than 2008.
“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”… I’m pretty sure the Tibetans, Uighur Muslims and the 20 dead Indian soldiers in Galwan valley would disagree.
I wonder if it was Chiang Kai-shek who popularized the term around 1943 and the Cairo Conference.
That was when Britain (and the USA) (and maybe France?) renounced their treaty rights in China such as the foreign concession areas in cities like Shanghai.
If so, that would explain the "century" reference, being 100 years after the Treaty of Nanjing. It would also explain why the phrase is more recognized in the English speaking world than in the People's Republic of China. For a long time, one would not expect the People's Republic to credit Chiang with ending "national humiliation."
Well written Robert. Your distinctions are extremely cogent and add much to how China should be perceived by Westerners. Just like the concept of good vs. evil, the lack of an absolute definitional boundary in the Chinese discourse requires the illustration of subtlety and forebearance.
This is why I subscribe - thoughtful analysis.
A good reminder to always to reflect on my priors with "observer-imposed abstractions"
I can’t say I agree too much with the general shade to your critics, as usual — I think you’re overindexing on the dumbest and loudest voices from the West, which to be fair often end up being the morons running the show, but should also not be overestimated or assumed to be ALL of us. After all, not to crow about it or anything, but the plain fact is that our political classes are just a fraction of our populations, and as we saw in WWII the great “normie” masses are perfectly capable of showing up and just being halfway decent. Not perfect, just decent.
However, that last bit about how “backwardness invites aggression”… yeah, we in the West aren’t doing too hot on that front. I honestly wish Sherman had somehow managed to burn that lesson into every holler and plantation throughout the South and Appalachia about 160 years ago — we’d be doing a lot better by now, and probably would never have had Trumpism.
The Euros are at least processing illiberalism better, but their own insane degrowth attitudes are hamstringing them. Less overtly, though, the cost of all that focus on consensus and diplomacy has been that they still treat crises like Ukraine embarrassingly slowly.
Anyways, good article tho! As always, it’s nice to be able to read someone who has their head on straight but comes from a wildly different — though not wholly alien — perspective. Cheers!
This is very good. I am married to a history professor and hang around with the history departments of a half dozen universities (in China) and don't recall anyone ever using the term.
[Quote:] 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. [end of quote]
I don't think I'll be terribly insightful, but even a small piece in the puzzle can help. The UK journalist Martin Jacques described that term as a Chinese one. at least since 2008: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/mar/17/tibet.china ... And given that he became very interested in China in the mid-1990s, while being a regular columnist for the major mainstream media, and lived in China for years before moving back to UK 2002-2003 (my personal recollection, as I had a short exchange with him upon his return), he may have popularised the phrase and the idea that it's Chinese from much earlier than 2008.
Great piece. This really gives much more context to the term, “Century of Humiliation” which is widely used in non-Chinese language media.
“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”… I’m pretty sure the Tibetans, Uighur Muslims and the 20 dead Indian soldiers in Galwan valley would disagree.
Hi Robert, very interesting. Thank you!
I wonder if it was Chiang Kai-shek who popularized the term around 1943 and the Cairo Conference.
That was when Britain (and the USA) (and maybe France?) renounced their treaty rights in China such as the foreign concession areas in cities like Shanghai.
If so, that would explain the "century" reference, being 100 years after the Treaty of Nanjing. It would also explain why the phrase is more recognized in the English speaking world than in the People's Republic of China. For a long time, one would not expect the People's Republic to credit Chiang with ending "national humiliation."