Q&A on "Century of Humiliation" and "the Party vs. the Nation"

I am glad to have been reached out by Mr.

Simone Pieranni

of the Il Partito newsletter recently. Simone is an Italian journalist specializing in Asia and China, where he lived for many years. He now works as a podcaster at Chora Media with a podcast about Asia titled "Altri Orienti." He wrote "2100" for Mondadori, which was a finalist in 2025 for the Strega Prize, the most important Italian literary prize.

Simone came to me with very thoughtful questions regarding my two essays, How important is "Century of Humiliation" in China? and "I am against CCP, not against Chinese people" - How meaningful is this idea?

He just published my response in his newsletter to tens of thousands of subscribers. Below is a reprint. I have the sense that many of you may want to ask me similar questions, so I hope this Q&A will help you further understand my viewpoints.

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Simone: Regarding your post on the “Century of Humiliation,” it brought a lot to mind, including my own recollection of Xi Jinping's phrase. Perhaps because that speech resonates with many Chinese analysts, I always thought it was a widely used term. You, however, talk about the power of images. Could you tell me what specific images come to your mind when you think of that period?

Robert: There are many images, faces, events, and of course, terms associated with the collective memory of that period. If you haven't, I recommend you watching a highly-acclaimed TV drama called Towards the Republic走向共和 (here the original version, here with eng subtitles), which documented the period between the 1895 defeat to the Japanese, obliterating the entire Qing Navy and ceding Taiwan as a result, to the failed Hundred Days' Reform, to the Boxer Rebellion, all the way to the fall of Qing Dynasty. It's about how generations of intellectuals tried to right the course but failed, and how the stubborn, dim-witted ruling class wasted so much time and eventually pushed the nation to ruins.

Starting from the 20th century, images became more concrete as camera technologies developed. A lot revolved between China and Japan. The Mukden Incident in 1931 (in China it's remembered "918") when China simply gave away Manchuria to Japan without even fighting, the meat-grinding Battle of Shanghai which consumed almost all of the elite Chinese forces, the horrific Massacre of Nanjing, were among the many images that were stuck deep in China's collective memories, constantly reminding people what bottomless "humiliation" there might have if we were weak.

Simone: You rightly point out that you experienced the sensation of using a Western-derived phrase to describe the West, only to discover it was a Chinese formulation. This tells us a lot about the narrative constructions on both sides. Is there a similar "Century of Humiliation"-like narrative emerging in China today, but applied to Western nations?

Robert: As of now, I can't pinpoint any specific term or narrative from the top of my head. Perhaps I myself am trapped in my own constructed narrative, and I need someone to point it out for me.

However, there are general misconceptions stemming from using one's framework to understand the other side as well in China. For instance, Chinese people tend to understand foreign behaviors in purely materialistic and pragmatic terms, because that's who Chinese people are. I still remember that back in 2003, when the US invaded Iraq, every commentator of the episode in China was frankly quite puzzled and asked each other, why? Eventually, they united in their view that Bush just wanted oil.

I believe oil was part of the calculation, but it's also plausible that many elites in America's war machine genuinely believe that, with the energy of a missionary and in the fashion of Lawrence of Arabia, they could spread democracy and freedom to the Iraqis and help engineer a great nation. But this is not something an average Chinese mind will comprehend.

Likewise, Westerners pointing fingers at China (some may be well-intentioned and well-founded) will naturally lead to a knee-jerk response: What extortion are you looking for today?

With that said, the emergence of Trumpism in the US seems like a great justification for this materialistic worldview, and will make it even further entrenched. And I am increasingly less sure that this is actually a biased view, but not an incisive understanding of the hard facts beneath the soft surface. You can almost imagine a small genie talking in an average Chinese head: those Westerners might sound nice and fancy a while ago, but eventually, they will dispatch someone like Trump to come for extortions!

Simone: I'm convinced that China doesn't aim for global leadership and isn't an expansionist power, and I believe some narratives, like the "Century of Humiliation," inadvertently contribute to the opposite perception. From a Western perspective, where should we look to find evidence supporting my conviction, especially if we're not living in China?

Robert: As I mentioned above, China does not have this kind of missionary energy to spread its way of life to the whole world. We just don't care. This indifference inherently limits global leadership ambitions. As I mentioned in my article, the memories of national humiliation are usually discussed in China within the context of self-improvement and the urge not to fall behind, rather than taking revenge.

I think the right question to ask is, had China been an expansionist power in the style of Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany, what would China have done?

Everyone says that the government plays a central role in China. So what's the government saying about this? The Chinese government has a 5-year plan, which makes rough guidelines for the path of development for the next 5 years. I challenge anyone to find chapters where they talk about how to subjugate other nations. The Communist Party has a party congress every 5 years, a central committee plenum once or twice a year, and several politburo meetings several times a year. I challenge anyone to find preparations for global hegemony in any of their readouts.

That's not to say there are no elements of nationalism and even ultra-nationalism on the rise, but there are many instances of these types of voices being snuffed out by the authorities. I documented one story last year.

Is the lack of official rhetoric for expansionism just subterfuge? Is there any hidden agenda? But I have to remind you that in a system like China's, there is no way that China is on a path of "expansionism" if the political leaders do not advocate for it, do not mobilize the support for it, and even actively clamp down on it.

Simone: The prevailing Western narrative about China still carries echoes of "Orientalism." How can we, as observers and communicators, avoid falling into essentialism—the idea that "Chinese people are just like that because they're Chinese, full stop"? I ask this because I try to explain China to audiences in Italy, and I find it incredibly challenging to do so without resorting to essentialist views, while instead trying to place China within a global context.

Robert: Seeing is believing. It's hard to explain what a rhino looks like for anyone who has never seen one. They might eventually just draw a unicorn for you.

So my own recommendation is to pick your own audience. I like explaining China to those who already have some interactions with China, even better, have been to China for a considerable amount of time, and even spoken the language.

For those who have not "seen", if I have to explain, I would use as many stories and anecdotes as possible, to try my best to construct a virtual environment where the audience can almost "see". But that's extremely difficult.

Simone: On a related note, you mention Confucius in your writings. Don't you think that emphasizing too much the idea that "China acts this way because it's Confucian" could also be a form of Orientalism, especially given that the Chinese leadership's own narrative might, to some extent, reinforce this? In other words, aren't we often at risk of a response that inadvertently validates and incorporates a stereotype?

I did mention Confucius in my writings, but I believe I never claimed that it's the dominant consideration or the only thing that matters, even though it is an important building block of modern China.

The problem is not that we use this word, but that, do people actually understand what this word means? Does it just mean "conformist"? Absolutely not. At least it has way more meanings than that.

I have a theory which I will expand on in the future, that the modern Chinese state rests on at least 3 pillars: market economy, socialism, and Confucian ethics. The three are at least equally important, but the Confucian part is less accessible and less familiar to Western ears than the previous 2 pillars.

Behind this word, there are many meanings. It's important to understand the details, not just use a word as an essentialist label. I won't be able to explain everything in this answer, but let me just give you one example. In Confucian ethics, the powerful in high office are expected to provide and to literally work their asses off for the masses. In this sense, power is not pre-ordained from heaven, nor self-selecting. It's based on an invisible rating card carried by people, and by history. This simple idea will have many implications, and I will give you an example in your question below about "regime".

Simone: Moving on to another of your impactful posts, you argue that the sentiment of "I'm not against the CCP, but I'm with the Chinese people" is not particularly meaningful and has significant limitations. Could you please briefly summarize your argument on this point?

Robert: My core idea is that the Chinese people, Chinese culture, and Chinese values serve as the ultimate breeding ground of the Communist Party of China, and there are a lot more shared interests, shared aspirations, and common ways of doing things than differences between the Party and the Nation, than the Western discourses imagine. Most of the things you love or hate about the Chinese people, you will love or hate about the CPC as well, and vice versa. This makes the common refrain "I'm not against the CCP, but I'm with the Chinese people" both logically meaningless and practically irrelevant.

Simone: I find myself in agreement with many of your points. However, stepping beyond Rubio's initial premise, if it's true that both the leadership and the people desire a prosperous China, just like in the West, do you not perceive a fundamental issue with the methods employed? I'm thinking specifically about the economy: I'm not sure if I'm just encountering a pessimistic segment of the population here in China, but it seems to me that the leadership's narrative of "everything is fine" doesn't quite align with the perceptions of many ordinary Chinese citizens.

Robert: There are a lot of debates about "methods". And the debate is lively domestically as well. Sometimes the debate surfaces in the public sphere, most of the time intense debates are happening in private.

The "everything is fine" rhetoric is a controversial one. The party and state apparatus, like any big institution (such as any large corporation), has the natural tendency to paint a rosier picture and say "everything is fine". Can it look dumb sometimes, when not everything is fine? Yes. Can it be improved? I think so. I always urge better transparency, honesty, and better skills at doing this. Still, it's not mid-level people's job to be skillful at effective and transparent public communication that sometimes involves the admission of errors. Ultimately, it will depend a lot on the style and character of the top leadership. Sometimes we have this style in our top leadership, sometimes we don't.

But up till now, we have only been talking about "narratives" here. But between "words" and "deeds", which one should you pay more attention to? Between a government that talks smoothly but never delivers the results, and a government that talks clumsily but prefers to deliver the results behind the scenes, which one is exactly better?

Some more context is needed here. Is the economy doing fine in China? You can't talk about "good" or "bad" without reference to your comparison. Compared with, say, 5 or 10 years ago, it's noticeable that we are at least at a "down" time, and it's natural for some of your friends to feel pessimistic. But that's only after we have experienced perhaps the fastest and most impactful economic growth in human history. People are just underwhelmed when the energy level goes down a notch. Also, compared with the rest of the world right now, how is the Chinese economy actually doing? I believe it's not an exaggeration to say it's "above average" right now.

Also, sometimes I wonder whether China is unfairly biased in this regard, just because it's China. For instance, just now the US Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) announced the July 2025 nonfarm payroll data, which the May and June estimates were dramatically downward revised by a whopping 90%. Soon afterward, Trump fired the head of the BLS. Had events of such a magnitude happened in China - both the dramatic revisions of data as well as summary firing of civil servants to help paint a rosy picture - I could not imagine the kind of uproar that could have happened.

Simone: From the perspective of someone trying to explain China to a Western audience, how would you explain the fact that the majority of Chinese people generally support the leadership, especially considering that the word "China" in Western media is often associated with "regime," implying a coerced form of support?

Robert: The prevailing mental framework in the West to understand the government is this "government vs people" framework. In this framework, the two are distinct from each other and are inherently adversarial. If one applies this mental work to understand China, for sure you will see the Chinese system as a "regime", and it's nothing but coercion that fuses people together. How else can the ruling party stay on forever without an election of sorts?

Yet it's just one mental framework. Not everything in the world needs to conform to one framework. I used to understand China with this framework too, and saw problems everywhere. But later, I found that most people here actually don't have this framework. Instead, their mental framework is more like a "parents-children" relationship. Yes, in a family setting, parents decide, and children obey. But parents have obligations for children too, and are expected to make good and wise decisions for the benefit of children. If parents keep making bad choices that harm their children, people will say they are not good parents.

Children also know that their parents provide them with the ultimate protection. Chinese police, especially those at the neighborhood level, have a busy schedule, because they are expected to deal with all sorts of obligations. For example, when neighbors get into a quarrel, they often just call the police to help settle disputes. In China, we will also not debate about whether the government should cut funding for disaster relief, as the US is doing for FEMA, because disaster relief is the least a "parental" government is expected to provide, and it is expected to be provided at all costs.

(For me personally, I would prefer "children" to grow up more and be more mature. The children need to grow up eventually.)

So, how to understand popular support for the "regime"? So long as the government fulfills its "parental" duty to provide basic safety, food, and shelter for the "children", even with a bit of coercion, I see no way the children will just willfully tear down the house. And when it does happen, it will be a massive fight, a fight between fathers and sons, and you will instantly and unquestionably know when it happens. Today is just not that day.

Simone: Finally, I'd be grateful if you could share a bit about your professional activities and current work.

Robert: I run a data and research company called BigOne Lab, providing data subscription services for institutional investors and corporate decision-makers around the world. Besides China Translated, which is my personal newsletter, my company also runs a newsletter called Baiguan, which provides data-driven insights to help readers stay up-to-date on Chinese business and economy.

The professional data and research industry in China, where we operate, is a fascinating industry. I also keep a small newsletter called Paid Sub to update you about this industry. I am currently planning a major project for this industry, and I hope to make announcements for it in a few months.