Origins of China's animosity towards the West

During 110 years China was under the yoke of foreign countries. UK, France, US, Germany, Russia and Japan repeatedly defeated and subdued China in the years between 1839 y 1949. This has left a well of resentment in the population, which, moreover, the current institutionalized patriotism has encouraged.

It all starts with the United Kingdom, who else but the United Kingdom, dipping its toes into China. To be more specific, opium.

British leaders saw that, despite the maritime empire they possessed in the nineteenth century, their country maintained a trade deficit with China. Imported porcelain, tea and silk from there. in large quantities, but hardly exported to the Asian country.

In order to preserve the country's silver reserves (which formed the country's monetary base), since the middle of the 18th century China used to practice a protectionist trade policyrestricting trade with Europe to the port of Canton, and exports of its own products against the importation of European products. Chinese products could only be purchased with silver that the British imported from America and Europe.

In response to this protectionist trade policy, the British opted for import opium from India massively by the few ports open to foreigners. This drug, smoked, is a potent and addictive narcotic. The opium trade was illegal both in China and in the United Kingdom itself, but, with the desire to limit the loss of silver reserves in Europe, there was a tacit consent of the British authorities.

The English achieved their purpose.

With the British exporting some 1,400 tons of opium per year to China, there had been a balance of payments reversal in favor of the United Kingdomand threatened to cause a severe currency crisis in China. At the same time, the epidemic of opium addiction was threatening social cohesion - it became very famous for the opium dens. So China decides prohibit its consumption. But this does not stop the addiction among its population, nor the lucrative business that is for the British its traffic.

Then the opium war broke out.

The year is 1839 and the first opium war. The Chinese authorities confiscated and destroyed British opium, this unleashed the wrath of the United Kingdom, which, taking advantage of the its naval superiorityin a matter of months defeated the Chinese armywho were still employing medieval defense techniques.

It was a big shock for the Chinese. Not only for the authorities, but also for the people of the country. China saw itself as the center of the world. The Chinese believed that China was exceptional and the symbol of civilization. Suddenly, their whole idea of the world order changed.

Zhao Ma, Associate Professor of Modern Chinese History and Culture, Washington University in St. Louis.

The war ended in 1842, and the British forced the China to open up to international tradethe transfer of the territory of Hong KongThe Company would not recover until July 1, 1997, and large sums of money in compensation for the economic losses.

However, this agreement did not eliminate tensions, which continued to grow, triggering the second opium war between China and the United Kingdom in 1856.

France joins the party.

In the face of China's forced opening of trade, other countries had initiated lucrative activities with the Asian nation. This led to the fact that these nations, as well as FranceThe United States, in order to preserve its commercial interests, joined the war.

A further nail in the Chinese feeling of oppression would be driven by the looting and destructionby the Anglo-French army, of the former Beijing Summer Palaceconsidered the most beautiful in the country. This would put an end to the war in 1860.

When China again lost this contest, it had to give in again. It was forced to grant more power in its territory to United Kingdom, France, United States, Germany and Russia. Financial compensation to the United Kingdom and France, and legalization of the opium trade.

But the most humiliating defeat was yet to come.

It is August 1, 1894 and China is confronting Japan for Korea's control in the First Sino-Japanese War. Loses again.

For the first time, regional dominance in East Asia shifted from China to Japan, and the prestige of the Qing dynasty, along with the "honor"China, suffered a severe blow.

China did not see Japan as an important country. Historically, Japan had seen China as its teacher. China was defeated and that was very humiliating for the Chinese. Because how could little Japan defeat her?

Yafeng Xia, Professor of Social Sciences Long Island University.

In March 1895, a new agreement was signed with the Shimonoseki Treatise between Japan and China by which the latter ceded TaiwanThe islands of Pescadores and Liaodong to the Empire of Japan.

China's three unsuccessful struggles had weakened the nationThis was taken advantage of by the Western powers to establish certain zones of influencebeyond the enclaves they already owned.

The late 19th century imperialism in China led Western powers to impose a new policy of semi-colonial organization control and commercial privileges, which gave them the ability to control and

With these ingredients, we already had the breeding ground for the germination of a anti-foreigner sentiment among the Chinese population.

And China explodes.

The end of the 19th century saw the emergence of the Boxer uprising against foreign influence in commerce, politics, religion and technology in the last years of the 19th century. In August 1900, about 230 foreigners and thousands of Chinese Christians had died in the revolt.

The answer is not long in coming.

Aggrieved countries unite under the Eight Nations Allianceformed by American, Austro-Hungarian, British, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Russian troops.. You can imagine the result.

The Eight Nations Alliance led 20,000 armed troops to Chinadefeated the Imperial Army and reached Peking. As a result, there was a uncontrolled looting of the capitalwill would summarily execute suspected Boxers, the foreign troops would remain in Beijing and would be forced to pay a new indemnityThe Alliance's eight nations will be represented in the eight nations of the Alliance over the next 39 years.

We arrived at the convulsive 20th century.

It is now 1911 and a new new popular uprisingthis time, this time, against the Qing dynastywhich had proven ineffective in its efforts to modernize China and confront foreign aggression. The Xinhai Revolution overthrows the last imperial dynasty of China (the Qing dynasty) and establishes the Republic of China.

But the new type of government does not limit the Western presence in the Asian nation.. Some cities in China, such as ShanghaiThe country was still under enormous foreign influence.

This city was the China's main industrial and commercial center due to its strategic location, which facilitated trade with the West. At the end of the First Opium WarBy 1932, several areas of the city had come under British, French and American "concessions". In 1932, Shanghai was the fifth largest city in the world and home to 70,000 foreigners.

But the worst was yet to come for China.

It was at the end of the 1930s that the most harrowing period for the Asian country began.

Everything would become extremely complicated when the Japanese increase their pressure on China establishing a puppet state, Manchukuoin Manchuria in 1931. The tension between Japan and China, which did not recognize the independence of Manchukuo, would lead to open warfare July 7, 1937, when the Japanese army begins the invasion of China.

The Second Sino-Japanese War begins.

The Japanese army occupied most of the eastern coastal strip of China, controlling the main centers of economic production. The puppet regime in Manchukuo was joined by three other puppet regimes, one in Inner Mongolia and two other similar regimes in Peking and Nanjing. In the latter city, occupied by the Japanese army on December 13, 1937, a campaign of extraordinary violence was unleashed against the civilian population, the so-called "Peking". Nanjing massacrein which thousands of people died.

The state of national crisis forced the collaboration between the ruling Nationalist KMT party and the Communist Partywhich until then had been persecuted.

The Japanese invasion thus allowed the Communist Party to regroup, strengthen and establish itself in more areas of China.

The end of the war in 1945 marked the end of the Japan's final exit from Chinese territory. Manchuria, Taiwan and the areas occupied during the Sino-Japanese war were once again under Chinese sovereignty. The communist forces, greatly strengthened by the years of warThe Japanese, who had been in control of many areas of rural China, increased their control over many parts of the country. The departure of the Japanese thus ushered in a new era. civil war open between the Kuomintang or Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The victory of the Chinese Communist Party.

Despite the fact that the Chinese government would approve a new constitution in 1947 (which remains in force to this day in Taiwan), and elections were held, economic policy was not able to control an economic crisis. hyperinflation and the communists were increasing the territory under their control.

In January 1949, the communist army entered Beijing and regained its traditional name (Beijing, "capital of the north"), whereby the communists made it clear that they would establish there the capital of the new regime.

On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed in the Tiananmen Square of Beijing (Beijing) the People's Republic of China. Meanwhile, the ancien régime reestablished the rule of the Republic of China in Taipei, Taiwan, where he had fled.

It is at this time, in 1949, that the Chinese Communist Party placed the end of the 100 Years of Humiliationwhen Mao Zedong comes to power, proclaims the People's Republic and makes the promise of freeing China from foreign domination. Although some historians establish the end of the Century of Humiliation with the end of the Japanese invasion at the end of World War II in 1945.

The intentional use of the 100 Years of Humiliation.

The use of the Century of Humiliation in the historiography of the Chinese Communist Party and modern Chinese nationalism, with its focus on the "sovereignty and integrity of Chinese territory", has been widely used ever since. to deflect foreign criticism on the abuse of the human rights in ChinaThe Chinese people's attention has been focused on corruption and reinforcing their territorial claims. This has meant that, despite the more than 70 years that have passed, the humiliation suffered during those 110 years is still very much present among the Chinese population.

The Chinese have an enormous sense of pride in being Chinese and in belonging to the world's longest-lived civilization. And at the same time, there is a sense of humiliation.

Zhao Ma, Associate Professor of Modern Chinese History and Culture, Washington University in St. Louis.

This nationalist narrative has been reinforced by the current leader Xi Jinping in his speeches.

Under no circumstances will the Chinese people allow any foreign force to run roughshod over, oppress or enslave them.

Xi Jinping, President of the People's Republic of China.

This has led to the patriotic feelings have skyrocketed in a large part of the population in recent years, especially among young people.

The concept of China as a victim has been in the Chinese national psyche since long before the Chinese Communist Party was founded. The difference is that today China considers nationalism to be state ideology.

Zhao Ma, Associate Professor of Modern Chinese History and Culture, Washington University in St. Louis.

When China is criticized from the West for its human rights abuses or its territorial ambitions, both the government and many citizens are mobilizing for an aggressive response.. As a result, some Western brands and organizations have received commercial boycotts. And any Western advertisement or comment, which is considered insulting to Chinese culture, has a quick response.

Deng XiaopingChinese leader until 1989 urged to follow the policy of ".to hide the force and wait for the moment"The company's declared objective is to go unnoticed internationally, to get out of poverty and leave poverty behind. Cultural Revolutionwithout submitting to the public scrutiny of the rest of the world.

Deng Xiaoping's other great phrase, in the spring of 1992, at the age of 88, would be "....getting rich is glorious". In this way, Deng made it clear that the China's economic opening There was no turning back. The elderly leader's endorsement of the economic reforms initiated a unprecedented acceleration of economic growth and foreign investment in the People's Republic of China during the 1990s.

The Chinese see that China is growing, that it is coming back to what it was. So they think it should be respected. 

Yafeng Xia, Professor of Social Sciences Long Island University.

We have already reviewed in this 2020 article as China had changed that policy from Deng Xiaoping to the aggressive counterattack. The reborn national pride has found its reflection in a more active and aggressive foreign policy, which left the niceties behind.

Chinese diplomats say "you are the same foreign barbarians, haven't we Chinese suffered enough?" They often use this narrative as a tool to defend China's behavior.

Yafeng Xia, Professor of Social Sciences Long Island University.

Chinese nationalists have portrayed imperial China as benevolent, strong, and more advanced than the West in a partisan historical revisionism. They blame their vicissitudes on wars and imperialist exploitation by Western nations and Japan. Although officially still communist and Maoist, in practice, China's rulers have used this base ideological settlement to proclaim that their current policies are restoring China's historical glory.

The communication policy of the large Asian country has changed enormously.. The desire to go unnoticed, maneuvering in the shadows, has taken a back seat. Subtle diplomacy no longer seems to have its place in China. Patriotic pride is everything, and animosity towards the West and Japan for 110 years of humiliation has been perpetuated in the Chinese psyche. Intentionally.

This article has been elaborated from several sources, such as this one BBC video and the numerous Wikipedia references mentioned in the links. Header photo by 郑 无忌 on Unsplash.