China & Its National Psychology of ‘Shame & Humiliation’

Introduction

Strategic intent and behavior of nation-states’ within the international system are often understood within a rational – cost-benefit – framework as against an intangible cultural-ideational complex. Nations like individuals are organic and develop visions, dreams, and prejudices about themselves and the world that shape their intentions. According to Adam Smith - The Wealth of Nations; 1776 - China was, “one of the richest, that is, one of the most fertile, best cultivated, most industrious and most populous countries in the world”. However, this 2,000-plus year-old system that made Confucianism the state ideology from the time of Emperor Wu in the Earlier Han was easily defeated by the 18th century revolution in political & military thought of the West – a time when China in its own understanding was the ‘celestial empire’. In particular, as a result of the First Sino-Japanese War, China tumbled from the position of power it had retained in East Asia for more than two thousand years. To start with, the West had deep admiration and awe for the oldest and continuing civilization of China and according to Voltaire in his Philosophical Dictionary of 1765, “there is no house in Europe the antiquity of which is so well proved as that of the Empire of China”. Yet, China’s nationalism & its strategic vision for the future is founded on a self-definition in its relation to others, in particular the West – The East wind prevails over the West wind (东风压倒西风; dōngfēng yādǎo xīfēng). 

The complexities associated with national “shame and humiliation” is central to China’s political milieu and key to understanding many of the concepts that China’s leaders formulate in the conduct of its foreign relations. For example – contradicting (mao dun,矛盾) concepts born out of an analytical pattern of “dialectical thinking”- Build a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind & National Rejuvenation; or common security & territorial sovereignty. China’s recent assertive foreign policy, wolf-diplomacy, general approach towards global governance, reliance on military power & modus-operandi in conduct of diplomacy and inter-state relations cannot be discerned within a rational paradigm, since China’s political history, national experience & memory, strategic culture and concepts which are unique to it deeply impel her decision making and choices. This essay links China’s past and its interpretation in conduct of China’s relations with the world and argues that while China may have come a long way in becoming a modern nation-state, it is deeply rooted in unresolved interpretation of its past. The diplomatic treatment lent out to the visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on April 24-26, 2024 is at a foundational level in close resemblance to that of the Emperor Qianlong’s diplomatic engagement with Macartney Embassy sent by King George III, 1792-93 - inequality. Furthermore, China follows diplomacy based on secret ‘un-written agreements’ with aims, objectives and rationale only known to it. In other words, China’s strategy is – negative - in the sense that does not seek an unknown future, but its known past wherein it was a middle-kingdom (中国) surrounded by nations unequal in status – a known (East Asia) world order called All under the Heaven - tianxia (天下) - with its emperor, the son of heaven, in command due to a mandate given to him by the heaven.

Chinese Nationalism: A Gaffe!

Chinese nationalism and its modern history are falsely perceived to begin with the so-called Opium Wars (Dìyīcì yāpiàn zhànzhēng) (1839-42) - which began with a series of events at the Canton factory compound in 1839 and ended with the defeat of Qing naval forces at the hands of technologically superior British & Indian naval forces, and subsequent signing of the Treaty of Nanjing (Nanking) on board the Cornwallis, at Nanjing, on  August 29,1842. Chinese nationalism – the overthrow of the Qing empire, rise of the Republic, & constitution of the People’s Republic of China led by the Communist Party – is at its core built around the symbolic power and interpretation of the so-called Opium Wars of the mid-19th century – weakness, victimhood, shame & humiliation.  In many ways, the nationalist interpretation of the violent opening up of China (Opium Wars; 鸦片战争 yāpiàn zhànzhēng) - which formed the imagined dividing line between China’s glorious past and a series of quests for its ‘rightful place’ in the world in the 20th century – Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, Co-existence, & Peaceful Rise and now articulated as National Rejuvenation in the 21st century - is based on a ‘constructed’ narrative of national experience, memory & identity, and hence all the more central to understanding China’s strategic intent and behavior. It is a ‘construction’ since early nationalists such as Sun Yat-sen believed China’s national suffering began with the Qing barbarians – “since the Qing barbarians invaded…Chinese civilization has fallen into barbarity. In the past, there has yet to be an example of this kind of extreme suffering by the people”. However late Chinese Premier Zhou En-lai ordains the Qing dynasty as the greatest of all Chinese dynasties. The Qing era is central to the Communist Party’s claims to have saved China from its “century of humiliation” (百年国耻) inflicted on it by foreign powers and the legitimacy of China’s current borders, largely inherited from the Qing, is also closely intertwined with territorial claims from that period (Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, 9/11 dash-line etc.). Furthermore, the rise of Mongols in the north under Genghis Khan who unified all the Mongol tribes and subjugated the Western Xia, Liao and Jin kingdoms one after another following which his grandson, Kublai Khan, set up the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and in 1276 overthrew the Southern Song Dynasty, thus unifying China once more is not seen as an era of humiliation. Nor is Russian Czars who were by far the largest violators of China’s territorial sovereignty. The Chinese worldview changed very little during the Qing dynasty as China's Sino-centric perspectives continued in its relations to foreign powers. The first modern treaty between China and a European state (Russia) - The Nerchinsk Treaty (1689) – used Latin in the text which came to include some of the logic of Western political thought – sovereign equality, however when translated into Chinese, the original contents of the treaty placing both sides on equal footing were rewritten according to a Sinocentric logic. Furthermore, China’s assumption at the time of signing the Treaty of Nanking (1842) was that Britain was a tributary.

It was this shattering of a Sinocentric world view, where China conducted its foreign relations from a position of relative cultural and material superiority – an ancient & natural order – based tributary system (shuguo (tributary) and shangguo (superior country)) – which triggered a shared sense of national cognition of humiliation and shame. For China, shame was a social emotional response to an undesired outcome – “unequal treaties” - in its forced engagement with the champions of reasons – the West – following a period of enlightenment (17th century) which transformed the relation between man and nature, and therefore politics itself - divorce of political thought from theology. According to Sun Yat Sen (1924), “European” civilization, follows the aggressive “rule of Might,” characterized by “scientific materialism, militarism and force,” while “Oriental” civilization (as he calls it) follows the “rule of Right, characterized by reason” & “benevolence, justice and morality.” He further claimed, “while materially the Orient is far behind the Occident, morally the Orient is superior to the Occident”. The fall out of West-led mercantilism & imperialism was not restricted to China but most parts of the world, and thus founding the maritime world order which persists in the 21st century. Yet, not all responded with the same social-emotional response. China, in particular, was unable to adjust to the ‘system of modern states’ that Western countries tried to impose on East Asia, and it consequently suffered great losses. By contrast, Japan, relatively speaking, was able to ride out the challenge from the West without making a major blunder. Japan adapted, given its historical background in having maintained relations with a superior civilization – China, but China had no such templates to adapt from when it met a militarily superior West. Furthermore, China’s problem was its then – unknown concepts of ‘sovereignty’, ‘equality’ & ‘territoriality’. While China has come to champion the concept of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘territoriality’ through uncomfortable adaptation of its traditional concepts of ‘suzerainty’ and ‘tributary’, the concept of ‘equality’ was central to its experience of humiliation and shame and a cause of concern. Violation of China’s sovereign territory by western powers considered strangers/robbers was not similar to violation by familial Japan which China considered as an act of younger brother stealing from an elder brother. In fact, as against the Opium Wars, the May 04, 1919 student protests in Beijing were a ‘turning point’ in China’s relation with West, who in a secret agreement with Japan in 1917 allowed it to be in possession of the German territory in China after its Siege of Tsingtao (Shandong).

China’s nationalism is built around the false and complex narrative of shame and humiliation suffered at the hands of foreign powers, yet it was not restricted to them. In many ways, China was disoriented with the collapse of an inter-state order in East Asia and has identified its causes with multiple strands in its ascent as a modern nation – incompetency of the Qing, western imperialism, Japanese humiliation – and after having claimed it has stood up as a nation in 1949, felt the need to blame itself – cultural revolution (1967-1977). China’s historical record during the so-called century of humiliation is testimony to the fact that more than others, China humiliated herself. Sun Yat-sen was of the view that Japan’s support was central to the success of Chinese nationalist forces and he held such a view until his demise on March 12, 1925 when Japanese General Taro Utsonomiya had already marked out with a red pencil on the map of Asia the longitudes of the area that Japan must conquer in future: Siberia, China, India, South East Asia, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand. The early efforts made by Chinese nationalists were in fact a source of humiliation more than other extraneous factors. According to Xi Jinping, “…. to save the nation from peril, the Chinese people put up a courageous fight. As noble-minded patriots sought to pull the nation together, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the Reform Movement of 1898, the Yihetuan Movement, and the Revolution of 1911 rose one after the other, and a variety of plans were devised to ensure national survival, but all of these ended in failure”.

China’s nationalism while adapting to western concepts, – territorial-sovereignty - to define itself as modern nation makes a gaffe by remaining rooted in concepts such as tributaries and dependencies: shudi and fanbu (fanshu). Calls for China to become a homogenous nation-state and to be unified, as if all of the Qingʼs territory was homogeneous, by Han scholars began with the “loss” of countries taking part in tributary relations, for example Korea after Treaty of Shimonoseki (Mǎguān Tiáoyuē) in 1895. China’s nationalism is in a straight line with the fabrication of the concept of sovereignty around a legal concept used in China that was formulated based on the Japanese concept of ryochi – “lingtu” meaning territory. The concept of territory became in vogue during the 1911 revolution and was used to define China as a modern-nation in the constitution of Republic of China with 22 xing-sheng [provinces] as against previous categories - hushi (countries linked by trade relations), shuguo (taking part in tributary relations), fanbu/shudi (territories, not sovereign territories), and zhi-sheng (proper China). Despite the use of different concepts to designate territories, and inventing concepts to define China’s territory – lingtu – as a homogenous modern-nation, its traditional territorial consciousness persisted – in referring to the extent of Japanese incursion into China, Chairman Mao once noted that “Japanese are close to ‘China proper - benbu’” thus marking the territorial consciousness derived from “great Hanism” (大汉族主义 da hanzu zhuyi) and “alien races” (一种民族 yizhong minzu). Hence, Chinese nationalism was territorial in nature to begin with and resulted from loss of territory that threatened proper China (zhi-sheng) – Han territory, as against a reclamation or reunification effort and therefore, post-1989, much of the scholarly attention is focused on the disintegration of Soviet-Union and avoiding a similar fate for China. The CCP scholarship has come to understand the sequence of political and economic reforms as the main cause for the break-up of the Soviet Union and therefore while China is undertaking cautious economic reforms it is fearful of opening up & undertaking political reforms, indicating the gaffe behind its constructed nationalism which is founded on a ‘crisis of territorial identity’.

The Shame & Humiliation: An Organising Principle

China’s national experience of losing control over its foreign relations for roughly 110 years from 1839-1949 is key to understanding China’s strategic objectives such as “national rejuvenation”. While it is recognized that the “century of humiliation” concluded with CCP and its red army unifying China, its celebration in modern political thought calls into question its ‘apocryphal’ relevance as a concept & organizing principle in the conduct of both domestic & inter-national politics. In fact, the unequal treaties were abolished in January, 1943 following which the Chairman of the National Government of China Chiang Kai-shek attended the Cairo Conference in November. In March 2021, in response to Western sanctions on Chinese officials over alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying stated, China today was not the same as “120 years ago” and that “the days when foreign powers could force China to open its doors with cannons are long gone”. In his speech on the eve of CCP’s 100th anniversary President Xi stated, “After the Opium War of 1840, however, China was gradually reduced to a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society and suffered greater ravages than ever before. The country endured intense humiliation, the people were subjected to great pain, and the Chinese civilization was plunged into darkness. Since that time, national rejuvenation has been the greatest dream of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation”. On the eve of PLA Navy’s 75th anniversary on 23 April a PLA Daily article (习主席对人民海军的期许重托) noted - The Chinese conception of sea is deeply associated with a ‘sense of humiliation’ and a reminder of the historical fact that - from1840 to 1949, the world powers invaded China by sea more than 470 times. The in-debate construct of “century of national humiliation” is at the heart of China’s military strategy of Three Warfare (psychological, media, and legal) – a state of national trance where ‘victimhood’ is used to organize national effort (strategic guidance) in relation to the outside world.

The concept of “humiliation” has been annually summoned in the context of 1999 bombing of Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during NATO’s 78-day carpet bombing of Yugoslavia – a doubted un-intentional air strike by US B-2 intercontinental stealth bomber. In a signed article by President Xi in Politika during his state visit to Serbia coinciding with the 25th anniversary (2024) of this event, Xi stated, “Twenty-five years ago today, NATO flagrantly bombed the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia, killing three Chinese journalists- Ms. Shao Yunhuan, Mr. Xu Xinghu and his wife Zhu Ying. This we should never forget. The Chinese people cherish peace, but we will never allow such tragic history to repeat itself”. According to Retd PLA Col Yue Gang, “The bombing was a stabbing into our flesh. The sense of humiliation could turn into courage, and it greatly accelerated the military reforms”. Experts believe this event marked a turning point in China’s relation with the West and triggered China’s military modernization, however from an US perspective it was China’s clandestine export of Silkworm anti-ship missile to Iran during the Iran-Iraq War that marked the turning point when mutual trust collapsed near-permanently after the normalization of Sino-U.S. relations. China remained unsure about the intentionality behind the air-strikes on its embassy, but according to Li Peng it was clear that the US did not respect China and therefore did not take adequate caution during its air operations. The PLA in 1999 was in no position to respond militarily, emblematic of its self-image of the weak. Also, in 1999 Qiao Liang & Wang Xiangsui authored their treatise on Unrestricted Warfare – wherein a central assumption was that, PLA cannot be successful in modern warfare without pursuing asymmetric means.

The concept of “humiliation” consistently recurs in China’s foreign relations and has intensified since the Tiananmen Square incident (1989) which imposed western technology & economic sanctions which has peaked in 2023-24. EU President Von der Leyen’s speech (2023) on EU-China relations states - Xi’s “clear goal, is a systemic change of the international order with China at its center,” and she called for minimizing trade and investment in critical technologies and other areas. According to Ni Feng (2024), the US has initiated an all-round strategic competition with China based on a serious distorted perception of China by initiating – de-risking/coupling, geo-politics,  reactivating the US-style "militarist system" domestically, and promoting the so-called ideology-based and values-based diplomacy. CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping has stated that the PRC’s “ideology and social system are fundamentally incompatible with the West”, and that it is the role of the PRC government to lead the construction of a “new world order [. . .] that will supplant the [liberal democratic] Westphalian system.” The distorted perception results from China’s unsettled issues with its past and idiosyncrasies in its relations with others. 

In April, 2024  the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party revealed their findings of the Chinese Communist Party’s role in the deadly fentanyl epidemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. Apart from Drug Wars, China’s determination to demonstrate its superiority over liberal democracy has led to inconvertible evidence regarding its cyber-attacks against European Union Parliamentarians and India, the world’s largest democracy, which following its border skirmishes with China experienced a Chinese cybercampaign against its power grid (Mumbai) in October, 2020 – a show of force warning. In justifying its drug war against the US, it is being reported that the senior leadership of the CCP resorts to the maxim – what goes around comes around – a reference to the Opium export by the British that made Qing China the “Sick Man of Asia” during the mid-19th century. This term remains in-vogue and for cultural reasons the term is experienced as offensive and racist when applied to China or Chinese people. With regard to fentanyl, China officially argues that the drug epidemic is due to the domestic situation – cultural and moral decay – in the US and blaming China is unhelpful, and withdrew from counter-narcotics cooperation with the US government due to its recent stand on Taiwan issue. The US need for China to regulate its fentanyl production is seen as economic warfare against China.

China’s Condescension

In many ways, the “century of humiliation” which began with the Opium Wars – for early Chinese nationalists - in the mid-19th century were in fact trade wars – a consequence of China’s trade with India and Britain and first step towards opening up. Hence, for most historians Opium Wars mark the beginning of China’s modern history. The conflict between China and Britain originated in the womb of trade imbalance given China’s disdain for anything foreign – the barbarian. Britain’s Opium trade was a solution to its unfavorable trade deficit with China – “If China had no existing desire for British goods, then artificial desires - addictions - would be created”.  To be more specific, it was the conduct of trade in China’s gold – silver, which was used for tax payment in China since 1581 and this war would have happened even without the trade of opium. Chinese historians now understand China’s addiction for silver to be the cause of both - the rise and fall of Ming and Qing dynasty. While opium had its social consequences, it resulted in the outflow of silver from Chinese economy which caught the attention of the Qing leadership in the north. Yet, this was just the manifestation of a deep-rooted Chinese civilizational trait – Cultural and material superiority – and visible in Emperor Qianlong’s diplomatic engagement with Macartney Embassy sent by King George III – 1792-93. A friction over the concept of “son of heaven” (tianzi 天子) i.e. the Chinese emperor in recognizing George Macartney (chief secretary for Ireland and governor of Madras) as a representative of foreign royal inferior in relational status. As per Chinese political thought there can be only one son of the heaven which was the Chinese emperor.

The mission was a failure from Britain’s perspective which was following a system of relations between equal sovereigns following the 1648 Westphalian Peace and was unknown to China, who denied its request for; permanent representative at Beijing, a residence on an independent island near Chusan (Zhoushan) & liberty of movement for its traders. Chinese Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799) in his letter to King George III of Great Britain wrote “Our dynasty's majestic virtue has penetrated unto every country under Heaven, and Kings of all nations have offered their costly tribute by land and sea. As your ambassador can see for himself, we possess all things. I set no value on objects strange or ingenious, and have no use for your country's manufactures”. In registering his sense of superiority, he further wrote, “It behoves you, O King, to respect my sentiments and to display even greater devotion and loyalty in future, so that, by perpetual submission to our Throne, you may secure peace and prosperity for your country hereafter”. The demands made by the Macartney Embassy were realized in 1842 with the conclusion of the Treaty of Nanjing, which called for the opening of four more ports besides Guangzhou—Amoy, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai—and the ceding of Hong Kong Island. In the Treaty of Nanjing, Henry Pottinger, Bart., a Major General in the Service of the East India Company represented the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and addressed the Emperor of China as a “good brother”. Britain had failed to secure the interests of its traders through various diplomatic initiatives and suffered humiliating favors from Chinese officials in the run up to British Foreign Office decision to use military force in 1837, since in its evaluation of the situation they were singled out as a nationality in its trade with China on the pretext of illegal trade of opium which the Chinese officials at Canton were very much part of until 1836 when the Chinese Emperor made his decision to deal with it directly through a special envoy Lin Zexu (1785-1850) - Chinese political philosopher and politician. According to John Quincy Adams, “Opium was a mere incident to the dispute, but no more the cause of the war than the throwing overboard of tea in the Boston Harbor was the cause of the American revolution; the cause of the war is Kowtow”. From a Chinese perspective the Opium War was a stark, simple, black & white act of Chinese victimization, however, from a western perspective China was violating the Christian doctrine of “love thy neighbor”, being anti-commerce, and outraging the first principles of the rights of nations. It is indeed a historical fact that British-Indian forces along with French reinforcements burned down the Emperor Xianfeng's Summer Palaces in the outskirts of Beijing, however, the Chinese selective reading of history does not highlight the fate of Chinese seized British negotiating team, which included the consul Harry Parkes, and its military escort, several of whom died in captivity after being subjected to interrogation and torture.

While China continues to adhere to a narrative of national humiliation, the economic consequences following the Opium War (1839-42), when Western colonial influence was introduced in dozens of so-called “unequal treaty”, ports had a ‘profound & positive impact’ on China’s economy during the 19th century, denting China’s narrative on its achievements before 1800 AD and post-1978 economic reforms. The Chinese economy, for example, remained unaware of the concept of “national debt” until its clash with the western powers. Not all treaties signed between the Qing and foreign powers were unequal – for example; the Chinese readily agreed to the Treaty of Wangxia - the first formal treaty signed between the United States and China in 1844 - in an effort to keep all foreigners on the same footing. Nevertheless, the military expedition by Japan is central to China’s national humiliation not for what Japanese army unleashed on China’s soil, but the historical perception of Japan in China’s hierarchical world order – feng gong – as against the perception of the West within a “tributary system”. Both explanations do not dispute the centrality of China in the East Asian Order prior to its engagement with the western world. A Joint Japan-China History Research Project (2011) aiming to achieve mutual understanding on the true nature of the conflict and perceptions of wartime responsibility among people in both countries’ states, “Both Japanese and Chinese researchers identified the start of Asia’s modern era as being the period of initial contact with modern Western powers”. However, the research method employed by scholars from China undertaking this project was focused on ‘substance of the various historical incidents’ involving the two countries; Japanese researchers, on the other hand, tended to focus more closely on the “process by which these incidents emerged and developed”.

 The violent opening up to the world in mid-19th century is central to China’s economic rise in the 20th century and continues to be so in the 21st century where China’s export-oriented economy remains banked on its opening-up to the outside world. According to Jiang Zemin (2001), “Eighty years after the Opium War, China managed a great historical transformation from the most miserable circumstances to a situation that promises a bright future.” Yet, since the 1990’s China narrative on “century of humiliation” does not acknowledge the origins of its economic turnaround to events following the naval battles between the Qing & British naval squadrons – for example urbanization & industrialization. The in-vogue narrative seeks legitimacy of the Communist Party of China (CPC) by portraying it as the only modern Chinese political party that was able to successfully stand up to foreign aggression and 1949 being the starting point to its present status as an economic superpower with global influence. While China’s interpretation of subjugation and victimhood applies to her, it does not apply to national minorities such as Tibet & Taiwan; to address which China employs the term “peaceful liberation” and “peaceful reunification” in a deliberate attempt to portray itself as a peaceful benign power in contrast to other powers who violated her sovereignty in the past. The importance of the “other” to define “itself” remains the hallmark of the narrative on “century of humiliation”, yet the Communists’ fail to explain its dependence on a foreign ideology to govern China – Marxism or adherence to capitalism. The suffix of “…. with Chinese Characteristics” or “state led capitalism” is an escape from the criticism facing its narrative on past interaction with foreign cultures and ideologies.

This narrative has reinforced a belief amongst China’s elites that the international system at its core remains “unchanged and hostile” as it was during the mid-19th century. According to former China’s Ambassador to the US & Foreign Minister Qin Gang（2023）“…. the so-called ‘competition’ by the US is all-round containment and suppression, a zero-sum game of life and death”. Hence, western analysts now interpret China’s strategic behavior in the backdrop of its enhanced stature within the international system as an effort at creating an alternate world order. China has sought international recognition for its unilaterally initiated initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative, and three global initiatives the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative – China’s solution to the question of what kind of world to build and how to build it. According to Vice President Han Zheng, these initiatives have enriched the vision of “building a community with a shared future for mankind” and set out a pathway toward realizing this goal which was proposed by President Xi Jinping a decade ago. The assumption behind this vision which has graduated from being a conceptual proposition to scientific system remains - China’s insecurity from a historical perspective - where the international security situation is assumed to be “grim”. Chinese strategy as informed by its traditional culture aims at avoiding conflicts by elevating a system built around nation-states competing for power to survive to one based on human mankind and civilization – universal security & common prosperity. Furthermore, China envisages an – equal and orderly multipolar world. This is a ‘strategy’ and not a ‘strategic objective’ – a negative strategy which seeks to avoid a particular situation rather than realizing a particular outcome. For China, which has historical precedence in practicing foreign relations based on its unequal and superior position relative to others, calls into question China’s veracity regarding creating a ‘harmonious’ world as against a western world order based on economic & political ‘uniformity’ which China pursues unrelentingly within China. 

Conclusion 

The Chinese character chi -耻 – in the term – 百年国耻 “century of humiliation”, stands for shame and when employed in a political context can provide a moral compass for a nation to conduct politics. Shame can also be projected outwards to discipline, control and oppress others. This is as true in the European political context as it is in China’s and has been a powerful tool for self and social control in European societies in implementing the principle of enlightenment - rationalism and tolerance. China’s national experience although unique in substance, as a process it was not. After all, what is China’s 110-year humiliation compared with that of India which according to Admiral Arun Prakash (Retd) lost its military tradition over a period of 1000 years. Different societies adapted in its own way to this historical reality, and China in particular has resisted to come to terms with its past in this regard. For example, Russia remains threatened about China’s less-articulated territorial claims over its Far East, given its military exercises with nuclear-capable missiles with a range to strike only China even while both Russia and China are deeply intertwined in each other’s security – a no-limit partnership. The ongoing partnership underscores the fact that China is agreeable to a security relationship with Russia given Russia’s dependence on China – an inferior status. During the 1950’s when China was placed in an inferior and dependent position, China was not open to ideas such as a joint-naval flotilla proposed by Soviets due to the dispute over who will command such a joint- naval flotilla. The Sino-Soviet split in 1960’s revolves around China’s national psychology complex of humiliation-inferiority-superiority, and is enshrined in statements made by Mao during his conversation with Soviet Ambassador Yudin – “I was unhappy with Mikoyan’s congratulation speech which he delivered at our Eighth National Congress and I deliberately refused to attend that day’s meeting as a protest.  You did not know that many of our deputies were not happy with [Mikoyan’s speech].  Acting as if he was the father, he regarded China as Russia’s son”, “Well, your [Soviet] navy’s nuclear submarines are of a [top] secret advanced technology.  The Chinese people are careless in handling things.  If we are provided with them, we might put you to trouble” and “If you insist on attaching political conditions [to our submarine request], we will not satisfy you at all, not even give you a tiny [piece of our] finger.” 

China’s nationalism, which is territorial in nature, and its employment of national shame and humiliation as a political tool to conduct both domestic politics and foreign relations remains at the core of its strategic behavior. This is clear in China’s foreign policy which favours development of those relations which are asymmetric and establish her as the superior partner. As a corollary, the Sino-US relations from a Chinese perspective will normalize as China establishes herself as the superior, an effort that China is now undertaking relentlessly. Furthermore, in its relations with India, China will agree to normal relations with India if India recognizes China’s superiority, thus satisfying China’s identity crisis located within a complex milieu of national shame and humiliation. China may need to revise its condescending attitude to mend its relations with most of its neighbors with whom its relations has sharply deteriorated in recent years. China’s strategic culture does not recognize equality (foreigners (yi) & Chinese (Xia)) as a principle and strives to practice an order that is at its core unequal & hierarchical, yet this order does not include concepts of enemy or annihilation.