National Insecurities: Humiliation, Salvation, and Chinese Nationalism

Abstract

The line separating good from evil passes not through states, nor between political parties-but right through every human heart.-Aleksandr SolzhenitsynUse the past to serve the present.-Mao Zedong While I was researching the South China Sea disputes between China, Vietnam, and the Philippines, I came upon an unlikely refer ence. In an otherwise hard-nosed analysis of the issue, a noted Chi nese expert cited a book called the Atlas of Shame. This odd juxta position of security studies, territoriality, and emotion piqued my interest, and I asked a friend in Beijing to track down this curious book. Once I got a copy of the Atlas of the Century of National Humiliation in Modern China, the correct title, I was fascinated by what seemed to be a unique feature of Communist Chinese historiography and identity: the very deliberate celebration of a national insecurity. But the more I looked for national humiliation discourse, the more I found. Though they do not receive much attention in West ern analysis, it turns out that there are textbooks, novels, museums, songs, and parks devoted to commemorating national humiliation in China. I continued looking for examples of such national inse curity in other countries. I found that such activities are not lim ited to some exotic political culture of "the East." Humiliation is a common and recurring theme in domestic and international poli tics, being invoked far and wide in a diverse set of circumstances. Humiliation has thus joined guilt, victimhood, and apology as a

Rebuilding national unity through discourse in China: strategic narrative and concordance

“…For a detailed discussion on the victimhood of the Chinese nation, see Callahan (2004Callahan ( , 2005, Gries (2004) and Wang (2008Wang ( , 2014.…”

Contentious Histories and the Perception of Threat: China, the United States, and the Korean War—An Experimental Analysis

“…Less attention, however, has been given to the role that historical conflicts play in US-China relations, arguably the most important bilateral relationship of the twenty-first century. A number of scholars have argued that Chinese nationalism today is closely tied up with narratives of China's past victimization at the hands of Western and Japanese imperialism, and that nationalism has an impact on China's foreign policies in general and US policy in particular (e.g., Fitzgerald 1999;Gries 2004;Callahan 2004). The circumstantial evidence is compelling.…”

Japan as China's 'other': China's identity and policy towards Diaoyu/Senkaku islands

“…As identity is difficult to grasp analytically, there are only a few International relations studies which pay exclusive attention to identity in explaining Sino-Japanese relations or China's Japan-policy making (Shih 1995, Callahan 2004, Suzuki 2007. Nevertheless, there are no studies which analyse the developments from 2000 in the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands dispute, or pay specific attention to the 2010 boat collision incident, through the identity perspective.…”

“…Since the end of the Cold War, the modern period in China's history since mid-19 th century, has received much more attention at the domestic level in China, particularly in education and popular culture (Callahan 2004, He 2009, Wang 2012. Interestingly, the historical narratives focused less on glorifying the achievements of the Chinese people in the past, as official narratives tend to do, but rather paid close attention to the defeats, injustices and humiliations China suffered in the past (Kaufman 2010 The key events during the century-long period were the two Opium Wars when China was defeated and forced to grant concessions to Western imperialist powers and two Sino-Japanese…”