Excerpts from the book “Bully of Asia” Part 4

Social Darwinism is generally discredited in the West, in part because of the racist atrocities of the Third Reich, in part because Western societies are increasingly multicultural and multiracial. But the expression of such views is not only still acceptable in China, it constitutes a surprisingly large part—perhaps the largest part—of the ongoing public discourse about China’s place in the world. “All Chinese intellectuals, including myself, are social Darwinists,” says Mao Haojian. “We are all sensitive to Western superiority, and boast about the Chinese race because in our hearts we feel inferior. We realize this is irrational, dangerous, even wrong, but still we feel it.”

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The ironclad belief of China’s leaders that their nation and their people are superior to all other nations and peoples is central to the self-image of the hegemon. But keeping faith in the race has not always been easy, especially during the last two centuries of decline and decay. The collective shame associated with China’s technological and material inferiority led to extreme self-abasement before Westerners, especially on the part of the Chinese elite. But what may have appeared to foreigners as a supine acceptance of the new world order was actually something very different. It may seem strange that China’s leaders react to humiliation by almost reveling in it. But there is a sound political reason why China celebrates its defeats like other countries celebrate their victories. Each new generation of Chinese must be forced to experience anew how it feels to be humiliated at the hands of hostile barbarians. Chinese history is written as a morality play designed to make the hearts of impressionable young Chinese burn with resentment against the outside world. Today, foreigners are still portrayed in state-approved textbooks as a purely negative force: invaders, capitalists, imperialists, barbarians, and devils who are “pirates” when at sea, and “bandits” when on land.

Source: Bully of Asia: Why China's Dream Is the New Threat to World Order (2017) by Steven W. Mosher.