Chinese President Xi Jinping, while addressing the dignitaries at the 80th anniversary of China’s victory over Japan this September, exclaimed, “History carries the legacy of the past and inspires the future.” The history of the ‘Century of Humiliation,’ the period from 1839 to 1949, indeed carries the legacy on which President Xi’s dream of Chinese ‘Rejuvenation’ stands.
Tensions with neighboring Japan over Taiwan military intervention, looming tariff threats from European partners, and the enhancement of security laws in Hong Kong. All these developments harken back to the century that is key to our understanding of how China interprets its past. Its increasing internal state control, suspicion of foreign elements, nationalism, and trade policies are in one way or another attached to that period.
These years were marked by increasing foreign aggression, territorial losses, and the imposition of unfair trade treaties. It left imprints that are still in place and gave way to China’s unyielding ‘never again’ mentality.
The Trade Traumas
The French president, after his recent visit to China, has indicated that enhanced tariff measures on Chinese exports are on the cards, a view very much shared by the EU. The tariff war between the United States and China has seen a remarkable acceleration this year under the second Trump presidency. China’s argument is of cooperation, not enforcement. It also finds its roots when China was forced to trade against its will at gunpoint.
The British came to China as traders after establishing strong trading colonies in India. Chinese markets were proving extremely difficult for the trading Brits, as they were heavily monitored, with foreign traders only allowed five months a year at designated ports. To fill the trade deficits with the Chinese empire, the British flooded Chinese markets with opium. The trade proved exceedingly lucrative. Too lucrative to lose when the Chinese authorities ramped up efforts to destroy it, as its consumption was forbidden in China.
The Chinese faced off against the British in what is known as ‘The First Opium War.’ After a humiliating defeat, China was forced to open its doors for external trade. The ‘Treaty of Nanjing’ effectively abolished the traditional trading system in China and gave the British ‘favored nation’ status along with four ports—Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai. China was also to pay an indemnity of 21 million silver dollars.
The resigned empire had to bear another defeat at the hands of the French and British in what is called ‘The Second Opium War.’ The peace terms were harsher than before. The opium trade was formally legalized along with the opening of new ports. In a separate treaty with Russia during and at the culmination of the conflict, the empire ceded territory.
The echoes of coercive trade practices were part of the suspicion of China towards institutions like the World Trade Organization, which it joined in 2001, and in which its role is still debated.
Trouble with the neighbors
The Chinese empire remained a cohesive identity for much of its existence. Even when it came under foreign subjugation, like under the Mongols or the Manchus, its charms were too great, and its colonizers had to adapt to its values. That was not to be the case with the Japanese colonization, which left scars that are not yet healed and are often at the heart of the tense Sino-Japanese relations.
The Japanese prime minister recently remarked that a Japanese military intervention cannot be ruled out if China decides to do the same to Taiwan, which will put Japan’s security at stake. Although the chances of such an equation are slim, it does bring back terrifying memories of previous Japanese invasions and subsequent colonization that China bore during the century of humiliation.
The Japanese won a spectacular victory over the Chinese in the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, fought after the Japanese invasion of the Korean Peninsula and Manchuria. In the treaties that followed, the Korean Peninsula became a protectorate, and Taiwan became a Japanese colony that was only evicted after Japan’s defeat in 1945.
Taiwan later hosted the fleeing nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek, who established the government that still rules it. China sees it as an integral part of the People’s Republic and its reunification as predestined.
The next Japanese invasion came in 1931. China was no longer a centralized state as the monarchy had been toppled, and while the nationalists ruled in name, they were constantly challenged by the communists for power. Much of China was under the spell of warlords. Japan invaded Manchuria and established a puppet state there under the deposed emperor Puyi. In 1937, it initiated a horrifying full-scale invasion of the mainland.
In one instance, at the end of 1937, Japanese forces conducted a brutal massacre of the Chinese civilian population in Nanjing. The estimated death toll by the Chinese government is above 300,000 people. Rape, torture, and mass murders were the fate of the Chinese for the next eight years.
Chinese resistance and eventual victory over the Japanese took nearly 15 to 20 million lives. A feat that was commemorated this year in a grand military parade on the 80th anniversary of the victory, where the world was reminded of the fierce but solemn resistance that China has shown as an ‘invisible war ally.’
Japan’s wartime past still casts a shadow on its relationship with China. The Japanese prime minister’s visits to the Japanese war memorials and revisions of history textbooks have irked the Chinese and met with harsh criticism. The current prime minister is considered a ‘China hawk,’ and events of the past will surely have an impact on the future of Sino-Japanese relations.
The collapse from within
In March 2024, Hong Kong lawmakers passed Article 23, complementing the already in place 2020 security laws that broaden the definition of foreign interference and espionage. In a similar vein, China now hosts one of the most sophisticated surveillance apparatuses in existence. While the nationwide registration of people and homes has existed in one way or another since the first emperor’s time in the 3rd century, its expansion has been much grander under the CCP’s watch.
While the communist discipline is also an important factor to consider, the turbulent decades preceding the People’s Republic’s founding did compound the fears of internal collapse in the first and later crops of communist leaders.
China faced two deadly rebellions during the century of humiliation. The first, the Taiping, led to the near collapse of the Qing empire. A religiously motivated rebellion under a leader who claimed to be the brother of Jesus, at one point, controlled half of China, including its southern capital.
The Empire was only able to fend off this challenge after 16 years of fighting, with external help from other nations and millions of dead subjects. China’s insistence on its cultural values born out of Confucian thought and an intolerance for other religions also finds its roots in events like the Taiping, along with the Marxist-Leninist thought.
The Boxer Rebellion—secretly supported by the Dowager Empress Cixi—led to the destruction and killings of Christian churches and practitioners. The rebellion was put down after a combined force of eight nations faced it, and the empire had to pay a heavy indemnity for the losses incurred.
After the abdication of the last Qing emperor in 1911, China became a republic under the presidency of Sun Yat-sen. Warlords controlled large swaths; chaos and anarchy were rife.
Nationalist authority was constantly challenged, none greater than the communists. The instability was exacerbated after the brutal Japanese invasion mentioned above. These were the times in which leaders like Mao Zedong were brought up. Order and stability became their greatest ideals by necessity. Mao brought China out of the humiliated century and vowed to give China the stability that it had lost during the previous decades. The ‘Rejuvenation’ campaign stresses the importance of stability and its achievement as the greatest ideal.
Carrying the legacy forward
Mao Zedong provided China with political unity and renewed international stature, albeit at immense human cost. These historical experiences are also crucial in understanding the democratization question within China. Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms opened China to the world, but political liberalization remained a sensitive subject.
Tiananmen Square changed how China approached the question of democratization. Rebranding of the textbooks with patriotic themes led to a re-emphasized narrative of national humiliation.
President Xi’s narrative of national rejuvenation builds strongly on the historical experiences of a humiliated China. His resistance to external pressures, be it tariffs, security alliances, or ideological criticisms, deeply reflects the ‘never again’ mentality born out of a century of humiliation and is to be understood as such.
