Orville Schell goes into more depth on the subject of China’s humiliations:

“In the early twentieth century, a new literature, with a new historical narrative to match, arose around the idea of bainian guochi, ‘100 years of national humiliation.“‘By taking up its own victimization as a theme and making it a fundamental element in its evolving collective identity, China ensured that certain traits would express themselves again and again as it responded under stress to the outside world. Highlighting their country’s history as a victim of foreign aggression led Chinese leaders to rely on what Gries calls ‘the moral authority of their past suffering.’ Indeed, China’s suffering at the hands of foreigners became a badge of distinction, especially during the period in the 1960s in which non-Western countries vied with one another to appear the most ‘oppressed’ by imperialism, and thus the most incipiently revolutionary.”