Introduction: Humiliation Discourse

In recent years, scholars and commentators (such as Gries 2004; Broudehoux 2004; Callahan 2010; and Wang 2012) on China’s political history and national identities have noted the ever increasing rise in a complex set of narratives that proposes that from the Opium Wars of the 1840s to the Japanese invasion of the Mainland between 1937 and 1945, the Chinese nation and the Chinese people have been subject to a series of historic humiliations. However, writers (such as Wang 2012) have also argued that alongside this narrative of decline is a connected discourse that suggests that with the formation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, the country has slowly redeemed itself. Connected to these two preceding discourses, a third has emerged, which suggests that since the formation of the PRC – yet within a historic context of humiliation, suffering, hardship and struggle – the country has been rejuvenated, obtaining growing prosperity and international respect (Gries 2004; Broudehoux 2004; Callahan 2010; and Wang 2012). I suggest in this chapter that this ‘humiliation discourse’ can be regarded as a form of heritage that captures the essence of displacement and loss.

Humiliation Theories

Gries (2004, 50), in his work on Chinese nationalism and international relations, noted that humiliation history can be understood as the resurfacing (from the 1990s) of ‘long-suppressed memories of past suffering’. Broudehoux (2004) noted that such a history (and the fate of heritage associated with it) serves an important role in the production of new forms of nationalism, the legitimation of the Chinese state and of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Callahan (2010) and Wang (2012) have provided more in-depth studies into the origins of humiliation discourse and its role in contemporary Chinese culture.

Callahan (2010) explores the role of humiliation history from the early 1910s and 1920s to the present, suggesting that humiliation discourse has a history that existed long before the formation of the PRC. He states that ‘More than a decade before Chiang [Kai-shek] came to power, an education professor designed a patriotic curriculum in 1915 around the principles of “national studies, national humiliation and hard work”’ and warns that ‘it would be a mistake to conclude that patriotic education [and humiliation history] is merely propaganda that is instrumentally used by the party elite to manipulate the people…’ (Callahan 2010, 19).