1. Chinese Eyes: The Role of Anti-Imperialist Nationalism
America Through
Chinese Eyes: The Role of Anti-Imperialist Nationalism
Peter Gries
THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
EAI / NCTA
Tulsa, OK
5 November 2016

25. Victimization and Mourning

26. Heroism and Resistance
FDNY
UA 93 passengers who fought the terrorists

28. China’s Trauma: The “Century of Humiliation” Narratives of past exploitation and anti-imperialist nationalism today

40. The Maoist “Victor” Narrative
Heroism
Lin Zexu 林则徐
Resistance
“War of Resistance Against Japan” 抗日战争
“War to Resist America and Aid Korea” 抗美援朝

41. The victor narrative today

42. The post-Mao “Victim” Narrative
Death
Dismemberment

43. 1997: A Year of Some Significance?
Victor narrative hegemonic under Mao
Narrative of anti-imperialist resistance and triumph needed for PRC nation-building.
1997: victim narrative becomes hegemonic?
Summer 1996-Winter 1997: “China Can Say “No’!” sensation.
Spring, Summer 1997: “Hong Kong’s Return.”
Fall, Winter 1997: 60th Anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre.

44. Eichmann’s trial, 1961 Israel

45. The “Victim” Narrative in China: The Trope of Rape
Iris Chang’s 1997 The Rape of Nanking

46. Histories as Narratives
(Re)definitions of national identity are both constrained and enabled by the narratives or stories we tell about our national pasts.

47. Backwards / Beaten 落后挨打
The backwards will be beaten.
落后就要挨打
Backwards because beaten.
落后因为挨打

48. The 1999 Belgrade Embassy Bombing and the 2001 “Spy Plane” Collision: Why were so many Chinese so angry?

52. Seen as insults
羞辱: “Fellow Chinese, this is actually Americans humiliating us! The American desire to humiliate us is no mere recent event. Blocking our hosting of the Olympics was a humiliation. Boarding the Milky Way by force to search its cargo was a humiliation. Recent allegations that we stole their [nuclear] secrets are a humiliation. The motive for the bombing of our embassy was also to humiliate China.” - 欧阳桦 to GMD in 1999.

53. May 1999 People’s Daily editorial “This is not 1899 China”
“This is 1999, not This is not… the age when people can barge about in the world just by sending a few gunboats… It is not the age when the Western powers plundered the Imperial Palace at will, destroyed the Old Summer Palace, and seized Hong Kong and Macao… China is a China that has stood up; it is a China that defeated the Japanese fascists; it is a China that had a trial of strength and won victory over the United States on the Korean battleground. The Chinese people are not to be bullied, and China’s sovereignty and dignity are not to be violated. The hot blood of people of ideas and integrity who opposed imperialism for over 150 years flows in the veins of the Chinese people. U.S.-led NATO had better remember this.”

54. Obama and Abe in China, 2014