Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations, by Zheng Wang

 Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations, by Zheng Wang

 It focuses on the teaching of modern history in schools, which emphasizes China as the victim of foreign imperialist bullying during the so-called “one hundred years of humiliation” from the Opium War (1839–42) to the Communist victory in 1949. The primary aim of this manipulated historical consciousness is to glorify the Chinese Communists, who drove out the imperialists, but whose image was badly damaged by their crackdown on student protests on 4 June 1989. The secondary aim is to promote anti-Western nationalism, hoping to consolidate national identity and justify one-Party rule. Zheng Wang finds that this manipulated historical  consciousness now directs political discourse at home and foreign policy abroad, laying the foundations for China’s rise.

The book puts its case in nine chapters. The first reviews the existing studies on the concepts of historical memory, identity and politics. In Chapter 2, “Chosen Glory, Chosen Trauma”, the Opium War heralds the Century of Humiliation, while Chapter 3 traces China’s mighty fall from its self-perceived status as the Centre of the World to its resurgence during the Mao era. The fourth chapter describes China’s need to resort to a patriotic education campaign to hold the nation together; Chapter 5 discusses the attempt to salvage a Communist Party badly tarnished by the events in Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989. Chapter 6 dwells on the use of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake as a new trauma and the Beijing Olympics as a new glory to bind the nation together. Chapter 7 turns to the utilization of national[ist] history in China’s relations with foreign countries; Chapter 8 discusses relations with Japan; and Chapter 9 concludes with an overview of  the use of nationalism, based on selected memory, to foster the so-called China’s Rise. Such a narrative raises more questions than it can provide answers. With regard to foreign policy, the manipulation of historical memory to produce a mentality of victimhood does indeed distract from problems at hand, but can equally generate misunderstandings between China and other nations, with unpredictable consequences. Wang believes that the 1989 protests were about resisting CCP dictatorship, but concludes that manipulation of historical consciousness has succeeded in consolidating one-Party rule, and in fact has intensified Party dictatorship! The students had another major complaint—official corruption—and this has gone from bad to worse, as even the CCP leaders acknowledge. In short, the CCP has only suppressed the symptoms, but not cured the illness. My own research reveals a different dimension to this all-out attempt to suppress the symptoms, and that is that it has encouraged people, first, to further their own interests, and second, not to care about the interests of others (and by implication public interest, so exacerbating problems such as rampant corruption and to many episodes of gross, indeed sometimes grotesque, selfishness recounted by the Chinese media in recent years). If the object of manipulating historical memory has been, as Wang suggests, to build social cohesion, this effort seems to have been remarkably unsuccessful. Indeed, social cohesion and stability are jeopardized by the Chinese authorities’ use of this same manipulated historical consciousness as leverage in both their domestic politics and foreign relations. Once started, however, mass reactions such as street protests often take their own course. In short, the Chinese authorities are sitting on a volcano of their own making. So, where is China going? This is what the powers-that-be care about the least—most of them have sent their children to live overseas, pockets bulging with money. How long that money will last, in the hands of these spoilt princelings, is something that the leaders have not considered. The measures pursued to date in the name of stability may ultimately prove massively counter-productive.

Spelt out in this way, this review is bound to paint a far less rosy picture of the CCP’s future than does the book itself. John Y. Wong University of Sydney