By Fong Yuen

During the talks between the high-level officials of the U.S. and China, the diplomats from the two sides demonstrated completely different cultural qualities.

Still playing the cliché “Haven’t the Chinese people suffered enough from the bullying of the Westerners”, Yang Jiechi accused Americans of being “condescending” and had no right to criticize the human rights issues of China. He said that “Chinese people will not accept this.”

This speech invited cheers from the mainland Wumao (50-cent army) and “little pinks”. Official state mouthpieces dug up old photos of Li Hongzhang signing the Boxer Protocol (Xinchou Treaty) with the Eight-Nation Alliance 120 years ago and juxtaposed those with this U.S.-Sino meeting to stir up national sentiments. Old grudges, new hatred, all in the mix. Chinese people no longer have to be bullied, and can regard American imperialism “equally”.

So what about the kind that Chinese people accept? The kind where the American Emperor bends his knees?

The CCP has always regarded the century-old national humiliation as a tool for rallying popular support and inciting nationalism. Yet that practice has drilled deep into the hearts of the people national inferiority instead. Chinese people generally have a kind of delusional disorder of being persecuted. Whenever a conflict with a foreign government arises, they immediately connect it with being bullied, with imperialism’s ambition of destroying us, and with life or death battles.

Behind this delusion of persecution, there is another mentality, which could be described as “paranoia of the celestial empire descending upon the world” Since the Chinese people were once “up there” during their glorious years of being worshipped by the children and grandchildren around the world, the Chinese will always cherish the time when it gazed down upon the East and the West, when the world was spinning on its fingertips. The two twisted mentalities have been co-existing all these years and growing on one another, making it always difficult for Chinese people to deal with the foreign world.

If the American Emperor is so keen on destroying China, then why hasn’t it capitalized on the shaky position the CCP had found itself in after the Cultural Revolution and take it once and for all? On the contrary, once the CCP implemented reform and opening, the U.S. gave its full support and accepted a large number of Chinese students. It invested and gave out loans to China. It exported high technology and even assisted the CCP in joining the United Nations with the most favored nation status. It helped with the CCP’s entry into international organizations like the WTO, and that was a real rescue. Without the leg up from the U.S., the CCP would not be where it is today. Or perhaps the question should be whether the CCP would have risen and fallen within this short period of time. This is why Deng Xiaoping had said that “All countries that foster good relations with the U.S. will get rich,” and that “the Sino-U.S. relations must go for the better.”

At the time, why didn’t he say “will not accept that foreign crap”?

120 years ago, when the Boxer Protocol was signed with the Eight-Nation Alliance (the cause of the incident was the indiscriminate killings of foreigners), the U.S. government would not receive any of the war indemnities paid by China, but spent them all to build hospitals and schools in China. When the Kuomintang and the CCP were fighting over the country, the U.S. suggested that the two parties would rule separately across the river and negotiate for a democratic system. If the U.S. wanted to take advantage of China when it was in the trenches, China would not be where it is today.

When Yang Jiechi fired her verbal bullets, did he even reflect on how the CCP has treated the U.S.? The U.S. helped China out of poverty, yet China bit the hand that fed it and retaliated by forcing technology transfer, stealing technological intelligence, and infiltrating the U.S. through a united front and culturally. The CCP bought up small and medium-sized countries to weaken the influence of the U.S. within international organizations, and used monetary diplomacy to overpower the U.S.’ footholds in Central and South America. It even used various tactics to influence the domestic political ecology in the U.S.

U.S. presidents throughout the years have tolerated the CCP for a long time. Even after June 4, 1989, the U.S. went ahead and slowly recovered normal relations between the two countries until it reached the situation today – hasn’t the U.S. endured much from the CCP? If the U.S. flips a table today, it would be something that the CCP truly deserves.

After a century of being under British rule, not only has Hong Kong not turned into hell on earth, but with British governance, Hong Kong was built into the only land of freedom in China. Hongkongers do not possess the delusion of prosecution, nor do they have imperial majesty coupled with foreign paranoia. Hongkongers’ have a balanced mentality, and are able to get along just fine with governments and people from around the world on an equal footing.

China has been under humiliation for a century, and has long been looking up to the Western powers. Today, it is strong and powerful, and want to taste the glory of looking down on all other countries. This is the syndrome of the mish-mash of delusion of persecution and the paranoia of the celestial empire descending upon the world. Chinese people must first cure their own mental illnesses before they can talk equality with countries around the world and before it can be a world-facing powerful nation and stand among other nations of the world.

In the world, only systems that work with human nature will last. Universal values work with human nature and represent the trend of historical development. Socialism with CCP characteristics, instead, brings about a serious disparity between the rich and the poor for the Chinese people. It is political brutality. It is a retrogression of human civilization. The nationalistic sentiments instigated by Yang Jiechi is only going to worsen the conditions of Chinese people’s mental illness.

If China wants to regard the world equally, it can rely on neither money nor the military. It must rely on the calmness of ordinary people.

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