Introduction

The 110 years between the start of the first Opium War in 1839 and the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 are commonly identified as the ‘Century of (National) Humiliation’ (bai nian guochi). During this period, the Qing Dynasty (1644– 1912) and the Republic of China (ROC, 1912– 49) suffered a string of defeats at the hands of the imperial powers, were forced to accede to several ‘Unequal Treaties’ that granted extraterritorial privileges to the victors, and ultimately ceded sovereignty over multiple parts of the Chinese realm, including Hong Kong (in 1842, to Great Britain), Taiwan (in 1895, to Japan), as well as multiple forced ‘leases’ and ‘concessions’ of Chinese territory to European powers (for example, in 1898, France in Kwang-chou-wan and Germany in Qingdao). The year 1839 – ‘up to the Opium War’ and ‘after the Opium war’ – became an enduring historical turning point for most Chinese (Kaufman, 2011: 3).

While the ‘Unequal Treaties’ have long since been rescinded and the PRC has (re)gained control over most of the territories involved (for example, Xinjiang, Tibet, Manchuria and Hong Kong), the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has, over the last few decades, sought to reintroduce into the historical memory of Chinese people the traumatic image of the Century of Humiliation. This nationalist strategic narrative not only serves to imply that the PRC's sovereignty is non-negotiable (for example, with regard to Taiwan and the South China Sea), but also buttresses nationalist sentiments among Chinese people.