buruma is a very smart man. great essay.
the hans are scared that people, if they were allowed free thinking, would realize that china is not the center of the universe, after all. sort of like what galileo did to orthodoxy in medieval europe.
i couldn't help highlighting the following paragraph. all indian schoolchildren are taught this too: that china is destined for greatness, and india is not. and that there is nothing worthwhile that originated in india, everything came from either the imperial invaders or the chinese. thank you, toxifiers in the education ministries.
=== quote ===
But the most common ideology since the early 1990s is a defensive nationalism, disseminated through museums, entertainment and school textbooks. All Chinese schoolchildren are indoctrinated with the idea that China was humiliated for centuries by foreign powers, and that support of the Communist state is the only way for China to regain its greatness and never be humiliated again.
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