China's History Shapes Its Politics

At the climax of Wolf Warrior II, one of the highest-grossing movies in Chinese history, the 2017 film’s Rambo-style hero, Leng Feng, faces off against an American mercenary named Big Daddy. “People like you will always be inferior to people like me,” Big Daddy says, holding Leng Feng at knifepoint. But in a flash, Leng Feng violently overpowers the American. “That’s history,” says the Chinese fighter. 

Wolf Warrior II smashed box office records in China for a reason. The story of a down-and-out soldier fighting off powerful foreign enemies and restoring China’s honor struck a chord with audiences who saw parallels in China’s recent history. To many of its citizens, China is an underdog, a once-great nation brought low by nineteenth- and twentieth-century invasions, internal rebellions, civil war, and international isolation. According to this narrative, only recently has China become strong enough to retake its place among the world’s leading economic and political powers. 

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has embraced and perpetuated this narrative since founding the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. The CCP continues to hold a tight grip on power to this day. The party claims it alone can keep predatory foreign forces at bay, maintain internal unity and stability, and restore China’s great power status after decades of conflict and poverty. By referencing low points in the country’s modern history when China was invaded and divided, the CCP seeks to promote a narrative that, without strong leadership, the country is taken advantage of. This historical argument serves to legitimize the party’s authoritarian rule and present-day domestic and foreign policies. What’s more, in today’s increasingly interconnected world, those policies have implications not just for China’s 1.4 billion people but also for the global economy, world order, and the state of human rights. 

This learning journey walks through China’s transformation from a state of economic and political collapse to its rise as a global power and explores how that history informs the goals and motivations of Chinese leaders today.
 

Photo: A Chinese filmgoer walks past posters of the Chinese action movie "Wolf Warrior II" at a movie theater in Yichang in central China's Hubei province on August 20, 2017 / ImagineChina via AP