China Doesn’t Have to Keep Playing the Victim
by Hilton Yip @ForeignPolicy
中國共產黨對內長年操弄自十九世紀中期開始的 “百年國恥” (century of humiliation) 概念，對外言論也經常是以受害者自居。中國指責美國的貿易戰是 “霸凌”，澳大利亞被說是對中國抱有 “意識形態偏見”、”用有色眼睛看中國”，Mercedes Benz 在 Instagram 上引用 Dalai Lama 也成了 “傷害了中國人民的感情” (一個 1959 年中國官方發明的說法)。
Take “hurting the Chinese people’s feelings,” a phrase originally coined by Chinese Communist Party government officials in 1959 and used persistently to describe actions that put the country in a bad light. Rather than addressing the criticism or action itself, the phrase casts the people, not the party or the state, as the wronged subject.
本文作者 Hilton Yip 認爲，中國國內猖獗的各種詐欺行爲，讓中國人有習慣性的偏執症狀。由於自己人都不能相信，到了國外這種症狀只會更強烈。中國共產黨巧妙的利用了這種恐懼感，並對其進行強化。
十九到二十世紀世界大部分國家都經歷了一段慘痛的歷史，並不是只有中國。在其他國家操弄這種歷史受害情緒都會被視爲一種政治工具。然而許多 (西方的) 中國分析師似乎接受了中國人民有烙印在回憶的 “歷史苦難” 情緒，而忽略了這段歷史早在數個世代之前就結束這個事實。
It’s true that China suffered terribly during the 19th and 20th centuries. But so did much of the world. In other countries, the sour nationalism represented by these kind of victimhood narratives is more easily identified as the politicized tool it is. But many China analysts seem to give disproportionate weight to an idea of suffering that ended generations ago and that is kept alive by deliberate official propaganda, not genuine historical memory.
中國已經是亞洲地區最強大的國家之一，在宣稱自己是西方迫害的受害者同時，中國自己也沒有少欺負鄰近的國家。中國年輕人對鴉片戰爭的歷史回憶比祖父母輩的文化大革命更鮮明。種種跡象都表明這種受害者形象只是方便共產黨統治的工具。去年九月一個中國學者公開呼籲中國應該放棄那些 “屈辱回憶”，才能正常的和西方交流。
It is time that the West stopped taking China’s victimhood claims at face value. Academics, writers, and China experts need to take a more critical and nuanced view of China’s “century of humiliation.” China can’t use history as carte blanche to do whatever it wants.