Century of humiliation

Century of humiliation
Territorial losses of the late Qing dynasty due to annexations by foreign powers
Traditional Chinese	百年國恥
Simplified Chinese	百年国耻
Literal meaning	100 years of national humiliation
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin bǎinián guóchǐ Bopomofo ㄅㄞˇ ㄋㄧㄢˊ ㄍㄨㄛˊ ㄔˇ Wade–Giles pai3-nien2 kuo2-chʻih3 Tongyong Pinyin bǎi-nián guó-chǐh IPA [pàɪ.njɛ̌n kwǒ.ʈʂʰɻ̩̀]

The century of humiliation was a period in Chinese history beginning with the First Opium War (1839–1842), and ending in 1945 with China (then the Republic of China) emerging out of the Second World War as one of the Big Four and established as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, or alternately, ending in 1949 with the founding of the People's Republic of China. The century-long period is typified by the decline, defeat and political fragmentation of the Qing dynasty and the subsequent Republic of China, which led to demoralizing foreign intervention, annexation and subjugation of China by Western powers, Russia, and Japan.^[1]

The characterization of the period as a "humiliation" arose with an atmosphere of Chinese nationalism following China's defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 and the subsequent events including the scramble for concessions in the late 1890s. Since then the idea of national humiliation became a focus of discussions among many Chinese writers and scholars, although they differed somewhat in their understandings of national humiliation; ordinary scholars and constitutionalists also had different understanding of their home country from the anti-Qing revolutionaries in the late Qing period. The idea of national humiliation was also mentioned in late Qing textbooks.^[2]

After the establishment of the Republic of China, the national humiliation idea grew further in opposition to the Twenty-One Demands made by the Japanese government in 1915, and with protests against China's poor treatment in the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Both the Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Party popularized the characterization in the 1920s, protesting the unequal treaties and loss of Chinese territory to foreign colonies. During the 1930s and 1940s, the term became common due to the Japanese invasion of China proper.^[3] Although formal treaty provisions were ended, the epoch remains central to concepts of Chinese nationalism, and the term is widely used in both political rhetoric and popular culture.^[4]