The Changing Images of the EU: A Longitudinal Representation in the People’s Daily

Abstract

For quite a long time, China’s perception of Europe has grown from the experience of the past “century of humiliation” [bainian guochi] (China as a half feudal and half colonial country from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century).¹ On the one hand, the two Opium Wars, the Eight Power Expeditionary Force invasion of China war (Britain, France, Germany, Russia, United States, Japan, Italy, and Austria), the sacking and burning of the Imperial Summer Palace, the signing of unequal treaties, ceding territory and compensation, made Chinese hostile to these “European Powers.”² On the other hand, China’s inability to resist any of these aggressions made the Chinese fear Western military force and admire its wealth and advanced education, political thought, and science. These formed a complex feeling, a mixture of hostility and flattery, in the Chinese toward Europe. In the Cold War era, Europe and the EEC in particular were viewed in the context of the “capitalist world,” “state-monopoly capitalism,” and “imperialism.” Based on the Leninist “Theory of Imperialism” and the Maoist theory of the “Three Worlds,” the EEC was regarded as a political entity representing the Western imperialist countries, an American ally and tool of the United States in Washington’s control; and also a political entity in the struggle between the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States.³