how do the Han Chinese feel presently about the Manchu people?

The stories we tell ourselves truly matter and has been horribly influencial forever.  Less so today simply because mass media allows us to look over each others shoulders.

Here we learn that the Chinese refuse to take the easy road out of blaming the victors, not least beccause their central MEME is Han strength through numbers.

I do like that MEME because it certainly supports central governments and obfuscates individual failures for the best..

Since the Manchu people in Northeast China played a role in destroying and conquering the Han Chinese dynasties in 1644, how do the Han Chinese feel presently about the Manchu people?

Shun Bot ·

I am a professional Chinaperson

There is literally zero ill will between Han Chinese and the Manchus today. In fact there hasn’t been any at all since the late 1910s. As a descendant of a Bannerman family, I would know.

Quite to the contrary, having Manchu heritage, specifically being descended from Bannermen is a sign of prestige, nothing big, but it counts as a curious bragging right. I’m sure the same is true in European countries if you’re descended from the old nobility.

The Manchu Qing Dynasty serves as the backdrop for nearly all the period dramas in Chinese media. The early emperors of the Qing are portrayed as great men despite the fact that they were the ones who subjugated the Han Chinese.

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The fact that Han Chinese harbor no ill will towards either the Manchus nor the Mongols speaks volumes about the nature of Han China.

Han Chinese do not see the Mongol or Manchu conquest of the country as some great moral injustice. We see it for what it is: a small group of nomads seizing upon Han Chinese weakness. The Manchus occupied Beijing only after the city had already been taken by Han Chinese rebels, and then retaken by a Ming army. With both the rebels and the Ming army weakened, the Manchus swept in and began their conquest of China in earnest.

In other words, Han Chinese don’t hate the player, and they don’t even hate the game. If they blame anyone for the Mongol/Manchu conquest, they blame themselves. The same is true for the imperialist aggression against China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the so called “Century of Humiliation”. Chinese nationalists today don’t blame the Western and Japanese imperialists, they blame the Qing court for letting the country atrophy to that state of weakness.

In Chinese, we have a saying that sums all of this up:

“Weakness invites violence”

You can’t blame the attacker for taking advantage of golden opportunity; you can only blame the victim who let himself become a golden opportunity. So if you don’t want to become a victim, then don’t be weak. It’s that simple.

“Towards a Republic” (2003) was a hugely popular historical drama played on Chinese state TV. It placed the blame for the Western imperialism firmly on the shoulders of the Qing government, not on the actual imperialist powers of Europe and Japan. Chinese love to blame themselves for being the victim.