This chapter dismantles Xi Jinping’s slogan of “reviving the great Chinese nation,” revealing it as a political fabrication unsupported by historical reality.
Takayama Masayuki explains how the Han people spent most of their history under foreign rule—often in slave-like conditions—shaping a culture of submission, brutality, and disregard for truth.
By redefining history and inventing the modern concept of a “Chinese nation,” Xi seeks to legitimize the CCP’s domination over regions like Xinjiang and Tibet.
A sharp, essential analysis for readers worldwide.

Ground-Grabbing Xi

Xi Jinping often speaks of “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”
I had thought “Chinese” referred only to a type of cuisine like Italian or French.
I did not know it was meant to be the name of an ethnic group.
He also claims that this group created all the culture that blossomed in China.
That, too, was news to me.
Chinese history has been watched over by the Great Wall.
Inside it, in the Central Plain, lived the Han people, and from beyond the Wall came “barbarians” who established dynasties.
Thus, the Northern tribes established the Yin, the Western tribes the Zhou, and the Eastern tribes the Qin, creating splendid bronze and iron civilizations.
Afterward came the Xianbei and the Mongols.
During all this time, the Han people in the Central Plain lived as slaves under foreign dynasties.
Being enslaved in one’s own country is unbearable.
Some analysts say this produced the Han people’s servile, brutal, and truth-averse national character.
There were times in history when no barbarians came.
In such gaps, the Han quietly built their own states.
The Han dynasty in the second century BCE is one example.
Perhaps delighted, they adopted its name, Han, as their ethnic identity from then on.
But because their roots were those of slaves, their rule was full of suspicion and greed.
Never had the people longed more fervently for the barbarians to return and restore order.
After this, happy barbarian rule resumed, but 1,300 years later the nightmare Han dynasty of the Ming arose, and 600 years after that the current CCP was born.
Among Han regimes, the CCP stands unmatched.
With the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, they already killed fifty million people and continue adding to the toll.
Looking back through history, nowhere does a “great Chinese nation” appear.
“No, no, that is not so,” Xi insists.
He says that the Han, the Western tribes, and others all merged long ago, and that today only a mixed “Chinese nation” exists.
But the claim that the Han vanished in ancient times is unconvincing.
During the Five Barbarians and Sixteen Kingdoms period, the Han clearly existed.
When the Jurchens came from the north, they would scold rude behavior by saying, “How like a Han!”
From this came words such as akkan (villain), chikan (molester), burai-kan (rogue).
Do these not apply equally to today’s Chinese?
Even under Manchu Qing rule, the Han remained.
They let their hair grow wildly, so the Manchus forced them into neat queue hairstyles.
Those who refused were beheaded, and the Han population declined somewhat.
During the Opium War, the Han sided with the British.
Their banner read, “Destroy the Manchus, revive the Han,” meaning they sought to overthrow the Manchus and restore a Han state.
The Japanese, in the Sino-Japanese War, saw the Han masses directly for the first time.
“Since ancient times the enemy (the Han) has been of cruel disposition,” Yamagata Aritomo instructed.
“If captured alive, one will suffer tortures worse than death—genitals cut off, ears and nose severed, eyes gouged out—ending in dismemberment.”
After losing the Sino-Japanese War, Empress Dowager Cixi abolished the imperial examinations and made overseas study the path to officialdom.
The first was Wang Jingwei, who had passed the imperial exam at the top; she sent him to Japan, which had defeated them.
Her breadth of vision is evident, but her reputation is poor.
They say she diverted funds from the Beiyang Fleet, or that she had her rival, Consort Zhen, stuffed alive into a jar with her limbs cut off.
But that was done by Lü Hou, the wife of Liu Bang of the Han.
As for the Beiyang Fleet, it had twice the armaments and warships of the Japanese fleet.
They lost because the Han soldiers ran away.
They excel at shifting blame and slandering others.
This proves that the Han remained vigorous even in Cixi’s time.
Xi’s theory that “the Han vanished long ago” thus has no basis.
The arrogance and brutality of today’s CCP look like nothing more than “the ever-energetic Han people.”
Why then did Xi erase “the Han” and invent the fictional “Chinese nation”?
Perhaps so that the CCP could claim Uyghurs and Tibetans as members of its own people.
But Xi is hardly first-rate—whether as an emperor or as a ground-grabber.