The Ruler’s Weapons Are for the Inside, Not the Outside — the Colonized Still Haven’t Understood

The Communist Party has in recent decades become increasingly obsessed with the Anti-Japanese War, because it needed to replace its ideological skin: from “communism” to the “Great National Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation.” The Anti-Japanese narrative was the most convenient dye for this new skin.

The problem is, the Party itself knows it did little fighting against Japan, and the colonized also know it. Everyone understands this, but as long as wages are paid, they are willing to keep acting in the play. Once wages stop, the whole “rejuvenation” becomes worthless.

The Communist Party was from the beginning an import of the Soviet Union. Without Japan’s invasion of the mainland, it would have had no chance to rise. Mao’s remark thanking Japan was not irony, but a cold acknowledgement of the historical condition. Without the war of invasion, there would be no Communist China today.

After the Soviet collapse, the communist narrative lost its force, and the Party had to switch to the “Chinese nation.” But its foundation remained communism. The so-called “Chinese nation” was only a fabricated skin. Liang Qichao had invented this notion as a life-support slogan for the Qing court; it was always a tool of political mobilization, not an organic identity. Its limited usefulness came only when tied to the Anti-Japanese War, which provided a shared experience. But in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Mongolia, the narrative never worked at all, because those regions had no enmity with Japan.

Manchuria is more complicated. The Qing court aligned with Japan, and Japan’s construction and development in the northeast were not absurd within the logic of that era. Today’s denunciation of Manchukuo exists only because the “Chinese nation” narrative must forcibly absorb the Manchus. In fact, it was the Manchus and the Qing who colonized the mainland, not the other way around. The so-called “national integration” merely hides this colonial relationship.

The talk of “retaking Taiwan” is also part of this theater. The Party does not dare truly move; its military reserves are not prepared for unification but for protecting the ruling class in times of internal crisis. The slogan of “rejuvenation through recovering Taiwan” functions only as a tool to siphon society’s resources upward, keeping the middle and lower strata trapped at the subsistence line, leaving them no spare energy to organize or resist. Taiwan is not the target. The real aim is to consume and neutralize potential internal enemies.

The Party maintains its rule through one lie layered upon another. When communism collapsed, it put on the mask of the “Chinese nation.” On the surface it appears to have a unifying slogan, but in reality it is nothing more than a chain of fabrications.

The real foundation of its power has never been ideology, but cash flow. Today it still holds on not because “rejuvenation” carries strength, but because the money given during the Reform and Opening by the United States has left some inertia. It is this old capital that allows people to keep acting in the ruler’s play.

But the end of this two-way theater is already visible. The so-called “Great Rejuvenation” is nothing more than a new set of clothes. Everyone knows it, and the ending can already be seen with the naked eye.