Roughly speaking, the non-reaction in the 19th century might be considered denial, then the upheavals in the early 20th as anger, coming to terms with itself as a new country after WWII as bargaining, the cultural revolution as depression, and then the reforms under Deng Xiaoping as acceptance. I am going to steal Wikipedia's example of the acceptance stage:
Acceptance — "It's going to be okay."; "I can't fight it, I may as well prepare for it."
In this last stage, individuals begin to come to terms with their mortality or inevitable future, or that of a loved one, or other tragic event. This stage varies according to the person's situation. People dying can enter this stage a long time before the people they leave behind, who must pass through their own individual stages of dealing with the grief. This typically comes with a calm, retrospective view for the individual, and a stable mindset.
This is China's drive to improve its economic conditions in order to strengthen itself, and fulfill its vow of "never again." This can sometimes manifest itself as overreaction to perceived slights, and a wary defensiveness. I have referred to this in other threads as "aggressive victimhood," but call it whatever you like: China was a victim in the past, and now it's powerful enough to prevent it and do something about it.
Now on to another conceptual model that I think has some utility in understanding the thinking of some Chinese users here. We have seen suggestions that if China breaks the USD as a reserve currency, it can break US hegemony. We have seen suggestions that since China "does more science," it will be more advanced. We have seen suggestions that if China uses the same gunboat diplomacy that the West used over a century ago, it can accrue the same level of prestige as the West.
I think it's instructive to examine the
cargo cult. I'm going to excerpt from Wikipedia, but read the article if you have time, it's fascinating.
The most widely known period of cargo cult activity occurred among the Melanesian islanders in the years during and after World War II. A small population of indigenous peoples observed, often right in front of their dwellings, the largest war ever fought by technologically advanced nations. First, the Japanese arrived with a great deal of supplies and later theAllied forces did likewise.
The vast amounts of military equipment and supplies that both sides airdropped (or airlifted to airstrips) to troops on these islands meant drastic changes to the lifestyle of the islanders, many of whom had never seen outsiders before. Manufactured clothing, medicine, canned food, tents, weapons and other goods arrived in vast quantities for the soldiers, who often shared some of it with the islanders who were their guides and hosts.
...
With the end of the war, the military abandoned the airbases and stopped dropping cargo. In response, charismatic individuals developed cults among remote Melanesian populations that promised to bestow on their followers deliveries of food, arms, Jeeps, etc. The cult leaders explained that the cargo would be gifts from their own ancestors, or other sources, as had occurred with the outsider armies. In attempts to get cargo to fall by parachute or land in planes or ships again, islanders imitated the same practices they had seen the soldiers, sailors, and airmen use. Cult behaviors usually involved mimicking the day-to-day activities and dress styles of US soldiers, such as performing parade ground drills with wooden or salvaged rifles. The islanders carved headphones from wood and wore them while sitting in fabricated control towers. They waved the landing signals while standing on the runways. They lit signal fires and torches to light up runways and lighthouses.
In a form of sympathetic magic, many built life-size replicas of aeroplanes out of straw and cut new military-style landing strips out of the jungle, hoping to attract more aeroplanes. The cult members thought that the foreigners had some special connection to the deities and ancestors of the natives, who were the only beings powerful enough to produce such riches.
To put it simplistically, I think China saw the trappings of wealth and prestige of the West, and decided that in order to attain such wealth and prestige for itself as well, it needed to do what the Westerners did, without fully appreciating the more profound causes of that power. The West had superior technology, so China needed to "do science." The West had used gunboat diplomacy, so China needed to assert itself in the SCS and ECS. The UK and US had the reserve currencies, so China needed to deprive them of that in order to take their place. And so forth. China didn't preoccupy itself with questions of why the Western culture was able to produce these things; it only knew that to have those things was to have power.
I really think it's not much more profound than that. Every rising power wants its place under the sun, whether it's Britain rising up through the Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch empires, or Germany trying to surpass the British Empire, or the US dismantling the British Empire to become leader of the free world.
