As I ask below, can anyone explain why the West should buy into China's "victim," focused analysis of its 150 years of "humiliation". Why was China's devastating decline from the mid 19th to early 20th centuries not the responsibilities of the later Qing emperors. The Taiping rebellion almost succeeded, the Qing we're at war in their northeast, including with Muslim tribes in Xinjiang and then the ongoing battles with the foreigners and the 1860 burning of the summer palace. If there is "humiliation" to be accounted for, isn't it a result of Qing imperial failings?