And even that act did not seem to change their sense of isolation in the world. Today Russia's Communist regime is a matter of history, and China's regime is transforming itself, a bit slowly to be sure, into something else. If one looks at the world from their eyes, their faults have been minor to those of the faults outsiders committed against them. It feels that Russia suffered a terrible devastation in the Second World War, thereby saving the world from the horrors of Nazi domination, and that this human sacrifice has never been really appreciated by either western Europe or the United States. And today Russia feels that the last pillar of its national pride, its armed forces, is disintegrating.
China feels similar grievances.
Heirs of the Middle Kingdom, China still feels it is the true center of world civilization. It feels it was despoiled by the Western world for at least two centuries. It feels that its national unity is still imperiled, and seeks to recreate the boundaries and glories of yesteryear. It remembers that, only fifty-odd years ago, it was internally ravaged by a devastating Japanese invasion as well as by a civil war. The story of course looks different from the vantage point of the Western world and that of Japan.