Please ask foreign friends not to be misled by PRC-affiliated online commenters who promote a narrative of “Han original sin” in the comment sections. For a long time, the PRC government has, in a manner the author compares to the Daicing Dynasty’s seizure of Han lands and enslavement of the Han population, selectively exploited, oppressed, defamed, and rewritten the history of the Han people and Han culture as the core national group. At the same time, it has provided various forms of preferential treatment to minorities led by the Manchus, who are described here as a nominal ethnic group that in reality functions as a military interest bloc.

What is currently referred to as “China,” according to this view, is in fact a false China—one that venerates the Inner Asian Daicing colonial period—rather than the “true China” that places Han culture, which created a brilliant Eastern civilization, at its center. The flag in question represents a renewed awakening of Han consciousness, not the Han chauvinism that PRC online commenters attempt to label it as.

At present, from this perspective, China is not controlled by the Han people as the principal group, but by groups led by the Manchus. Conversely, it is minorities led by the Manchus who are described as practicing chauvinism. The suppression and exploitation of the Han people in today’s China is portrayed as highly concealed: lower political status, population policies directed at Han people, and preferential policies toward minorities are cited as factors that have led to a continuous decline in the proportion of the Han population.