ilk
Documenting the corrosion of legitimacy from within China is not convenient for the purpose of the government s Patriotic Education ; it is better to dwell on victimization from without. The destruction of the Summer Palace is one key motif in the narrative of China s disgrace at the hands of imperialism. This ravage is often linked to the suppression of the native Boxer Rebellion in 1900 as another example of vicious foreign intentions that threaten China s unity.
To challenge these narratives is to draw attention to the wide-spread distortion of historical truth in public education, especially regarding facts about native violence and oppression. One common phrase for this strategy of obfuscation is 狼奶 lang nai ( wolf s milk ). In 2006, historian Yuan Weishi dared to write about this predicament in the following words: We grew up drinking wolf s milk. In looking through middle school history texts, our youth are still drinking wolf s milk. [6]