Mourning the Ming and narratives about China today
Three issues dominated online discussions in China at the end of last year, as do discussions about the crises in Venezuela and Iran today, reflecting an awakening in Chinese public opinion and a renewed thirst for the truth, beyond government propaganda about phoney prosperity.
Milan (AsiaNews) – At the start of the new year, abrupt changes in the situation in Venezuela and Iran have pushed into the background some issues that trended on Chinese-language websites by late 2025, namely the "1644 historical vision”, which uses the past to allude to the present; the so-called American kill threshold, which fuelled anxiety over economic fragility; and the Nanjing Museum, which has raised questions about privilege.
These three touched a very sensitive societal nerve, with great resonance among intellectuals and the public alike; in fact, while the spotlight may have now shifted in the web, we believe the Chinese public will not forget the stirring effect these issues had. Indeed, the crises in Venezuela and Iran, deemed close allies of the Chinese government, also reflect the collective expectations of ordinary Chinese regarding social change and transitional paths.
1. The "1644 Historical View" and the paradox of legitimacy
The "1644 Historical View" represents a powerful breakthrough in grassroots historiography. This narrative, which has gained traction in recent years, considers 1644 (the year of the fall of the Ming Dynasty and the arrival of Qing troops) as a watershed in Chinese history, marking the beginning of the modern era.
Its rationale is to define the Qing Dynasty as an "Inner Asian colonial regime”, arguing that the rule of an ethnic minority disrupted the continuity of Chinese civilisation and that the Qing's institutional rigidity led to the backwardness of modern China.
This is an alternative vision to the traditional official narrative, which places the beginning of modern history in 1840, with the Opium War, arguing that from that moment China transitioned from a feudal to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society.
As Mao Zedong wrote in his 1940 essay “On New Democracy”, only a new democratic revolution led by the Communist Party could overthrow the "three great mountains": imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucratic capitalism.
In parallel to the "Vision of 1644”, a curious grassroots movement of "mourning the Ming" has developed.
On the one hand, the Dream of the Red Chamber, one of the most important novels in Chinese literature, published in 1792, is now reinterpreted as a work full of political hints and as a “lament for the Ming dynasty”. Lín Dàiyù[*] is associated with the Chongzhen Emperor (the last Ming on the throne), and Jia Baoyu[†] with the imperial seal; while the entire novel appears to be written to "mourn the fall of the Ming and denounce the sins of the Qing.”
On the other hand, there is a spatial projection. People flock on their own to Jingshan Park, the site of the Chongzhen Emperor's suicide, to lay flowers, symbolically transforming it into a politically charged place, reflecting the public's subtle expectations regarding the sense of responsibility and historical awareness of today's rulers.
On 17 December 2025, official propaganda channels (such as the WeChat account of the Propaganda Department of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee) explicitly criticised the "1644 Vision" for “altering the pace”, ignoring the overall historical framework, violating the historical context, and denying the resilience and continuity of Chinese civilisation.
This suggests that the authorities are afraid that this narrative strays away from the dominant discourse and endangers national identity.
The historical paradox, however, lies precisely on that point. Sun Yat-sen backed the 1911 Revolution whose slogan was “Expel the Manchus and restore China”. Both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party have always claimed to be the true heirs of his legacy.
A comprehensive critique of the 1644 vision thus raises a delicate question: if the "anti-Manchu" were wrong, where does the legitimacy of the 1911 Revolution lie? This logical dilemma ends up putting the spotlight on the legitimacy of the current regime.
When official historiography fails to provide a coherent interpretation capable of embracing the complexity of historical reality, popular narratives naturally tend to compete for the right to interpret. With the opening of archives and the adoption of global historical perspectives, alternative readings are gaining popularity, but often at great personal cost.
The fate of historian Gao Hua is a case in point. Despite being an acknowledged authority on the history of the Communist Party of China, the author of How the Red Sun Rose was marginalised in the academic world and was unable to publish his works in mainland China.
Today, the "vision of 1644" has no specific author, and has become a collective online chorus. Fragments of unofficial truth, outside of the grand narratives, are powerful tools for understanding reality and deconstructing the ideological authority of the state. Through concrete gestures such as "mourning the Ming”, people express dissatisfaction with the existing system and their current life.
2. The “American kill threshold”
The "kill threshold" is a term originally from video games, indicating the threshold that triggers the killing blow. On 7 December, a content creator on Bilibili (a Chinese social media platform) applied it to reality, describing the fragility of the American middle class: seemingly well-off people, faced with sudden events such as job loss or a serious illness, cross the "threshold" and fall into debt, losing everything and with no chance of recovery.
The debate quickly grew, fuelled by official information (such as the fact that 37 per cent of Americans lack US$ 400 for emergencies) and the structural deficiencies of the US healthcare and housing systems. Mainstream media amplified it, turning it into a systemic critique of capitalism.
Regardless of the validity of the arguments, the trend deserves reflection. Talking about a “Chinese kill threshold” would cross obvious red lines, but discussing the American one in China is safe and politically correct. Some have interpreted this as a shift in psychological mechanisms of social compensation: from the question "Are you happy?" to the glorification of stories of individual redemption, to the current narrative that acknowledges the country's general difficulties but noting that “America is worse off”. Such narratives essentially seek to displace and reframe suffering, and to steer public opinion.
3. The Jiangnan Spring Case at Nanjing Museum
In December 2025, news of Qiu Ying's painting Spring in Jiangnan, estimated at 88.88 million yuan (around US$ 12.5 million), appearing at an auction brought to light decades of scandals at the Nanjing Museum.
After regime change in the 1950s, the Pang family, one of the wealthiest in Jiangnan, was stripped of its assets and forced to donate 137 works to the museum. Recently, descendants discovered that five of these works were no longer listed in the museum's inventory.
To explain the discrepancy, the museum stated that they had been deemed fake in the 1960s and removed in the 1990s. However, disturbing stories emerged about a board member in office for over 30 years, during which several treasures disappeared.
The case sparked national outrage, reinforcing perceptions of institutional corruption and the greed of privileged elites.
Conclusion
At the end of 2025, these three themes are powerful metaphors: from the rereading of history and the anxiety of survival to the collapse of justice and the arrogance of privilege. Faced with the awakening of public opinion and the factual truth, any narrative of pretend prosperity appears fragile.
Hopefully, history may no longer be a simple tool of power, while reality may no longer have a sudden "kill threshold”. If so, justice could truly become a barrier against plundering by privilege.
[*] One of the characters in the novel.
[†] The main character in the novel.
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