SOURCE: Zhang, Hong. “America as Both Inspiration and Obstacle.” In America Perceived: The Making of Chinese Images of the United States, 1945-1953, pp. 9-31. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002.

In the following essay, Zhang studies the relationship between, and the perception of, the United States from the Chinese point of view during the first half of the twentieth century, theorizing that the Chinese culture often oscillated between viewing the United States as an inspiration as well as an impediment.

The young United States rose to prominence when the old “Middle Kingdom” experienced drastic decline. In the midst of China's economic, political, military, and international weaknesses, the wealthy and strong “flowery flag country” (huaqi guo, the term used by early Chinese to refer to the United States, after the “flowery-looking” American national flag) appealed to different groups of Chinese for different reasons. For example, in the mid-nineteenth century, immigrant workers...