Introduction

Scholars have shown great interest in studying how members of the cultural in-group (i.e., natives) and the out-group (i.e., foreigners) perceive themselves and each other. A classic paradigm to explain the relationship between cultural identity and attitude toward foreigners was put forward by William Graham Sumner, originator of the term “ethnocentrism”. He defined this term as the “view of things in which one's own group is the center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated from it” (Sumner, 1906, pp. 27-30). Ethnocentrism has since been widely used in social and political studies to explain racism, xenophobia, prejudice, and mental closure, among others. In the setting of intercultural encounters, ethnocentrism also rests upon the assumption that one's own culture is superior to the cultures of others. Furthermore, “cultural ethnocentrists believe that this cultural order is threatened by the arrival of new groups (with their own cultural norms) to the territory that is claimed as their own” (Hooghe, 2007, p. 4). Thanks to strong economic and political implications, how the Chinese perceive themselves and the West as well as how the West sees China have assumed additional importance. These are the concerns of this paper.

“Who are we?” This question has haunted the Chinese for over a hundred years.