For China, a deeply self-confident country, to be “back” simply means regaining the country’s historical centrality in the world after an absence of more than two centuries. After all, at the end of the eighteenth century, China became the world’s first producer of manufactured goods, and it perceives itself as a center of civilization unequalled by any other in Asia, if not the world.
中国是一个高度自信的国家。对于它而言，所谓“重返”只不过是意味着在缺席两百多年以后重新获得历史上的世界中心地位。毕竟，在十八世纪末，中国成为世界第一的制造商品国家，而且，中国自认为是文明的中心，即使不称雄世界，至少是在亚洲无可比拟。