ABSTRACT
All states mobilize and manipulate history in service of their national and international needs and agendas. With thousands of years of recorded history, it is thus no surprise that China, too, draws on its diverse past to shape and justify domestic and international goals. The opening ceremony at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, for example, presented China’s notable historical achievements to the world in a dramatic fashion. The global audience watching the opening ceremony saw much about China’s ancient glory and its spectacular growth since the 1980s, but no reference to the themes of revolution and resistance that were so important to the founding of the modern Chinese state in the first half of the 20th century.
