The way the Chinese perceive themselves seems to be as Dodson describes, the "perpetual underdog". In a sense they seem to always feel sorry for themselves, while perhaps not blatantly, this comes across in their defensive nature about things. Their demand for respect is growing as they grow and develop as a country, mostly due to technological advances. In relation to the rest of the world they see themselves and being constantly duped by more powerful countries that simply abuse China's resources in order to stay on top. China feels that it is being pushed around by nations such as the United States. They place themselves on the opposite end of the scale from the rest of the world and view themselves in some sort of stand off with everyone else. I mostly agree with Dodson's assessment solely on the fact that he obviously knows a lot more about China and global relations in general than I could ever dream of knowing. His assessment did seem to generalize a lot and was seemingly very harsh on China throughout. The way he presented the fact that Chinese citizens are too "downtrodden" by their government to really even synthesize what is going on in their country presented a reality in an almost condescending way. However, overall I find that Dodson is good at keeping on the topic at hand and not deviating to his own personal opinions. I could do research into a specific study done on the psychology of citizens in China if I wanted to verify his assertions. Possibly if I looked into how real Chinese individuals feel about their nation I could better understand what their psychology is on a personal level rather than an outward national level.
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