Abstract: | Abstract This paper tells the worldview of a generation that grew up in the Communist revolutionary ideology. For the people of this generation, the world was always divided into two worlds, the East and the West. Throughout China’s modern national history, the West, led by the United States, has been the imperialist aggressor and invader; on a global scale, it has been the hegemonic power that rejected and blockaded China; in social structure and ideology, it was capitalist, countering socialist China, and ever ready to subvert the New China. According to Mao Zedong’s three‐pronged theory of ‘enemy, friends and us,’ the West belonged to the ‘enemy’ side. The Bandung Conference in 1955, and prior to it, the Peace Conference for Asia and the Pacific Region held in Beijing, had a great impact on high‐school students in Mainland China. We viewed these conferences as promising signs that the New China would rid itself of isolation, and felt very close to those countries of ‘neighbors and friends.’ |