Started out interesting, with a focus on academics, advancement and collaboration. Halfway through (several hundred chapters in) it turned into another nationalistic oppressed political underdog narrative where China pretends to be the victim of all the bullying strategies it uses on the rest of the world. China is the great Amber Heard of the modern era: beating others while using makeup to fake bruises and slandering the victims. Nobody cares where the protagonist is from until the author starts force-feeding you racist, nationalist rubbish. Not only have they used the traditional US bogeyman, but they've also taken potshots at Africans, Indians, Chinese expats in Australia, Germans, etc. It's not about the story anymore. The author decided to make the entire world a stage for Chinese slapstick virtue signalling. I'm going to go look for some Xianxia, maybe, because the only Chinese novels that don't turn racist are the ones where the MC doesn't interact with non-Chinese people.
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Thats exactly my thoughts on this. Had a ton of potential. There were also subtle jabs thrown at Africa and Africans throughout the entire book.
Amazing analogy
That's almost completely false. China is never really shown to be an underdog, and frankly, you keep nitpicking at the one Australian scholar and the one Indian scholar as if the MC didn't face dozens of Chinese antagonists.
