wrote that the feast was caused in part by the "vulgar habits of bad chefs" and that "displays this trite are useful only for welcoming new relations through one's gates or when the boss comes to visit". (皆惡廚陋習。只可用之於新親上門，上司入境) Historiography and memory Nationalism After 1912, writers, scholars and popular opinion in China and abroad generally deprecated Qing rule, blaming it for China's weakness in the Century of Humiliation and racism of the Manchus against other peoples of China. However, in the 21st century, a favorable view has emerged in popular culture, and some nationalists have even portrayed Imperial China as benevolent, strong and more advanced than the West. They blame ugly wars and diplomatic controversies on imperialist exploitation by Western nations and Japan. Although officially still communist and Maoist, in practice China's rulers have used this grassroots settlement to proclaim that their current policies are restoring China's historical glory. Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping has sought parity between Beijing and Washington and promised to restore China to its historical glory. New Qing History The New Qing History is a revisionist historiographical trend starting in the mid-1990s emphasizing the Manchu nature of the dynasty. Earlier historians had emphasized the power of Han Chinese to "sinicize" their conquerors, that is, to assimilate and make them Chinese in their thought and institutions. In the 1980s and early 1990s, American scholars began to learn Manchu and took advantage of newly opened Chinese- and Manchu-language documents in the archives. In addition, a general growing interest in ethnicity led to fresh understandings of non-Han peoples in Chinese politics and society, which was also part of a rethinking of how the modern Chinese nation-state developed, a rethinking not based on received ideas of Han superiority. This new research found that the Manchu rulers manipulated their subjects and from the 1630s through at least the 18th century, emperors developed a sense of Manchu identity and used Central Asian models of rule as much as they did Confucian ones. They argue that the Manchu rulers regarded "China" as only a part, although a very important part, of a much wider empire that extended into the Inner Asian territories of Mongolia, Tibet, Manchuria and Xinjiang. Ping-ti Ho criticized the new approach for exaggerating the Manchu character of the dynasty, which he argued had become sinified. Some scholars in China accused the American group of imposing American concerns with race