An old saying tells us that those who can't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. In China these days, a more relevant adage might be: Those who choose to learn only certain lessons from history are doomed.
That's the upshot of China's reaction to a ruling from a tribunal at The Hague rejecting its claims to much of the South China Sea. Government officials and state news media unleashed a blistering torrent of vitriol in response, deriding the whole proceeding as a "farce" and a "brutal violation" of international law.
That attitude is an outgrowth of a historical narrative propagated by the Communist Party's leadership — one that may be politically convenient at the moment, but that ultimately threatens to undermine China's rise.