"China's decision to intervene in the Korean War on behalf of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) had its historical roots. It was the natural result of gradually developed animosity between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and what it regarded as the foreign imperialist powers, especially the United States, and of the fear of a threat from the latter. Over the past century or more, a quiet, self-reliant and complacent Middle Kingdom had been reduced by foreign aggressions to a semi-colony. Its populace was repeatedly abused and its national dignity, of which the Confucian intelletuals had been proud over thousands of years, was humiliatingly affronted."