No reason for arrogance, but China can be confident

While it is true that China has made remarkable achievements in many areas since the launch of reform and opening-up 40 years ago, from the surfeit of online and social media stories with sensational headlines bragging about how strong or powerful the country is in seemingly every respect, one would be forgiven for thinking that the country was the world's only superpower.

Yet what is noteworthy is the fact that most of those who have written these stories have no understanding or just a smattering of knowledge about what they write about. They give their stories sensational click-bait headlines in order to catch readers' attention and thus get more viewers, which can then be monetarized. It is this that propels some to go to extremes with their claims.

Since the majority of those who read such posts rarely bother to delve any deeper into what they've read, there is a tendency for them to get carried away by the supposed standing of this nation in the world, believing it can assert itself wherever and whenever it pleases. And this has the additional appeal of enabling belief in redress for the past humiliations the country suffered.