Even Mao said he'd only managed to change things around Beijing to some degree for a while.
The culture is incredible. And the cultural inertia--even after the cultural revolution--is also incredible.
The smug arrogance about being the middle/central Kingdom ... with the paragon specimens of the human critter is probably at least 3 standard deviations from the mean. The Japanese are similar in that regard.
They are all about appearances for appearances sake...
Or Sake’
Chinese are proud of their history and culture.
And one out of every four human beings on earth is Chinese.
Yes, they are inward-looking and change doesn’t come naturally to them but they do see themselves as superior to the barbarians.
And they don’t care to be lectured by us about their deficencies.