[The British and French caused a lot of the humiliations that gave rise to the current Chinese hairy chestedness. Opium wars.]
All nations lose wars. Nothing particularly humiliating about losing to a couple of foreign powers with serious technological advantages. But losing to illiterate steppe barbarians - Huns, proto-Mongols, proto-Koreans, Jurchens, Tanguts, Mongols, Oirats (who captured a Ming emperor) and Manchus - now that was humiliating. The humiliation babble is just a political tool, not reality. It’s also a nose-in-the-air assertion of superiority for Chinese civilization, Wakanda in yellowface.