It is a combination of many of the above. The majority of the population are ignorant to the way of many other countries and are fed a staple diet of the great accomplishments of their nation. This will change in the near future mainly due to the internet and people working their way around the great firewall. At present though most Chinese have seen their living standards improve in the last 20 years, admitedly from a very low base. While this continues there will be no reason for many to question what they are fed, plus it is human nature to feel a connection with their own nation. Of course many will want to try and find greener pastures and have very good reasons for doing this. Some will do it for freedom, but from many that I have met in Australia the basic motivation for them to immigrate was purely economic. Lets face it,many people will believe what they are told. I would think that lots of Americans and Brittons actually believed that Sadam Hussain had a huge cache of weapons of mass distruction and if it wasn't for the freedom of press and journalists who seek to promote the truth, they would have still believed the story fed to them by Bush and his cohorts. Not trying tom argue against what happened, just using an example of how media and education can make the general population believe.

With 1.3 billion people they have to believe in themselves. Most people believe their country is the best, don't they, especially, if an outsider says bad things about it.

since you ask this question, that mean you don't understand chinese people at all. chinese people have a strongly traditional custom, they love their country, notice, they love their country , not goverment ! we have the long history and fabulous culture in the world, and of couurse we proud them(history and culture) and them deserved. just like every human being pround their homeland.
Are we best in the world? that not a question at all, of course we are NOT BEST in the world, we know we have a autocratic government, we know we have countless corruption civil servants, we know we have the huge gap between rich and poor. and we know our country political system should be more democratic. since there are so many facts, how could we think we are best in the world.?
please pay more understandings on some chinese people, when they told you they are best only because they afraid losting face, and one thing you should konw at first: chinese pay more attention on their reputation.(中国人很看重面子)

Not the smart ones. Most Chinese people I know aren't happy with this place.

Do you believe your country and people are the best? if you do, i do, if you dont, i dont..

Simply.....in the past you can say Chinese believe anything they are told, just SAME LIKE AMERICAN....now 21th century, it's not that easy for anyone to believe anything.....OK?

but as long as you have a brain, you can always CHOICE......

****What i said about Chinese men are the best husband, that's from experiences and knowledges of me and many friends, we are well travelled and well lived in abroad

I don't like to ask questions about a country, about a culture, about a race if I haven't done enough study about them. Often to the utmost, I will hurt them maybe unintentionly, at some points. I think this board is for new comers to ask travel, live advices, etc..not to insult a country, a culture, a race by some not so well-educated, not academic people....

English has many "nice"words and "nice"ways to express things well. If people can't use English well, it only shows they are not well-educated i guess.

***if company sent me to a country like Israel to in charge of things. I think I'm a fail in the company

It seems this forum has turned into an excuse to use the Chinese people as a punching bag. I am shocked that so many "enlightened" people can be such one-sided critics of China. In judging a people, one cannot divorce the cause from the effect. If you want to denounce someone's behavior, you should first consider the cause of it. In other words, don't be as ignorant as the one you're criticizing. Such empathy may well be beyond many people on this forum, but taking potshots at this country's people without true understanding is uncivilized (imo). China's cultural advancement has been retarded, shackled by social and political policies that were out of their control. This culture has been trained to believe what they are told and to jump when ordered to. Their government controlled education system has left them in the darkness. How would you fare under such conditions?
But this age of ignorance is coming to an end. Since they've opened up, everyone has seen impressive growth. I have been traveling across China for the last 18 months and the growth is quite evident. Of course, it's easier to build cities than to change mindsets, but China has made many leaps in such a short time. I look forward to seeing what an unfettered China can accomplish. So while YOU may see ignorant people defecating and spitting in the streets, selfish and unskilled drivers , Chinese girls opening their legs for any white man that comes by ..... (the list goes on), I see people with eyes full of hunger and hope. I see people who want to make themselves better. And I see people desperately striving to accomplish this goal. And for this reason, they have earned my respect.

Every time a question like this comes up, the answer is always about the pride the chinese people have in their HISTORY, their tradition. Humanity, current living conditions (pollution, over-crowding), equality, financial woes... those things are very very rarely brought up. When will the chinese people take these things into consideration and answer this question with those things in mind. Is tradition really worth living with the current conditions? Isn't it time to make new traditions to make a better life for generations to come?

I think people from all the countries will have faith in their country.Who won't ?

I've lived in small towns in China, and by small I mean no KFC. No seriously, that's how you judge the size of a town here; next comes McD's and then Pizza Hut. Anyway, after living in small towns for over a year and Shanghai for the past 2, my mind is made up. I'm finally leaving in the next week, back to a smaller town. Most everyone has national pride where ever they are from, but Shanghaiese take it to a whole other level. Someone mentioned elitist, and that is all I can think of when others ask me about life here. I can't stand it anymore and I'm sure they'll be just as happy as I am that I'm leaving. Think Texas times 10. It's great to be proud of where you come from, but Shanghaiese are just borderline, if not racist, even toward their own countrymen. I think it's made even worse by their current status and the booming economy of their country. Trust me, I'm the last guy to generalize, but in this case the shoe fits.

@Njord - Wait....you equate spitting in the streets with child molestation????? Where is YOUR logic? The things you cry and bitch about on this forum are not high crimes like sex abuse. They are cultural differences and behavioral affections .And were any of you in China a decade ago (as I was)? Do you deny any positive changes in the last 10 years? In fact this is almost an entirely different China from the one I saw 12 years ago. In 6 months, I will not feel any differently. I am a Humanist, not an Apologist. All humans are the same and are striving for their right to live happily. If left to these aims, they will find a way. Then again, I am wasting my words on a man whose life (by his admission) has been reduced to just eating, sleeping, and screwing anything he can find. You will never see these people the way I do because the most important thing to you is cheap beer and easy sex . Am I frustrated by the backwardness of China? Yes. But they are changing. I give them credit.
@Mr. Tibbles: Yeah, cutting the Chinese any slack and giving a little understanding doesn't work in this forum. I have done something you probably never have done. I have listened to them. I have videotaped interviews to prove it. Geez, you guys have the same mindset as the Europeans who came and extinguished the American Indians and enslaved the Africans. "they are so uncivilized (not even human). they will never be kewl."

Great points xinyuren. I was thinking similar things on many occasions when reading a few of the posts on here. Some of the stereotypes are not too dissimilar to those which people in many countries applied to other races in the not to distant past. It is almost like the nature or nurture arguement and I take the point of view as would any rational person that it is nurture that is the causeation of many of the things that others criticise. I was at the Chinese consulate in Sydnet today and I had arrived early because it gets quite crowded and when I arrived there were a number of Chinese there. Guess whatr they were in an orderly queue and not one of them, shit, pissed or spat on the footpath. I also work with or have dealings with many Chinese of all ages in Australia, not to mention my partner and they are very quick to embrace the manners once they are with people who can explain to them the reasons behind them. China is undergoing one of if not the most rapid changes that any country has experienced and it is just too much to expect that many things will change overnight. Have patience where you can and at times you are very much supprised and rewarded by the result.

Although I don't like China's feudal thinking and rigid education. Honestly, I long for the freedom of American children, but I would be proud to be born in this country. The state taught me to be a man of integrity. China's first

You didn't know that the China's culture is the craddle of all cultures and the Holy Grail of any value, aspiration, achievement humanity has known sincei its incipience on to day, didn't you? Now you know!

It is hidden from us the truth that Renaiscence, during its  "tre, quatro cento" was not due to such artists, great thinkers, philosophers, writers, scientists in the pursuit of thre Truth, of the Heaven and Hell as we know them, but due to the exisiting cutlure and influence from China throughout those centuries afore, whilst and afterwards.

The French Gothic arts of bulding the most Holy places of reverance an worship, that is, the churches, was not originated from the existential metabolism that  France would live in such unprecedented stage that it changed the whole meaning of architecture through the neighboring catholic countries and religious cultures, but from the hidden endeavors of influences coming from China.

All that and beyond, up until today is thanks to China's paradigmatic thinking and feeling capable to inspire not only on their grounds but to unleash changes of greater aspirations humanity would never have thought, imagined and hoped for hadn't been for China's culture. 

So, don't you ever dare to doubt of the transcedental nature of China's culture ever again, capisci? Nihil sine China's culture. without it, the world wouldn't have been possible and couldn't carry on either.

And it is of such nature that even though Chinese people don't even know their own history and culture, while they are allowed not know it, we, the plebeyan, don't.

It is a concession as inspired from within its divine aspirations that we, the commons, from the rest fo the world, although sprang up from the same sources of living waters of China's culture, would not be coerced into reading our lives in Mandarin writing as a token of its merciful, tolerant, wide embracing of acceptance and love China is moved by. Mandarin has become a language of the priviledged elites of the divine circles where the greater good is thought by its gods.

We owe our language, ways of life, our past, present and future, all to China's culture.

It would be a plasphemy to think it otherwise.

That's the Truth...and the Truth shall make you free, now that you know it.

How do I know all that? It's on youtube, the refference of all knowledge and of the truth, peer reviewd by Wikipedia and viceversa.