HONG KONG — On the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, a major Chinese television network broadcast a documentary that investigated how Chinese people viewed not only those pivotal events but America itself. One man, referring to the slaughter of thousands of Americans, declared, “What a beautiful job!” Another said, “They should give America more of the same.” And a student standing in Tiananmen Square said he approved of the attacks because the United States was a bully and a hegemon.

Later in the film, the young man in Tiananmen Square went on to describe his plans for the future. He said that he loved America and that he was about to go there to study. “If I don’t have to come back, then I won’t,” he said.

The Chinese view of America hasn’t changed since this aired four years ago.

On Sept. 3, President Xi Jinping orchestrated an extravagant military parade in Beijing. An acquaintance from my schooldays was so excited by the spectacle — the disciplined troop formations, the advanced equipment — that he wrote in a post on WeChat that he could hardly sleep that night. He added that his friends should “guard against America” because “American imperialism still wants to destroy us.”

Only a few months earlier, this same man had taken his daughter on a trip to Boston, where he reported enthusiastically on social media about visiting Harvard University and eating a huge lobster. He also pledged to send his daughter to America. “We should help our next generation live in a place without pollution, without recycled cooking oil and poisoned milk powder,” he wrote.