I agree with your main point that the main issue here is personal responsibility and personal power, and that any group memberships are only relevant insofar as they affect that.
> I've noticed a trend towards nationalism in China
Sure. That sort of thing is not incompatible with perceiving other countries as "systematically better". In fact, one common form nationalism has taken (not just in China) is "those other people are currently ahead of us, but we will overtake them and then we will be ahead".
As far as I can tell, racism is just not something the ruling party cares about much, and they spend all their thought-and-speech-policing efforts on the things they _do_ care about (like their own survival). For similar reasons, racism was rampant in the Soviet Union and is rampant in Russia now.
Add to that that most Chinese have no personal experience with someone who looks "black", so all they have to go on are stereotypes, and it would be pretty surprising to _not_ have racism be prevalent in the culture.
> I've noticed a trend towards nationalism in China
Sure. That sort of thing is not incompatible with perceiving other countries as "systematically better". In fact, one common form nationalism has taken (not just in China) is "those other people are currently ahead of us, but we will overtake them and then we will be ahead".
> Unless there's inherent racism in China
Oh, boy, is there. https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/08/beyond-the-pale-chinas-c... has some discussion in article form, and in general searching for "racism in china" in your favorite search engine will find lots of discussion about the issue.
As far as I can tell, racism is just not something the ruling party cares about much, and they spend all their thought-and-speech-policing efforts on the things they _do_ care about (like their own survival). For similar reasons, racism was rampant in the Soviet Union and is rampant in Russia now.
Add to that that most Chinese have no personal experience with someone who looks "black", so all they have to go on are stereotypes, and it would be pretty surprising to _not_ have racism be prevalent in the culture.