Abstract: China's academic confidence is an emergent issue at present, but this issue is deeply rooted in the historical and cultural context configured by two parallel trends in late 19^th- and early 20^th-century China: the influence of the Western civilization and the decline of Chinese traditional culture. From the period of "the sick man of East Asia" to the current "China's rise," the travel of theory in the globalization ignites the appeal for academic originality. This appeal to re-establish Chinese academic confidence is not merely a slogan but a strategy with complicated cultural imports. The key to rebuild this confidence lies in defusing the dual tension between China and the West, and re-inventing the tradition and trying to construct the research subject's identification with it.

Key words: academic confidence, local knowledge production, globalization, Spread of Western Knowledge to the East, inventing tradition, binary opposition