They once had a powerful, influential, and prestigious civilization. They produced such iconic philosophers, traders, artists, seafarers, scientists, etc. Their economy was very strong, and they even had their own proto-industrial revolution in the Song Dynasty. The entire East Asian field, including Japan and Korea, was highly influenced by them (at some point, they were the ones living in mud huts when the Chinese were already building cities).

But nowadays, they are associated with corrupt governance, cheap knock-off products, consuming dogs, and obnoxious tourists overseas. What happened?