It's more like the British harkening back to Chaucer's England.
The problem with the Rome analogy is that China has had much greater continuity than Europe. China is what Europe would have been, if the Roman Empire had been reconstituted each time it collapsed.
Imagine if there were still one political entity ruling the entire Mediterranean basin and Western Europe, calling itself "Rome," speaking a Romance language, and in which every educated person was still capable of reading the Latin classics (with some difficulty).
The problem with the Rome analogy is that China has had much greater continuity than Europe. China is what Europe would have been, if the Roman Empire had been reconstituted each time it collapsed.
Imagine if there were still one political entity ruling the entire Mediterranean basin and Western Europe, calling itself "Rome," speaking a Romance language, and in which every educated person was still capable of reading the Latin classics (with some difficulty).