The Europeans referred to China as the Far East. The Chinese referred to China as the Middle Kingdom. What do these terms illustrate?

These terms illustrate how these two places viewed themselves. The Europeans saw China as being very far from them (and although geographically speaking the two locations are very far apart), they felt that the culture and the mentality was probably very different as well and felt that China was very far removed from Europe. The Chinese referring to their country as the Middle Kingdom most likely reflects the fact that they were very proud of their country and saw it as a very central power.