Why was China so disinterested in exploring the world?

>>2330337
they're not filthy globalist like westerners

they lacked the technology

>>2330337
It's pretty comfy in China when people aren't trying to take your shit, might as well stay in

>>2330337
>Who is Zhang He

They're just not interested in exploiting and colonizing it like wh*tes

>>2330376

You missed the 17th and 18th century then.

>>2330337
They raised enough dogs to eat and didn't need to import from outside.

>>2330337
Slanted eyes give poor perspective.

They thought that they were superior in every way and didn't need filthy foreigners.

That all changed when the British came along and sailed up the coast annihilating everything within the distance of their cannons.

The whole creation myth of China is all about how they were the Middle Kingdom, the center of the universe. As the center they were the most stable and civilized part of the world, and the farther away you got from the Middle Kingdom, the more barbarous and dangerous the world became.

>>2330448

Kinda true at the time desu 家.

>>2330448

They believed the same myth that Europeans began to believe in the late C19th?

>>2330376
China "colonized and exploited" large parts of Asia.

>>2330349
this. fuck westerners

>>2330708
So are you just going around the board and shitposting or what?

>>2330369
>>2330448
/thread

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>>2330352
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
They had fucking bamboo farms on those ships in order not to suffer from a lack of vitamins. After one adventerous emperor led to them being build in order to fetch him curious stuff like giraffes they were left to rot on the beaches because his sucessors thought china would be too perfect to warrant any further exploration.

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Because exploring involves conqest, and the chinese couldn't and can't conquer anything.

>>2330337
Once you knwo the nature of the self exploring becomes meaningless

>>2330457
Wjhat a fucking retard you are.

China is a hellhole.

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>>2330447
This pretty much.

>>2331012
prove it

>>2330337
One would explore the world to either establish trade routes or colonies. The goal of both is the same: to acquire goods that you don't have at home.

China felt like they produced basically everything that they needed or what was on the world market. Which was pretty much true until the discovery of the Americas when new goods were introduced to the world market, before that they had almost every old-world good and even held a monopoly on a few ones.

Keep in mind that Europeans didn't explore the African coast and later discover America because they thought "lol lets check out what's there". These discoveries were all triggered by the Ottomans taking over the Eastern Mediterranean and blocking trade with Asia, which was the only source of silk and spices and other stuff Europe used so they had to find alternative trade routes.

China never had this pressure, not relying on any goods exclusively produced in Europe.

treasure fleets are a meme made up by revisionist Chinese historians

Why go the world when the world goes to you?

>>2331561
this
not only muslims and Eurpoeans, even Indians and southeast asian spice traders go to China to sell their stuff

>>2330448
This partly isn't true though, for example the Tang believed the Roman Empire (which they called Da Qin) to be a utopia in the far west near where the sun sets. It wasn't a universal belief that far away = barbarians.

>>2330337
Because they had almost everything they needed at home, and the few things they didn't have naturally they got easily through the silk road.

>>2331360
Best post.
China was just too cozy for people to feel uncomfortable enough to want explore and seek out new lands.

>>2331360
That's a pretty good point desu.

>>2330337
They had all the trade they needed right where they were, whereas the Europeans were forced to explore for new trade routes after the fall of Byzantium cut them off from Asia.

>>2330448
>the Middle Kingdom,
I wish this meme would end . The idea that 中國 meant "we are the center of the world" was a myth perpetrated by Europeans.

The early Ming Dynasty *was* quite interested in oceanic exploration. This was characterized by the famous voyages made by Zheng He and his treasure ships. And make no mistake: they were no rink-a-dink rowboats like what Europe was setting out with at that time. At 300-400 feet long~, one could have smashed into the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria all at the same time, and the crew might not have noticed. It certainly wasn't a question of technology - it was the Chinese, after all, who invented the magnetic compass the likes of Magellan and de Gama used on their voyages.

The thing is - China wasn't interested in colonies like Europe was. The explanation for why has more than a few moving parts, but let me try to break it down.

Colonialism, at least in the European sense, is a result of the economic system that characterized most of its kingdoms in the middle ages: Mercantilism. Now for those of you who already know, feel free to skip ahead, but for anyone who may have forgotten: mercantilism is, at its barest bones, the desire to keep all economic production and activity within the purview of a single government. In its "perfect unicorn" form, a kingdom would produce absolutely all of its raw materials within its own borders, and therefore *buy* nothing from another kingdom, but only *sell* finished goods to them. You can think of it as a zero-sum game, where everyone wants *all* the gold, and no one wants to have to spend any of theirs. The problem in Europe was that all those kingdoms were competing for much of the same resources, and had very little space to "naturally expand" ... hence a "New World" provided a major outlet, both for social pressures and for production of raw goods.

>>2331861
(cont'd)
Meanwhile, the economic situation for Ming China was beset by both a different set of economic pressures, as well as a completely different sociopolitical outlook - which are so interwoven I'm not going to be able to help but talk about both, almost at once. Prior to the establishment of the Ming in 1368 by Zhu Yuangzhong (AKA The Hongwu Emperor), China had been ruled by the Yuan Dynasty (AKA the Khans of Mongolia gone native). The Yuan conquest of China linked it to the yassa of the Khannate, and its panAsiatic trade network - essentially connecting it to a supercharged Silk Road from the time of the Han. That economic influx, however, came with foreign rule. The ethnic Han Chinese were locked out of high office by the Yuan emperors who trusted only ethnic Mongols or foreigners above the Chinese to rule over the land and its people.

So on the one hand, coming into the Ming where Hongwu throws off the last vestiges of foreign domination and re-establishes Chinese rule again, you've got the crumbling of the yassa edicts guaranteeing safe trade routes across Asia, and a newly re-empowered ethnic supermajority who has quite a lot of justifiable hostility toward foreigners.

Economically, China did not need to expand geographically, and when it did it almost uniformly pushed in a Westward direction,r ather than eastward. This makes perfect sense, of course, since to the east you've just got endless oceans with minuscule islands stretching on into infinity, whereas to the West! Ah, the West! Trade routes, foreign good, foreign markets... not to mention thousands of miles of deserts lined with bloodthirsty tribes, but hey, stay positive: profits! The Western expanses of central and north-central Asia have been the frontier for China since its inception as an Empire under the Qin. Heck even to this day the northwest autonomous region is known as Xinjiang(新疆), meaning "New Frontier."

>>2331844
>Implying "we are the most civilized parts of the world" is any better

>>2331873
Back to Zheng He and his thousands upon thousands of merchant sailors, though... as I mentioned his 20+ years of voyages were in large part seeking to re-establish the old trade routes with foreign powers that had been last cut off with the collapse of the Mongolian Empire. Overland travel via the Silk Road was an invitation to disaster, even with official protection... banditry along that route was quite literally legendary (and still is, it should be mentioned). Thus a reliable sea route Westward had been on the imperial agenda since the Eastern Han at least, but not so high up that it had every really been a "priority" ... just really something that might be nice if it ever, y'know, happened.

Zheng He's voyages can be characterized as nothing less than a monumental success (Seriously, you can't come back with a giraffe as a present for the Emperor and not have done a good job). However, following the Yongle Emperor's death in 1424 the imperial attitude toward associating with or interacting with foreigners at all began to swing the opposite direction.

China for long stretches of its past has been marked insular - and at times out-and-out isolationist. Again, it's not hard to see why: geographically it's incredibly isolated with a central "breadbasket" surrounded by virtually uninhabitale high plateau, mountains, and/or desert. Sociaoculturally, too, its foreign policy was even at the most expansionistic of times solely concerned with its immediate neighbors, rather than far-off affairs or administering distant colonies. It was the literal center of the world, after all, sovereign of all four seas. Any people or place too terribly distant from the centerpoint of the universe and Heaven ... well, they can't possibly be that important, then, can they? It wanted cultural and political hegemony over its neighbors who would acknowledge it as the paragon of civilization and pay it vassalage... It didn't need colonies economically, nor socially.

>>2331889
So, as the seemingly inevitable tide shifted against interaction with foreigners thanks to the Mongol hangover, China was in a very good position - as it ever was - to "turtle up" close off its borders, and isolate itself behind closed doors. The policies were based around the idea that China had to be first, last and only for the Chinese, and that "look what happened the last time we let those foreign devils in here! They wrecked the place!" Thus, the isolationist policies that both forbid foreigners entry to Great Ming, and *also* disallowed imperial subjects from leaving without special imperial dispensation would continue all the way up until the Steppe barbarians showed up on their horses again in the 1640s, but this time from Manchuria, and declared a new dynasty.

>>2330337
They already dealt with half of the world, it's the land equivalent of fuck off we're full

They just couldn't fully open their eyes.

>>2331895
Thank you this was very interesting.

>>2330337
Didn't they fuck a few african tribes?

>>2331012
coulda woulda shoulda

didn't

>>2330337
1. They did
2. China is massive, it's like asking why Russians didn't go to south America

>>2330448
The Chinese word for China is still Middle Kingdom and Middle people.

Literally middle earth

>>2331012
I never understand how Asia had such magnificent and huge building works, ships, etc, and yet never actually amounted to anything in the way the west did. Also always sucked at war, when the west is so good at war.

But the Chinese did visit NA and SA long before Europeans did. Chinese DNA and plants can be found.

>>2331012
>>2332107
Do you really believe onboard bamboo farming to be the crucial innovation that allows long distance voyages?

Is it really far fetched that the Portuguese might have had better technology?

I mentioned the obvious answer to this question on reddit and another thread on 4chan and people seem massively upset by it. Don't tell me you think it is somehow racist or you are a massive China apologist. That would be depressingly pathetic.

>>2330337
"Disinterested" is not a synonym of "uninterested" you illiterate fuck.

>>2332085
>China is massive, it's like asking why Russians didn't go to south America
that makes zero sense, how on gods green earth are they compatible?

Europe is massive too, what does it have to do with exploration?

>>2332168
>>2331360

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>>2332167
not only are you a moron but you're a pretentious one too

>>2330448
>Middle Kingdom, the center of the universe.
More like "Central States" in which the original term was purely geopolitical not an indicator of cultural superiority.

The earliest usage of 中國 meant the territories that were directly administered by Western Zhou monarchs.

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>>2332182
i agree, but size has nothing to do with it

it's competition, China was united under an emperor, Europe and the Middle east were competing kingdoms and empires constantly at war and trying to one up each other and grab as much resources as they can to get an advantage over rivals and enemies

It definitely wasn't "hey lets go and explore le world because we're so le smart and enlightened"

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>>2332107
>yet never actually amounted to anything in the way the west did
define what you mean by this, because they amounted to a whole hell of a lot just not if you look at the world as a game of civilization where the nation with the most science points wins

>>2332168
>europe is massive too
ok now imagine one hegemonic state controls all of Europe, like the Roman empire but bigger and still existing in the renaissance period, now imagine that this hegemon has just thrown off the mongols and instead of investing huge sums of money in expeditions that don't seem to have much practical purpose it could be investing in building a fuckhuge wall to keep the mongols from attacking again. Now also imagine that the government is largely run by bureaucrats who are extremely eager to start such a massive project because it'll mean jobs for bureaucrats for decades to come.

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>>2332221
not him and im not impltying their civilization is not great, but european civilization does dominate the globe, especially east asia

suits, skyscrapers, computers, cars, etc. all sprouted out of european civilization and entered the east through westernization

if you're wearing a suit, you're wearing european clothing

sort of like wearing those white robes i don't know what they're called is wearing arab clothing(pic related)

we live in a very westernized world

>>2330337
The entire reason Europeans found the new world was to find another trade route with India, the Chinese didn't need to.

>>2330337
They had all the resources they needed in continent sized China, meanwhile Europeans had that small shitty peninsula called Europe so they had to expand eventually.

>>2332168
>Europe is massive too
Europe is teeny compared to China.

>>2332255
>we live in a very westernized world
certainly, china was forced to modernize with the rest of the world despite how much they resisted it, and it was significantly more painful because they resisted it.

But lets not ignore the fact that the world's most spoken native language is Mandarin, one in six people in the world speak it. English only has (roughly) 850 million speakers worldwide when you combine native speakers and those who know it as a second language.

>>2332310
>But lets not ignore the fact that the world's most spoken native language is Mandarin
almost exclusively spoken by native speakers in china and ethnic chinese comunities, not exactly a lingua franca

>>2332147
A way to deal with scurvy is very important for long-distance sea travel

>>2330337
There were no jews for much of china's history, which meant there was no usury causing a push pull effect on the discovery of new markets and goods and trade routes.

>>2330337
Because it was wild shitty hole before European colonisation.

>>2332346
yes, that was my point

what does China need from the rest of the world when its basically a world unto itself

>>2332183
Now check a proper dictionary, not google.

>>2330337
Zhan He explored many places, he even got to Africa and brought back tribute. There were also Chinese litteraly colonizing Borneo and even formed republics. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanfang_Republic

Also lack of desire as they thought of themselves as the center of the universe, the Middle Kingdom. Thus why would they explore? Everything else is shit.

>>2331012
>Perhaps
lmao, the only "evidence" have of those things existing is for a much, much smaller ship. Bamboo isn't nearly stable enough on open waters and that thing would have split in an instant if it was taken out. The voyages were limited to the coasts for a reason

>>2331012
that image is a farce.

>>2332236
the US literally did exactly that.

>>2332700

>>2332700

Super interesting wiki article sempai.
Do you have more obscure chinese colonies to show us? Im genuinely interested.

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>>2333647
Boi, Chinese expansion and even now has been nothing but colonization (and Hanization). Pic related are settlements established by the Zhou. http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/20992/why-arent-there-any-chinese-colonies

For more of stuff like what I showed before there's only one other similar example. After the fall of the Ming, a Ming loyalist general conquered Taiwan and set up his own Chinese state there to one day take back the main land (familiar idea right). Chinese history is criminally underated in the west by the way, currently reading a book about the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom founder Hong Xiquan, fascination stuff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Tungning
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koxinga
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ming#Koxinga

>>2334185
The circled settlements are the ones the Zhou set up I mean.

What about the fucking chinese skeletons found in a Roman cemetary in the UK?????

>>2330337
They weren't.

>>2334198
Tell me

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>>2334185
>colonization (and Hanization)
The spread of Zhou high culture wasn't always linked towards actual migrations or military conquest.

The other issue is the Rong and the Di barbarians were probably Sino-Tibetans themselves.

Wu was a barbarian kingdom in the Yangzi basin despite having the same ancestors as the Zhou kings(probably fabricated).

>Pic related are settlements established by the Zhou.
Those settlements are Zhou feudal vassals who are usually blood relatives of the Zhou ruling family or remnants of Shang nobility.

Jing Chu was a famous polity(with a heavy non Sinitic linguistic substrate) that predates the Zhou conquest and wasn't under Shang hegemony.

>>2332255
All of that shit happened in the last 200 years.
Westerners got lucky and exploded during a time when China was in decline.

Technology advances exponentially based on what already exists, if white people were truly so amazing they would've figured this shit out thousands of years ago.

The only people that truly suck ass are abos, since they never did anything of note, ever.

>>2334268
Interesting, did not know Wu was a barbarian kingdom, my knowledge of Chinese history is very limited before the Qing. But still, the Chinese dynasties did colonize territory, that is un-disputable. Even places like Vietnam which are not Chinese were still heavily Sininized and adopted Chinese customs, and the remnants are still seen to this day. The Chinese even wiped out people's before they colonized like the Dzungar peoples in the east, those the Chinese saw as barbarians were usually converted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization.

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>>2332221
Only the most delusional chink would think the forbidden city is remarkable

>>2331861
>>2331873
>>2331889
>>2331895

finally, a non-retarded post

>>2331012
>AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
You're not allowed to interact with people anymore.

>>2334302
>did not know Wu was a barbarian kingdom
Anything outside the red outline probably wasn't Sinitic(or at least the Sinitic used by the Zhou and Shang courts).

Sinitic most likely formed in the prehistory as Shang era Sinitic already had contact with Austroasiatic/Hmong Mien/Tai Kadai.

>Even places like Vietnam which are not Chinese were still heavily Sininized and adopted Chinese customs,
There should be a distinction made between pre Imperial and Imperial China.

The Western Zhou "Sinification" was done to solidify their power structure by inducting local lineages as well as lineages related to the Zhou royal family and Shang remnants.

This identity "Hua"(cultured) and "Xia"(direct descendants of the Xia dynasty) applied to aristocrats and were geographically limited in scope.

By the late Warring States neither Qin or Chu were consider Hua in any respects. The former adopting Legalism and the later for their semi barbaric origins and their expansions into barbarian territory.

Ironically,Liu Bang was a Chu native that established a quasi Zhou feudal order in the east and a centralized regime in the west.

>>2334288
>All of that shit happened in the last 200 years.
>Westerners got lucky and exploded during a time when China was in decline.
and your point being?

>>2331012
>perhaps
kill yourself

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>>2332199
Large territory= lots of resources. Europeans powers had to go seaway in order to find more resources while China not only had a larger territory than any European power before the colonizing era, containing a multitude of all kinds of resources, but could also just try to conquer their neighbors if they wanted more.

>>2331459
[Citation needed]

Also, it's clearly retarded westerners with a bad case of sinoboo who push this shit

>>2330708
Europe still made everyone around the globe their bitch though. Cry more chink .

>>2334537
populatons expand to fit resources so that isn't an important factor

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Do you think a European federation will ever work?
Are we Europeans more alike than different? Can a United Europe balance out the world once again? What would work, and what wouldn't. What countries could easily integrate?

Not a clickbait, so don't troll and meme.
Discuss.

>>2335040
shit

>>2330337
Europeans explored the world because they were all fighting over a small patch of dirt, China didn't need to because they united most of the shit they need under one state and if they need more they can expand West.

>>2335040
why do you ask here

>>2335097
/his/ looks less retarded than /pol/ and I want a normal conversation debate. Missclicked and posted it here instead of making new thread.

>>2334511
not him but I assume his point is china was the frontier of human civilization for like 5,000 years before that

>>2335040
China was able to reunite whereas the Roman Empire stayed dead, because they had a common written language and identity as "not barbarians" tying them together. There has been some success I think in forging a common European identity at least among the youth, but the integration is pushing too fast while too many of the old farts are still alive (see the UK)

>>2330337
had you not studied middle school world history on colonialism ?
>Gold God Glory

>gold
trade routes, also literally gold/silver ore deposit not found in europa
>god
muh HOLY Father
>Glory
European has this GLORY obsession while the chink's ultimate goal is to make prosperous nation harmonious society.

>>2332107
Are you fucking retarded

>Huge building works
China has this wall

Also China had bureaucracies that managed to impose a uniform set of laws on all its citizens since the Han dynasty, while most Roman freedmen were barely nominal and Roman provinces were a little above tributary states

>>2330337
Because they literally didn't need to. As long as shit didn't hit the fan in China it was perfectly good enough for even peasants to be eating luxuries on a semi-regular basis.
The only reason Europe went to sea was looking for new trade routes to India and China and >spices
There was literally no need for this in China

>>2330448
The original meaning of Middle Kingdom literally referred to the actual middle kingdoms of China, that is to say, Zhao and its surroundings during the Warring States era.

>>2335027
Europe was thirsting for Chinese and Indian goods, China did not particularly give two shits about European goods, a trade route was literally "eh it'd be nice" not "holy shit we literally NEED one"
To China it was the literal center of the universe and for good reason because they didn't need to go and find the rest of the world, the rest of the world was coming to them
Persian and Indian merchants went the trip to China, Europeans tried to get to China by any means necessary, and so on.
Chinese manufacturing and agriculture produced an order of mangnitude more than all of Europe combined, their technical level of manufacturing was up there, luxuries abounded for literally everyone
There was just literally no reason for them to spend so much money looking out when they had everything they could ever need, it'd be like a trillionaire thinking about how they're going to make more money when China at the time was basically struggling to even use all the shit they already had

>>2335020
keep telling yourself that subhuman cumskin

>>2335682
Bing bong Nanjing ching chong

>>2330337
Other places didn't have anything they wanted.
For centuries, wealth flowed mostly in one direction in the silk route, China didn't need to import anything in particular from the west.

>>2335722
Also because when they did look for imports they could just go to India or Persia, the other two heavyweights.

>>2332310
mandarin is only spoken widely in a very focused area though, while the entire globe including every chink, nip and gook out there needs to learn english in order to be taken seriously

the amount of people who speaks a language isn't as important considering all you would need then to reach the top would be to breed like cockroaches as china did

>>2330337
It depends
China did colonize some islands and conquered way beyond its natural borders
China knew of lands in detail all the way up to persia and then the entire world by the 1800s.
Chinese merchants went as far as rome in antiquity and as far as moscow before classical mercantilism died

But if were speaking about spanish style exploration and colonialism, they never had the incentive

Spain found the new world looking for India, because they wanted a way that avoided muslims

Then they realized this new land could make them even richer and it did. India became unimportant until they found a way around cape in south africa

Then the spice islands and india became important again as their new world colonies gained independance

India and the Spice islands always traded with china. Since antiquity. They had all the wealth of the world right at their fingertips.

Whenever you already have a rediculous amount of trade and wealth, you really dont need that much in the way of capital exploration.

>>2335779
Being actually able to breed like cockroaches and have enough to eat is something in and of itself to be honest
>Europe literally didn't have wheelbarrows for 1000 years
I basically spat out my drink when I learned this
How is this even possible

>>2334411
have you ever actually been there?

>>2334411
Not him but the reason the Forbidden City can be said to be remarkable is because the entire city of Beijing was basically mowed to the ground and redesigned from the ground up as a capital city, and explicitly a capital city
Visitors remarked how it was strange because tha capital was neither a trade zone nor a production center nor even that densely populated, but was literally a designed city meant to look impressive as all fuck.
It's basically a hundred vaticans lined up plus a bunch of gardens and walled off.

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>>2334411

>>2335311
state organisation is great and all but wheres the pizzas

>>2332236
is this trumps america?

>>2337555
Italians didn't have Pizza either, it was originally a cheap flatbread you ate on the move with hardly any toppings if any at all
Why do you think Italian workers and builders ate pizza when they moved to the states? They couldn't afford anything else.

>>2332310
English and Mandarin are very close in number of speakers, but the difference is very crucial, almost all mandarin speakers are first language, but 70% of english speakers, its their second language.

Lingua Franca

>>2337518
Looks like dog shit

>>2337559
I literally meant pizazz

>>2337581
Well that's on you for mispelling

>>2337566
I think the point he was making isn't that Mandarin is a global language but that China is basically a world unto itself so why waste time exploring a world when you literally are one
Basically what everyone else was saying. China lacked nothing and they weren't particularly desperate to trade so they just kicked back and said 'well yeah I'm not going to bother with this shit'.
I mean more or less speaking Europe got really lucky that the Americas were a thing, I'd say. The industrialism / banking / science stuff would've put them ahead to a degree anyway but nowhere near the extent they became.

>>2337595
The New World literally made Europe, i think the whole world would be further back if not, and the East may have eventually surpassed. If the east had all those trade goods the west wanted so battle, but couldn't because no new world, no sailing, it would have just been strangled to death.

God Bless Islam for blocking off the land routes.

>>2331889
>>2331873
>>2331861
Enjoyed this refresher on Chinese history, thanks for the quality post

>>2337610
Europe managed to get around Africa in time anyway
And if the New World didn't exist I'm basically imagining them arriving at Asia were the Americas were, so basically what Columbus thought was a thing

>>2330337
Because everything cool is in china.

Europeans sailed around the world trying to find better ways to get to China.

Why would China sail around the world then?

>>2337926
>Why would China sail around the world then?
Human fetus, shark fin, tiger penis, rhino horn? maybe

>>2330337
Because for most of China's history, people came to China to trade and not the other way around. It's sheer size meant that people wanted to trade with them, just like modern-day nations want to trade with the US; hence why the tributary system was able to exist in the first place. China had valuable goods like silk, tea, and porcelain. Other regions with valuable goods were also nearby, such as the East Indies with their spices the Europeans wanted so badly.

Europe on the other hand, had very little goods they could offer. Roman glass was in demand all over the ancient world, but that stopped being made obviously. If Europeans wanted to get those spices they wanted so badly, they had no choice but to sail to the other side of the world to get them, nobody was going to bring it to Europe (especially after the Silk Road collapsed).

This state of affairs continued even as Europe was industrializing. I forget where I read this, but once British factories started producing wool clothing they tried to sell it to the Chinese...in Guangzhou. Who the fuck needs wool clothing in Guangzhou though?

This is why the Opium Wars started. Demand for Chinese goods and the British not being able to produce any goods that the Chinese wanted was causing a huge outflow of silver from Britain to China, So the British had to resort to selling opium in order to stop the silver outflow because they literally had nothing else to offer besides addictive drugs.

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>>2338130
> So the British had to resort to selling opium in order to stop the silver outflow because they literally had nothing else to offer besides addictive drugs.
Ghahahaha, that is hilarious.

>>2338147
That's pretty much what happened
>British people: we're literally bleeding silver because we can't compete with Chinese products and nobody is buying
>Chinese people: Well that's your problem, you're bleeding silver because you're buying our shit
>British people: I've got an idea let's literally drug the chinks
>Chinese Emperor: Dude what the fuck you're literally poisoning our people are you shameless? Stop this bullshit.
>British people: LOLOLOL *shoots u*
Like there is really no justification for the Opium Wars and Arrow War (aka the Second Opium War) besides "we were strong enough".

>>2334511
His point is that for the 1500 years before Westerners exploded into the forefront China was so rich, advanced, and powerful as to render Europe a joke by comparison, and that it's basically "Europe's good luck" (not really; it's actually the other way around I'd say) that Europe exploded into the forefront when globalisation and the ability to project force worldwide became a thing
Frankly, had China maintained their lead it's certain that Asia at least would have almost no clear western influence, even if the rest of the world still might due to China just not giving enough of a shit to expand outwards and project their culture. Historically they cared about their immediate surroundings and their culture projection really came down to people flocking to them, not the other way around.

>>2338207
>muh morality
chinks had been buying opium for 50 years prior to the actual war. the only reason the government even cared was because they were losing money.
>"we were strong enough"
literally the best justification, don't try and shut off trade if you can't actually enforce this

>>2338239
Hey lad I'm not the one who complained about the morality of the act - brits were.

>literally the best justification
Hardly, having the means to do something isn't the same as having justification for something on any level, even leaving morality aside. And at any rate even the Brits thought it was pretty reprehensible.

>shut off trade
More like, opium was illegal so by selling it en-masse you became criminals.

>>2338248
>I'm not the one who complained about the morality of the act - brits were.
>>Chinese Emperor: Dude what the fuck you're literally poisoning our people are you shameless? Stop this bullshit.
Every war has it's opponents on the homefront. But like with Thoreau, no one gives a shit
>having the means to do something isn't the same as having justification for something on any level
yes it is. it literally is. it may not be moral, but it's perfectly justifiable because "it's what I want" and "who's gonna stop me?" Yes it's edgy as fuck, but that's pretty much every imperialistic policy.
>by selling it en-masse you became criminals
brits supported free trade, not the literal opium trade. chinks, indians, and just about everyone wanted in. shutting down canton to everyone was fucking retarded because there were still plenty of merchants and traders who had nothing to do with the opium trade, many even signed the agreement to not sell opium. you pretty much guaranteed war with that move, plus the canton system itself wasn't going to last long

>>2338286

>we no longer want you selling shit to our country
>well ill just invade you m8

Let's I run a store and no longer sell a particular brand because the product is bad and faulty and would fuck over my customers. Can that brand now invade me because I don't want to buy and sell his shit?

>>2338299
>we no longer want you selling shit to our country
>well ill just invade you m8
Literally imperialism: 101
>Can that brand now invade me because I don't want to buy and sell his shit?
This is global trade between nations, not which kind of brand to stock. Again, morality of the war != justification

>>2338286
>yes it is. it literally is.
No it isn't anon, ability and justification are two entirely seperate things. That's why I said 'on any level', specifically without morality. I have the ability to burn my dinner. That is, however, not actually a justification for doing so. The justification, if any, that the British had was that they were losing money plain and simple. They had failed as legitimate merchants so they had to sell illict drugs, then when the Imperial court reminded them that it's illegal shit and literally poisoning the people so fuck off with that trash or we're kicking you out, and then they actually follow through, the Brits had lost access to a market that had repeatedly warned them.
Basically the Brits were strong, but still fucking pathetic.

>>2338312
>This is global trade between nations
If you go to war you have stopped pretending to be legitimate. I don't know what you're defending. The British were fucking pathetic, failed merchants, outcompeted in every way, and had no actual casus belli for the war, they even admitted so themselves that it was literally a ramshackle excuse to push Chinese shit in and get more sweet drug money.

>>2338312

Whether it's trade between nations or not, how can you justify invading a nation to make them buy shit? That's like me trying to sell you a bag of shit, you say that you don't want it, and I beat the shit out of you and make you buy it.

By your logic this is a justifiable act. If I was strong enough to kick your ass and make you buy my bag of shit, I must be right. And I can now continue to sell you bags of shit or anyone else I can overpower.

>>2338319
I think his argument is less that it's morally justifiable and more of "I beat the shit out of you, now what the fuck are you going to do about it"

>>2338313
>>2338318
>>2338319
You're right, justification isn't the right word. The principle still stands that by naval power they were able to maintain their influence and even if it's amoral or unjustified, it's still the way it worked back then. Basically what >>2338325 said
>They had failed as legitimate merchants so they had to sell illict drugs
They were forced to trade in a single port and couldn't even communicate with the Chinese government directly. Drugs just happened to be a convenient method of equalizing. And again, the British never directly supported the trade itself, they only supported free trade. And free trade fell on opium, which brought the most profits to EIC and the most profits to Britain. Fucking everyone was in on it, Americans and even the chinks themselves
>the Imperial court reminded them that it's illegal shit and literally poisoning the people so fuck off with that trash or we're kicking you out
The court was split on whether to allow it or not. The emperor himself was a fucking addict. Most court officials used the drug. They were worried about the trade deficit building, not the bullshit morality crap. Maybe Lin cared, but the bureaucracy didn't, otherwise they would have cut that shit out immediately when it popped up in the mid 1700's. Hell, it wasn't even fully illegal, it could still be imported as medicine.
>>2338318
>failed merchants
They were pretty successful considering how much Britain loves tea and porcelain and how they were able to obtain it.
>outcompeted in every way
they literally found a good that brought trade in their favor
>no actual casus belli
Infringing on free trade rights
>>2338319
>how can you justify invading a nation to make them buy shit?
I'm not justifying it (although I'd totally do the same if I had to deal with that canton bullshit). That's just the way government (ie imperialistic) policies worked. Perry did the same shit, the difference is the Japs were smart.

>>2338319

Being able to sell shit is different to making them buy it. Why is it justifiable for the Emperor to stop you from buying opium. Oh, it's because they can overpower you.

Let's talk about the real tragedy of the colonial era in China; Hong Kong. How is it, in any way justifiable, that Britain should give back the city that they built from NOTHING to a totalitarian communist state?

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Asian trade was pretty valuable by itself.
Between the West Asia, South East and East Asia, and India, trade in Asia was pretty robust. Compounded by the fact that the Indian Ocean made trade via ocean-going vessels an attractive prospect early on.

Europe was the one missing out due to a lack of apparent ocean-trade routes to Asian markets, And middle-eastern countries used their strategic position to heavily monetize land-routes into Asia, adding to Europe's relative isolation.

>>2338345
>They were forced to trade in a single port
Which was a concession already, the Chinese government was under no obligation whatsoever to allow you to do business. Remember, back in the day, free trade was hardly a right, it was something the government allowed. Even today a free trade agreement is something important to sign, it's just that people tend to forget because everyone relevant is part of the WTO and all that these days.

>found a good
An illegal one that the Emperor personally told them to fuck off with.

>infringing on
Even the brits knew this was the most ridiculous of pretenses, I believe the admiral even said something to the effect of 'this is complete bullshit' before the war kicked off.

>free trade rights
It wasn't a right, that's the thing. In fact you could make the argument it isn't a right even today, it's only a "right" when it goes in your favor - it's a privilege when it stops going in your favor.

>cut that shit out immediately
Thing is, it was small-scale shit back then and they had bigger fish to fry. It'd be like clamping down on a few surviving illegal brothels when rape is relatively widespread. They simply didn't have the incentive to deal with what was basically a few scattered cases.
By the time of the Opium Wars the British were basically systemically drugging Chinese in huge quantities, and even the bureacrats were in on it so there was no way to enforce the ban correctly. Emperor tells the Brits to fuck off- > they refuse -> Emperor tries to clamp down -> Bureacrats get drugged -> Emperor has had enough and kicks them out -> Cannons

I agree that since the British succeeded in blasting the Chinese arguing something as dry as morality is kind of quaint but in any case it is certain that the justification was paper-thin even by the standards of the time, that it had opposition among the army, and that - let's be honest - the entire reason they had to do it at all was because they couldn't sell anything else.

>>2338360
>How is it, in any way justifiable
It doesn't need to be, isn't that the other guy's argument? And at any rate the city "they built from nothing" was originally Chinese land in the first place, and there was a """lease""" that lasted until 1997 to begin with.

>Britain should give back the city
If you actually look at British records it's evident they were more or less downright eager to get rid of it at the point where the handover occured. Their only reservation was >commies.

>totalitarian
Hong Kong has had the 1 country 2 systems thing working remarkably consistently despite the fears at the time. There's been blips but hardly anything substantial and this is evident from both western (the ones who actually went to Hong Kong at least, not random op-eds) and native accounts. Honestly surprising how closely, speaking in general, Beijing has kept its word.

>communist state
China owns less of its GDP than the US, from what I understand.

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>>2338345
>not the bullshit morality crap.
Edgy.

>>2338375
I'm the one he was arguing with but to be honest morality is a weak notion at best when it comes to administering a nation. At most morality should be a concern because it affects how your people, and the populations of other states, view your nation and thus how you're treated. Otherwise it's basically meaningless.

>>2338360
>Hong Kong. How is it, in any way justifiable, that Britain should give back the city that they built from NOTHING to a totalitarian communist state?
If you leased a corner of your garden to me and I built a nice hut on it, would that make me the owner of that garden corner?

Also, if I then, because of this doctrine, became the owner of the garden corner and afterwards razed the hut to the ground, would you still be okay with me being the owner of the corner?

>>2338364
>the Chinese government was under no obligation whatsoever to allow you to do business
True. And it falls right back to who has the bigger guns to support their side.
>An illegal one that the Emperor personally told them to fuck off with.
An illegal* one that was popular in the court since the Ming.
>this was the most ridiculous of pretenses
A pretense nonetheless. In fact, the exact reason the war started was when Chinese tried to stop all foreign trade, even those who agreed not to trade Opium.
>It wasn't a right
To the British it was. All imperialistic nations thought it was, America, France, etc.
>it was small-scale shit back then
In 1790, around 4,000 chests were imported. It wasn't small. It was lucrative to the point that coastal cities began to demand their own taxes on smugglers.
>the British were basically systemically drugging Chinese in huge quantities
Pretty much just the coastal areas.
> Bureaucrats get drugged
Bureaucrats were using opium long before the British caught on to the profits.
>the entire reason they had to do it at all was because they couldn't sell anything else.
The Canton system guaranteed they couldn't. It forced them to find a good that would have value in such a limited and tiny trading area, opium happened to fit the bill.

Honestly, I'm really not out to justify the war, but I've seen too many bland interpretations of it (ie. britain was evil drug dealers, poor chinaman gets abused). It's more complex than that
>>2338375
literally anyone defending the morality interpretation of the opium war is an idiot and a bleeding heart. the emperor wasn't weeping about all the poor people addicted to the evil whiteman's poison, he was worried about trade deficits and an epidemic making his army and bureaucracy incompetant

>>2330337
why would you explore the world when you are already 中国

>>2338388
>>2338372

But what gives the Chinese government authority to lease it out in the first place?

>>2338432
>Honestly, I'm really not out to justify the war, but I've seen too many bland interpretations of it (ie. britain was evil drug dealers, poor chinaman gets abused). It's more complex than that
No it is, and I don't deny that, but I'm not willing to budge off the fact that the Brits had literally nothing to offer China. Canton system or not the idea is that they had literally nothing the Chinese wanted in any appreciable quantity.

>All imperialistic nations thought it was
Mainly because as I said it was advantageous to them. To give a very modern example - China is one of the biggest pushers for more and more free trade, because it benefits immensely from it, while the US is now interested in partially shutting its borders because it is no longer benefiting from it (or so the people seem to percieve - truth aside).

>>2338447
The fact that they owned the damn place since literally the Han dynasty? This isn't even something like Taiwan which was a relatively "recent" acquisition by the Qing dynasty, no this is literally a thousand-year territory.

I don't know where else to ask, but should I read or watch Romance of the Three Kingdoms first?

>>2338553
>read
It's translated isn't it? I'm only assuming you can't read Chinese.
Do you mean the actual Romance though, as in one of the Four Classics? Or are you actually talking about the Records / Chronicles, which historical records instead of a historical story?
The Moss Roberts 1991 translation is generally considered the definitive one, from what I understand.

>>2338574
>The Moss Roberts 1991 translation is generally considered the definitive one, from what I understand.
Too bad it's literally impossible to find an ebook version of it anywhere.

>>2338553
I personally watched the 2010 TV series first then read Brewitt Taylor translation, but you can do it in either order.

>>2338581
>Too bad it's literally impossible to find an ebook version of it anywhere.
Just get a normal book version

>>2332107
>west is so good at war.

Rome getting raped by germanics in the end means they were good at war?
Crusaders doing a half assed job at the first crusade and then making no progress for the next 200 years means they were good at war?

What is this european revisionism?

>>2338659
I'd say it's mainly a problem of
1. Romans were actually pretty damned fucking special for having a massive standing [professional] army instead of a professional core and a billion levies
2. Most people have never heard of the bajillion wars everyone else was up to in the meantime
3. Even when they know these bajillion wars, they tend to just dismiss it as "oh it was just chinks fighting chinks"...ignoring the fact that Zhou China was basically a smidgen so the territory must've expanded in the meantime against people who were not yet chinks

>>2338663

Westerners always say China was weak because it fell to the mongols yet Rome CEASED TO EXIST after the germanics were done raping it, not to mention that around 20 million chinese died in the mongol conquest and much less "Romans" died in the wars against germanics.

>>2335808
>Spain found the new world looking for India, because they wanted a way that avoided muslims
This is true but Spain's plans where to conquer good chunks of India and convert Indians to catholicism.When Isabel was getting older she was concerned about salvatio putted lots of enphasis in spreeding catholicism.Spaniards knew that Japanese,Chinese and Indian technology was obsolete for the most part and that they could take a good chunk of wealthy land there.Hell the Japanese with obsolete Portuguese technology were whipping the Koreans and Chinese for a while

>>2338673
>Hell the Japanese with obsolete Portuguese technology were whipping the Koreans and Chinese for a while
The Ming forces were hardly got whipped by the Japanese though, not to mention their artillery game was far ahead of the Japanese.

>>2338678
*hardly getting whipped, whoops.

>>2338670
Because the Germanic tribes were actually settling in the Empire's lands and setting up their own agrarian kingdoms, whereas the Mongols were nomadic horse barbarians who don't settle and farm like the *Goths.

>>2338670
Well I mean EVERYTHING fell to the Mongols. Subotai scythed into Hungary and Austria as I recall while on a SCOUTING MISSION.

>>2338673
>whipping
The Chinese were employing landmines and grenades against the Japanese.

>>2338678
>>2338678
>The Ming forces were hardly got whipped by the Japanese
They mostly came when the Japanese got their supplies cut and were retreating.The Japanese whiped Korea and the Chinese troops that were there pretty fast.European warfare was on another whole level for a while at that point

>>2338688
>got their supplies cut
Anon that's called being bad at war
And at most you should argue that the Japanese had ridiculous morale on their side while the Koreans explicitly lacked this according to their own commanders where they'd just up and run off when the Japanese did their banzai charge. In terms of actual technology they were par, at best.

>>2338682

>It's so hard to defeat settled germanics if you are the romans and have 50 million people under your control

>>2338694
To be fair at that point the entire Empire was basically on the verge of falling to pieces anyway, huge deficit, underequipped military, Honorius is a retard, so on

>>2338690
>they were par, at best
The Japanese land army was way better equiped.For some reason they didn't bother to modernize the navy which caused them the war but nips with Portuguese obsolete arquebuses were piercing through Korea.

>>2338708
First off they didn't just grab all obsoletes and do nothing to them
Second off, by all accounts the deciding factor was the charge, because the Koreans were dead shit once they got closed on.

>>2338688
>The Japanese whiped Korea and the Chinese troops that were there pretty fast.
The Joseon troops, sure (with a few notable exceptions) but I don't really know about the Ming.

Even with the logistics issues (which were also a thing for the Ming, but that was more due to not realizing that the Joseon court would be unable to provide much for them), the Japanese still couldn't deal with the Ming cavalry even with overwhelming numbers at Byeokjegwan, nor did they have any answer to Ming artillery.

At best (and even then, it's iffy) you could say that they got "whipped" in the second invasion at the three botched sieges (Sacheon, Ulsan, Suncheon) but none of those extremely close victories put the Japanese in a better position, and they were completely on the defensive.

Though the performance of the Ming troops was pretty mixed overall I don't think it's fair to say that they simply got rolled over by the Japanese in all cases.

>>2338711
>Arquebuses vs bows
>The deciding factor was a meme charge after the complete destruction of the vanguard
This was happening in Europe in the XV century.Asia was lagging behind Europe in almost every measurable thing at that time

They had everything already and, they had not competitors.

Europe in the other hand consisted of several different states relatively on par with each other. Everyone was trying to one-up each other thus trying to find resources from somewhere else made sense.

>>2338765
The Ming had aquebus, artillery, and grenadier regiments too anon.

>>2338771
>The Ming had aquebus, artillery, and grenadier regiments too anon.
Of course they did.They traded with the Spaniards and Portuguese frequently but most Korean and Chinese soldiers were equipped with bows,arrows and spears while the arquebus was barely used at the beginning of the comflict.
It is basically what happened in the Italian wars but 70 years later.The same equipments and very similar tactics

>>2338787
>the spanish were the ones who provided Chinese artillery
You cannot be fucking serious

>>2338802
>who provided Chinese artillery
>You cannot be fucking serious
I mostly meant arquebuses and mosquettes.Importing artillery was pretty hard and the Chinese developed most of their artillery but with a lot of European influences

>>2338812
Well now can I have some backup for this? From what I understand the Chinese did indeed import artillery and guns but from what I understand the first western ones were the 紅夷炮, Red Barbarian Cannon which were more or less reverse engineered; most of the previous firearms were made in China, including guns, as well as grenades, firebombs, and landmines which to the best of my knowledge simply did not exist in Europe at the time. I do remember that the Japanese had the tanegashima guns which were basically improved portugese guns and rather advanced.

>>2338659
>What is the Opium Wars
>What is the Boxer Rebellion
Chinks were too focused on their retarded Bureaucracy to learn how to fight competently, even though they had gunpowder before the West.

>>2338848
>what are these wars with a huge technological disparity, the second of which was fought when the country was literally falling apart
hmmmm

>>2338787
>Chinese soldiers were equipped with bows,arrows and spears
A lot of the Ming troops were spear or pikemen (but then again, so were the Japanese).

The Chinese brought plenty of gunpowder weapons with them too (especially the primitive handgonnes for Northern troops).

So while they definitely didn't bring as many arquebuses as the Japanese they more than made up for it in light artillery and rocket weaponry rather than this just being a case of "the Chinese brought bows to a gunfight."

>>2338848
The West fucked them with opium, a Westernized Japan and Gommunism.

>>2338883
Yuan was the problem
Yuan Shikai a LITERAL shit

>>2338896
The rampant warlordism wasn't Yuan Shikai's fault.

>>2338924
>decides to toss everything out the window because it is emperor time now baby
HMMMMM

>>2338932
In all fairness, according to the pattern of Chinese history up to that point declaring a new dynasty was just what you did when you take charge after the collapse of the previous dynasty. Just unfortunate for him that the Chinese were no longer in the mood for emperors.

>>2338659
>>2338670
I don't like to admit it but Germans are westerners too anon

>>2332573
>oxford
>not a proper dictionary

>>2331012
Those ships were never even nearly that big.
It was western orientalists that promoted that myth.

>>2331895
thanks anon, that was enlightening

>>2340129
It's weird to me how much of orientalism even back in the 19th century was basically "I hate my own race and love being a weeb/turkophile/arabophile".

They're like the ancestors of today's self-hating whites. Bizarre how much Ed Said hated them when all of the positive stereotype myths about muds (noble saladins of syria for eg) come from orientalists.

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>>2331459
This.

When Ho Chee Ming launched the treasure fleets, they were just meant to be some basic trade-route ship. The reason they're not talked about as much as Columbus is that they stayed close to the coasts and went up around SEA and then onto India and the Persian Gulf.

Pic related. He was one of the most famous Chinese Emperors, yet what did he do? Nothing.

>>2338574
>>2338574
Yeah I meant the Four Classics one, usually I'll read a book before the movie adaptation, but obviously it's quite the undertaking

>>2335700
Shut the fuck up. You wish you had a glorious culture like the Chinese.

>>2331012
A flatbottom ship that big couldn't have sailed for shit. If, IF those things existed they were left anchored just for show.

>>2338848

Alright Mr. Bean

>Early 15th century

>Ming

vs

>England

pick your choice.

>>2340785
They were pleasure barges similar to caligulas. They went up and down the Yangtze. They also were nowhere near that big as their rudders have been found.

>>2340904
Comparing an empire state to a small polity is ridiculous. A fairer comparison would be between Europe and China as a whole. China is more contiguous and stable overall but its high culture is shit tier.

>all this shitposting

Balkanfag here. Why are second and third generation Asian Americans such a bunch of keyboard warriors?

>>2340919

Europe is a continent and China is not

How about all of Asia with its muslim, barbarian, chinese, japanese and etc vs Europe?

>its high culture is shit tier.

People who have a culture defend it, your people sold all of your culture for ((diversity)). Just look at at London and Paris where are all the frenchmen and the englishmen?
Why is Peking not full of foreigners? But your capitals are.

Zheng He was muslim eunich who's ships hugged the coast lines as they'd have sunk otherwise.

>>2340949
Nigger, China has always been a multiethnic superstate. Even within the Han there are different divisions that can be made. England is a fucking ethnostate. There's no comparison. And sure you can take all of the sinosphere to compare if you want. It doesn't change anything.

You're right though. Our elites are traitors. That doesn't change the fact that western high culture wipes the floor with the high culture of other racial groups. There's a reason your own people prefer our classical music to Chinese classical music, which is basically just the pentatonic scale (muh han traditions an sheeit).

East Asian high culture is simply unremarkable. Look at the architecture and compare to the Indian subcontinent or Europe.

>>2340942
Why are you such subhumans?

Wow I can play your game too.

>>2340697
Modern day Chinese culture are just trappings the peasants entertain themselves with to distract themselves from the fact that their leaders have enslaved them for the sole purpose of feeding Western culture with cheap goods.

>>2340981
I don't understand why you don't live in China. Every day I see Asian American jingoistic types posting on western message boards. Obviously second or third generation holding American passports. Why don't you move back to your motherland? If I left mine I wouldn't rant and rave about how superior we were. I would feel ashamed to do something like that.

Do you have sense of shame at all?

>>2340976
>England is a fucking ethnostate

Maybe 100 years ago , China is a nazi utopia compared to you (Han are like 90% of China) Did you forget that London is majority nonwhite?

>The first group of Muslims to migrate to the UK in significant numbers, in the 18th century, were lascars (sailors) recruited from the Indian subcontinent (largely from the Bengal region) to work for the British East India Company

>China has always been a multiethnic superstate

In doubt that that was the case in the 15th century.

>Our elites are traitors.

Who elected them? They themselves?

>western high culture

You can see your own people bulldozing down your "high culture" to build more mosques for the ((new europeans))

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8pXJWVszNM

If your culture is so important to you then why do you keep tolerating muslims, do you know that pictures and statues are banned in Islam?

>>2341008
I'm not asian american you retard, nor am I posting about how china was the best 5ever, which is a sinocentrist meme. I'm just pointing out how stereotypical your slavnigger mindset is to attack the poster because you're not informed enough to refute them, which I've attempted to do throughout this thread.

>>2341040
>Who elected them?

White people generally vote for a Conservative party that promises to reduce immigration.

You can castigate their stupidity and I'd agree but it's a by product of groupthink manufactured by media. Chinese under the same conditions would do exactly the same thing. They're just as amenable to groupthink if not more.

>>2341060

>White people generally vote for a Conservative party that promises to reduce immigration.

France PM-
>France has to live with terrorism
England PM-
>Jews are the best people in the world, we have to destroy the germans
German PM
>Wir shaffen das! 3 million more refugees and if you disagree with me ur a NAZI!

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>>2331012
>perhaps 400ft
>perhaps
they say a single picture is worth 1000 words, i say a single word can discredit that fucking retarded comparison

ITT: China can't have done cool things in the past because they got fucked in the past two hundred years

I really don't understand why non-chinkies pretend like the Opium Wars were yesterday. It's <CURRENT_YEAR> and people judge the PRC based on the failings of a decadent and arrogant Qing empire.

>>2341204
It's retarded shitposting just like the retards shitposting about how Zheng He was a big guy etc.

The meme of chinese continuity and uniformity is a shitty one; During its high water mark what most people here know as "China" was a leading state amongst a number of ethnic states.

The biggest mistake in East Asian history was the Yuan dynasty, which basically knocked out all of the traditional han rivals. The second biggest mistake was Hideyoshi dying before he could make Japan a real competitor to Ming China.

>>2338787
> but most Korean and Chinese soldiers were equipped with bows,arrows and spears
All three sides used bows and spears...

>arquebus was barely used at the beginning of the comflict.
The Southern soldiers from Zhejiang certainly did.

There was a 3,000 man firearm division from Shanhai Pass that was ordered to join the first expeditionary army.

>>2331068
>spear
that's a bayonet

>>2335700
stay mad subhuman

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>>2344318
I have had sex with several Chinese women.

How does this make you feel?

>>2344360
did you just dox yourself -
>imgur filename
nah

>>2344447
>implying I'm scared of doxing myself on /his/

I'm really scared of some manlet chink ringing my doorbell and seizing up as soon as he sees I'm 6'3.

Would be hilarious.

>>2344453
Not everyone is Chinese anon
Calm down
Are you projecting your insecurities?

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>>2341040
A chinaboo speaking about culture is always hilarious.
Mao wiped the chinese culture and then you adopted ours, it's so pathetic that now you are even massively christiannizing.

>Who elected them? They themselves?
Elections are a meme when it comes to government, democracy is just a set of rules that the elites and the masses agree on.
The implicit agreement is that the elites will treat the population with a certain amount of fairness (ie: not brutalizing them serfdom style) and in exchange the population will not revolt/try to replace them by others at the first disagreement (they will just "vote another government).

In the West the elites betrayed their people and don't see themselves as a national elite anymore with a duty toward their kin but as a global aristocracy, you can do as many election as you want you will just change one part of your neo-patricians (the administrators) but the others (intelectuals, artists, industrials, religious, medias, etc...) will remain in place.

>>2344360
stay mad subhuman