Arguably a more Chinese-style philosophy is prudent now as the world becomes a smaller place. Chinese people have sustained for thousands of years on the same land, without needing to rely on continuously invading new territory. Now the whole Earth is settled, we need to learn how to live together. Not that China is perfect, but we certainly have much to teach each other, and the Chinese have been the better listener so far.
That ignores the massive expansion into Central Asia (Tibet, Turkestan, Badhkashan, Altai), Mongolia, Borneo, the Yenisei Basin, Yunnan, Kachin, the Miao/Viet/Tai/Hmong frontier, and Formosa/Taiwan that the Qing Dynasty (which itself is Manchu, not Han) lead. Modern China is very much a reflection of that mass expansion.
Also, Chinese are not homogenous. Ignoring the 20th century Han social construct, there have always been distinct ethnic and cultural differences among differing "Chinese" ethnic groups like Cantonese, Teochew, Hokkien, Hakka, Guangzhong, etc that were erased during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
Except CCP/PRC resolved 12/14 land border disputes inherited from ROC, most of which involved ceding more territory during settlement. That's the opposite of expansion, and TBF hard to find another country that has voluntarily ceded more land under bilateral negotiations. PRC territory literally contracted under westphalian framework that these narratives are measured against.
No offense but I think you are completely ignoring the intent of my comment. I am not talking about post-Xinhai Revolution China. I am just showing that the idea of stable singular borders within the modern concept of "China" are a newish construct - new in the sense that it's not some 2,000 year old history but a result of the expansion that the Qing Dynasty, and that the idea of a singular "Han" or Putonghua speaking ethnicity are a social construct that was developed in the 20th century.
Also, if you want to go the route that you are arguing, then there's a reason why Mongolia, Tibet, East Turkestan, etc fought for differing levels of sovereignity in post-Xinhai China, or that ethnic Manchus made a faustian pact with the Japanese occupation to create Manchuko. Ironically, Mao and Zhou Enlai were much more open to minorities compared to post-1980s PRC politicans.
But then again, why am I arguing with a sock puppet account based on your comment history. Either you are a very hypernationalistic commentator, or an astroturfer at worst. @Dang, thoughts about the paradox of tolerance?
Within "core" China yes, but that was questionable tbh. Most borders for nations before the 19th century are more hypothetical than reality. Without innovations like the telegraph, railroad, canned goods, etc, power projection outside of a core area was heavily hypothetical.
Hell, at one point in the late 18th and early 19th century, the village my family is from would have technically been Qing AND Sikh AND Dogra. Borders are artificial constructs that have historically been more fantasy than reality (at least until the late 19th to mid 20th century)
I don't really find their modern day philosophy (in terms of a society/country) all that enlightening. The earth is full so we should tolerate governments like the CCP/CPC? China's style of government is dysfunctional and dystopian, not prudent.
From my viewpoint China never expanded not because they were chill people, they could not even repel foreign invaders, let alone expand an empire.
Totally agree we should work together on this planet, but with a dictator like Xi in power that wont happen.
> The earth is full so we should tolerate governments like the CCP/CPC?
Careful with that kind of rhetorics. The world may start asking the same question regarding the 15% of world's population who act like they are the enlightened masters of the world questioning whether they should "tolerate" something on the other side of the globe.
Even now there isn't much tolerance towards American or French governments, who actually do evil shit far from their national borders.
> Totally agree we should work together on this planet, but with a dictator like Xi in power that wont happen.
Meh, how about instead each of us minds our OWN business? There is no way one can be actually responsible about things one is not accountable for.
Afghanistan is a perfect illustration of that - not just recent evacuation while leaving a shit ton of modern weapons, but all the way back to the days when the US had been nurturing mujahideen to create problems for the Soviet Union, which gave the rise of what we now know as islamic fundamentalist extremism (Taliban, Al-Qaeda, ISIS and such)
> Chinese culture has sustained for thousands of years on the same land, without needing to rely on invading new territory.
You should probably brush up on your asian history - there was incredible amount of conquest wars in what became modern China with casualties rivaled only by ww1/2
I very much prefer living in a country where I can go where I want without asking to government or say almost what I want without risking to go an education camp. So no thank you, current chinese is not my way and never will.
It's ironic to criticize the way the Chinese handled terrorism concerns against Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang, when the US War on Terror didn't just dehumanize and supress American Muslims-- it killed about 1 million people across the globe.
This is a case of "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"
We can all criticize Xinjiang, but not to justify cultural superiority, if anything it works the other way.
Where did I say my culture is superior? I'm talking about individual freedom and my preference about it, nothing else. I prefer to be a free individual.
So please don't change topic.
"Genghis Khan himself was technically not ethnic Han, but he and mainly his successors saw themselves as legitimate Chinese emperors by establishing the Yuan Dynasty."
I guess you can try to argue some kind of blood purity, but I suspect you'll find yourself in bad company rather quickly on that one...
Just to be clear, and correct me if I'm wrong: is your argument that because China's acquisition of territory amounts to a small percentage of their previous territory in quantity, that it is not something serious?
Does that mean that the China's intended colonization of Taiwan (in China's constitution), of which its territory is approximately 0.4% the size of China's current territory, would not be something serious?
I'd appreciate a bit of clarity on exactly what you're arguing here.
I find this perspective pretty amusing. The United States is in fact more than 3 times older than China (i.e. the PRC). The idea that modern China is wise because its ancestors were ruled by Chinese emperors seems to me basically the same as saying the west is wise because its ancestors ruled by Roman emperors. But I guess historical myths and culture are quite powerful ideas for many people.
This is the same logic hawkish American Republicans use when they say they are defending Western Values against the Chinese. What are those values? Where do they come from? Most rural Americans from Alabama who say these things haven't been to England or Germany, and if they did, they sure wouldn't recognize "their culture". Heck, they don't even need to travel to Europe.. try NYC!
Five surveys of Chinese citizens, netizens, and elites help illuminate the attitudes that the Chinese government grapples with in managing international security policy. The results suggest that Chinese attitudes are more hawkish than dovish and that younger Chinese, while perhaps not more nationalist in identity, may be more hawkish in their foreign policy beliefs than older generations.
The Europeans are not obsessed with taking down China, nor are Europeans ardent individualists as Americans are. Chinese and America have a bigger cultural gap than Europe and China in this respect.
As a Chinese-speaking European, I'm getting the impression that you're using faraway places you know little about as convenient projection surfaces for an ideal contrast with the things you dislike about America.
Dislike of America's recent history of conquest turns thousands of years of warfare on what is now Chinese territory into thousands of years of living on the same land without any invasions.
Dislike of American individualism turns Europeans into... I'm actually not sure whether you associate any specific qualities with not being ardent individualists.
Anyways, I'm quite annoyed by this, so consider yourself officially taken down.
Of course generalizing like this about groups is a cloudy lens at best but it's the premise of OP and may predict voted policy of respective countries.
