Post: #51

(09-21-2015 03:21 PM)Samseau Wrote:  It doesn't matter if the Japs were horrible during WW2. Fact of the matter is, there is no reason to believe the Chinese or Koreans or anyone else in the area wouldn't have been just as monstrous had they the amount of power the Japs had.

China before modern the modern era when it was at the height of it's powers weren't particularly interested in conquest or colonization so I don't think that's quite true. No other nation in East Asia matched it in terms of cultural influence or power for centuries until the industrialization of Japan yet China was pretty content to keep to itself. China did attempt an invasion of Japan during the Yuan Dynasty but that was when China was ruled by the Mongols and we knew they're all about the conquering and pillaging.

China's power has always come from it's soft power; using cultural and economic forces to bring other societies under it's power. A good example is what it's doing with Taiwan right now - trying to bind the island closer to it by making it dependent on it economically rather then just marching straight in with guns blazing.

Until the modern era China has always been pretty uninterested in the outside world whether just for the curiosity of encountering new cultures and civilizations or for conquest. I'd say that's a big reason why it fell behind Europe from say about the 16th century and on.

I do think today China would be willing to get it's hands bloody if needed - but it's preferred operation of method is via more less direct forms of attack whether it be economic warfare or hacking and whatnot.

Post: #52

(09-27-2015 03:49 AM)Wutang Wrote:  China before modern the modern era when it was at the height of it's powers weren't particularly interested in conquest or colonization so I don't think that's quite true. No other nation in East Asia matched it in terms of cultural influence or power for centuries until the industrialization of Japan yet China was pretty content to keep to itself. China did attempt an invasion of Japan during the Yuan Dynasty but that was when China was ruled by the Mongols and we knew they're all about the conquering and pillaging.

China's power has always come from it's soft power; using cultural and economic forces to bring other societies under it's power. A good example is what it's doing with Taiwan right now - trying to bind the island closer to it by making it dependent on it economically rather then just marching straight in with guns blazing.

Until the modern era China has always been pretty uninterested in the outside world whether just for the curiosity of encountering new cultures and civilizations or for conquest. I'd say that's a big reason why it fell behind Europe from say about the 16th century and on.

I do think today China would be willing to get it's hands bloody if needed - but it's preferred operation of method is via more less direct forms of attack whether it be economic warfare or hacking and whatnot.

I would differ on that.

Four of the ten deadliest wars in history happened inside of China. It's not that China was content to keep to itself, so much as massive amounts of people inside of China kept killing each other, therefore there was no way China could focus externally.

http://www.wonderslist.com/10-deadliest-...n-history/

Post: #53

(09-27-2015 01:24 PM)kleyau Wrote:  It's not that China was content to keep to itself, so much as massive amounts of people inside of China kept killing each other

Yeah some Chinese conflicts are just hilariously brutal. One great example is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queue_%28h...ueue_order

That's the whole country being forced to wear a special hairstyle, and when people don't comply they massacre them.

Post: #54

One of the things I was going to bring up was that the majority of wars that China has fought in have been mostly between themselves, mostly rebellions and dynasty changes. The death numbers were high in pure numbers but that's what you get when wars happen in a place as populous as China.

Even during periods of peace and stability such as the long prosperous times during the height of the Han and Tang dynasty without much internal strife, you didn't see the sort of outward aggression that was seen in many empires. China for most of it's history has been insular and suspicious of contact with outsiders, hence why the European powers had to go to war with it from the 19th century on just to merely force China to merely trade with them.

The United States has been involved with way more foreign wars within it's less then 300 years history then China has been in it's 5000 which is saying something. The counter to this would be that "Well I was just saying that it's just simply due to China being mostly involved with internal wars" but I do think it holds since as I pointed out above, even during long periods of peace where there weren't constant rebellions and civil wars the Chinese simply didn't really have much interest in interacting with the outside world in the same way Europeans did. And remember that the Chinese solution to attempt to deal with the northern barbarians who were constantly raiding them was to build a huge wall and in some cases even to marry off Chinese princesses to their warlords to keep them pacified.

As for being force to wear the queue, the was an example of an outside force (the Manchus) forcing Han Chinese to comply with a specific order so it's not an example of Chinese aggression. Even so, it's still another example of an internal affair.

I want to add that what I'm saying does not apply to modern China which does indeed seem to have ambitions to be an actor on the world stage. I do not blame Japan for taking notice and making the appropriate adjustments. What I was contesting was Samseau's claim since China did indeed once had the power and influence over Asia that Japan did but at the same time didn't go down the same route Japan did during the late 19th and early to mid 20th century.

Post: #55

Maybe this will help Japanese men grow their balls back. It's just speculation of course but maybe the herbivore problem in Japan is partially driven by the massive defeat in WWII and subsequent castration of the Japanese military.

Post: #56

(09-27-2015 02:30 PM)Wutang Wrote:  What I was contesting was Samseau's claim since China did indeed once had the power and influence over Asia that Japan did but at the same time didn't go down the same route Japan did during the late 19th and early to mid 20th century.

Not so sure about this, China invaded Japan before, multiple times, but the Japs held them off. That's probably the only reason the Japanese weren't brutalized by the Chinese.

And if we want to talk about an impressive death toll, check out Mao's "Great Leap Forward."

China has never really been united enough to conquer other lands, and has always had threats from within holding them back. The Japanese seem to have had less civil wars and less land which meant imperialism was natural for them.

Post: #57

You guys are all right but also all wrong about China's history.

China has always been like 5-6 divided people/ethnicities in different regions with different cultural customs and languages fighting over territory. The Han is the biggest majority but even that identity didn't really become a serious ethnic marker until around maybe the Ming dynasty. Before then it was mostly about family and social affiliation which formed massive city states and then were in turn married into kingdoms. Sometimes those kingdoms got so large they turned into dynasties.

Japan or the various shogunates/daimyos that made up Japan back in the early medieval era (by the european timeline) were very much patterned off of the Tang dynasty. Japan didn't really start to form its own unified identity until around the 16th century which precipitated the Imjin wars. This is when various Japan shogunates unified to invade to take Korea as a vassal. It was a way to bridge the authority between Japan and the ruling and regionally dominant Ming dynasty of China at the time. Since the 16th century it's nearly undeniable that Japan has had designs on the entire region. It's historically a fairly recent development but still pretty old and it explains a lot of the imperialist ambitions of Japan in WW2 too. It's Japan's manifest destiny.

Prior to the 16th century the only "Chinese" dynasty to ever try and conquer the islands where Japan was based were the Yuan Dynasty which were the Mongols. The Yuan dynasty were an extension of Kublai Khan (and Genghis Khan) and his empire. They were not Chinese to begin with.