Why is China so insignificant in world history despite having been so wealthy and heavily populated...

Why is China so insignificant in world history despite having been so wealthy and heavily populated? They contributed practically nothing in terms of inventions or discoveries, and only wars of geopolitical imports they've fought have been either civil wars or ones they've lost.

This is gonna be gud.

Inb4 muh gunpowder.
Chinese used it for toys, while Europeans turned it into real weapons. Even the Japs were better at using gunpowder weapons than the Chinese, because Japs got their weapons from Europe through Portugal.

Shift+Click

Sage and report.

ayy yaaaa
neva forget the six trillion raped at 南京 you dirty gwailos

>china
>into military

Why can't asians handle the banter, Veeky Forums?

Your perspective is western-centric. You imagine and measure every other culture according to the standards that are used to described your own civilisation.

Not every culture is on the same technological ladder. Society and cultures are more complicated than a fucking civ game. Most inventions are motivated by a need, they don't just come out because someone is smart, and if that's the case, then they stay if they answer a need, otherwise they just become a hobbyist thing.

Each culture is trying to adapt to its environment, and the more adapted it is, the more static and stable it is. One could argue that western civilisation was the result of the most unstable, diverse and overpopulated social environment, therefore so many things happened. By comparison, in native american tribes, in a world that is much less densely populated, it's another story.

If our cultural ancestors never ran out of space in the Middle-East, the neolithic revolution wouldn't have happened, and everyone would still be hunting and gathering. Hell, that whole agriculture thing is still recent news compared to all the time we've spent walking all year, eating whatever we found and trading with whoever we met.

they have an inferiority complex which gives them a superiority complex. the whole thing is quite hilarious.

>Most inventions are motivated by a need
What a crock of bullshit.

>One could argue that western civilisation was the result of the most unstable, diverse and overpopulated social environment,
West was not overpopulated you retard. If anything, it had a population crisis after the Black Death, a period which coincides with the goddamn Renaissance.

It's true though,

There is a problem that needs to be solved or improved, and someone thinks about it, and comes up with something.

>They contributed practically nothing in terms of inventions or discoveries

Gunpowder and the rudder were two big ones.

>only wars of geopolitical imports they've fought have been either civil wars or ones they've lost.

That's because China went into decline right as the age of global wars was starting. Also, I'm pretty sure that China won WWII.

>so wealthy
Muh wealthy

>only wars of geopolitical imports they've fought have been either civil wars or ones they've lost.

What about the Korean War and the Sino-Indian War?

>I'm pretty sure that China won WWII.
dank

>Also, I'm pretty sure that China won WWII.
excuse me

How is having a quarter of the world's GDP not wealthy?

because this is not /int/

Congratulation, you just earned 50 cents for your post, Chang

this is /int/ with dates and pretentions

Because you people reproduce fast like roachs.

They're far away and isolated from everyone else so most of the things they invented or innovated never spread very far. Stuff like the printing press, blast furnace, paper money, etc never spread and had to be developed elsewhere at a much later date. Chinese thought and institutions stayed in China and East Asia, never influencing developments far to the West.

In contrast, the more closely interconnected civilizations of Western Eurasia were constantly influencing each other's technological, intellectual and economic development so that every civilization has a very obvious relevance to every other.

That said, the stuff that did spread, like gunpowder and paper, were extremely important and it's completely retarded to call them insignificant. This is obviously a bait thread so I don't know why I'm bothering with a real response.

That's completely wrong, you meme worshipping fuck.

>That said, the stuff that did spread, like gunpowder and paper, were extremely important
I think you meant to say the two inventions that came out of China in its entire history were extremely important. I agree, but Chinese paper and Chinese gunpowder were shit and had to be improved by Europeans before being useful.

I'm just gonna paste this from the wiki and you can feel free to dispute each individual item

>Amalgam (dentistry) Artemether/lumefantrine Artillery Baguenaudier Bamboo and wooden slips Banknote Banknote seal (China) Bedar (ship) Bell Blast furnace Bomb Bong Bulkhead (partition) Butterfly sword Cannon Cast iron Celadon Chain stitch Chicken sickles Chopsticks Churn drill Coke (fuel) Compass Construction of electronic cigarettes Counting rods Cupola furnace Dagger-axe Dominoes Electronic cigarette Facekini Field mill (carriage) Finery forge Fire arrow Fire lance Firearm Firecracker Fishing reel Folding screen Fragmentation (weaponry) Gift wrapping Gun Gunpowder Hand cannon Hand fan Handscroll Hanging scroll Helicopter rotor Hill censer History of the compass Hook sword Horse collar Hybrid rice Ink brush Inkstick Inkstone Inoculation Junk (ship) Junk rig Kite Lacquer Land mine Land sailing Man-lifting kite Meat analogue Merit system Meteor hammer Movable type Multistage rocket Nail polish Naval mine Nickel silver Noodle Oil well Oil-paper umbrella Paddy field Paper Paper cup Paper lantern Papermaking Pig iron Playing card Porcelain Raised-relief map Repeating crossbow Rocket Rocket launcher Rope dart Seed drill Seismometer Sericulture Shell (projectile) Silk Sky lantern Snap fastener South-pointing chariot Soy sauce Stir frying Tangram Teapot Three-section staff Toilet paper Toothbrush Two-section staff Vernier scale Water-dropper (calligraphy) Wheat gluten (food) Wheelbarrow Woodblock printing

>soy sauce
>stir frying
>noodle
>gift wrapping
That's some hilarious list you have there. The more so as you thought it was going to impressive people.

I did get you to read all the way to S so my job is done

>I think you meant to say the two inventions that came out of China in its entire history were extremely important.
There's also the compass. I've already explained why few inventions left China.

>Chinese paper and Chinese gunpowder were shit
Fuck off with this meme. Gunpowder was fully developed during the Mongol invasion, by which time grenades and true guns had been invented and were in widespread use. Europeans improved on cannon and handguns in later centuries, they didn't reinvent gunpowder. I'm not aware of any especially important European improvements to paper-making until the 19th century.

Stop pretending you have the slightest idea what you're talking about.

>It's another episode of Chinese paid commentators boasting about muh powder and muh paper on a Laotian cartoon board

wew lads

>Chinese man
>Picture of a Mongol

>they didn't reinvent gunpowder.
Smokeless powder?

>everyone who breaks your predetermined opinions is a paid shill.

We're not talking about the 20th century.

19th century but whatever
also I'd consider it a "reinvention" due to the fact it immediately made normal gunpowder obsolete.

You are literally the dumbest man on earth if you think gunpowder remained the same and did not improve from the 9th century until 19th century.

Who the fuck said that?

good thing I didn't say that then

Zhang please work on your reading comprehension.

NOOO, Chinese were nasty at warfare

I'd be so much more interested in chinese history if it wasn't for these obvious butthurt nationalists scrambling out of the woodwork whenever a word of criticism/honest dialogue is uttered (not OP's shitpost btw obv).

i'mma bet you 100 RMB that one PRCboo is gonna pop up in this thread and do his usual great wall of (you's) reply string shitpost.

One thing to understand is that China is isolated. Siberia to the north, desert to the north-west, mountains to the west, jungle to the south-west and sea everywhere else. Their influence spread to those around them, but they were confined to their little corner of the world until the Age of Sail began. That's when Europe got its advantage over everyone else.

For quite a long time, the entire world was confined to the land they could reach on horseback or on little ships, and suddenly, you have a bunch of people that could project their influence and power anywhere in the world.

>why isn't Chinese history relevant to me, a Westerner, taught with Western education??

t. OP

OP BTFO

>black death caused the renaissance meme
Stop this, the renaissance started after the fall of constantinople when all the italians there took books and shit with them when they fled

Why didn't China sail out and colonize and what not?

because they're too busy putting down their own uppity population more

The Ming Dynasty sailed out, but due to the scheming of the eternal eunuch, it did not colonize and ended up burning their entire exploration fleet.

Individual Chinese people did sail and settle in parts of Southeast Asia though, where they created outposts of Chinese culture in places like Singapore.