Why did China lose so many wars and let itself get conquered so many times?

I'm no Sinoboo, but the first two fall in line with their "Century of Humiliation" and the Sino-Vietnamese War was pretty much the precursor to Israel's 2006 invasion of Hezbollah.

Not to excuse shitty performance, but people constantly point to Qing ineptness and post-Cultural Revolution weakness as a sign that contemporary China will be easy to defeat in a war. It's reckless and irresponsible, so luckily none of you will ever command a Western military.

Oops, I meant Lebanon, not Hezbollah. My point still stands, though.

>periods of decline
The Turks easily swooped in and conquered them, so did the Mongols and even the Brits.
They dont seem to be a strong militar power in history when they had a bigger empire than the Romans ever did.

OP here, never said that China isn't a strong nation, I'm just wondering how the Chinese ethnic people survived so much mixing with other ethnicities that came to rule the Chinese empires and lost so many battles but still retained their independency in the end.

I think it's quite an amazing feat, but they did get beaten by Turks, Mongols, the English, the French, the Vietnamese and the Japanese.

They won against the Tibetans and the Koreans but that's about it.

Barbarian conquerors tried to assimilate into their new digs, whether it be Rome or China. And I might be wrong as I'm no expert on Chinese history, but China was conquered by the Mongols and then later by Manchurians, two nomadic cultures who had no way to resist the strength of Chinese culture.

In turn, China (and the rest of Asia) had no way to resist the pull of Western culture. For China, the lesson from their "Century of Humiliation" isn't that military strength is paramount. Outside of Mongol buttrape, China has only been conquered when it was domestically weak in a similar fashion as Rome. This is why they're so paranoid about keeping the state strong and the country unified, because it's so large and unwieldy of a country that domestic disturbances open the door for foreign meddling.

>lose so many wars
?

>conquered by foreigners so many times
Twice in 3000 years?

>Sino-Viet war
>Chinese forces entered northern Vietnam and captured several cities near the border. On March 6, 1979, China declared that the gate to Hanoi was open and that their punitive mission had been achieved, before withdrawing their troops from Vietnam. Both China and Vietnam claimed victory in the last of the Indochina Wars of the 20th century; as Vietnamese troops remained in Cambodia until 1989, it can be said that China was unsuccessful in their goal of dissuading Vietnam from involvement in Cambodia. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Sino-Vietnamese border was finalized.

Although unsuccessful in their goal to deter Vietnam from Cambodia, China was able to demonstrate that their Cold War Communist adversary, the Soviet Union, was unable to protect their new Vietnamese ally.[20]

Wow they got beaten by 5 groups in 3000 years?

It were the manchurians first and then the Mongols.
The manchurians had actually migrated within Chinese lands before conquering the northern half of China which they called the Jin Dynasty which was later usurped by Genghis Khan and came to be part of the Mongol empire which then fractured and China became the Mongol Yuan dynasty under Kublai Khan which was the grandson of Genghis Khan.

I'm not talking about the time inbetween, I'm talking about all the wars they've fought and how they've managed to lose most of them despite being an incredible world power several times.

>I'm talking about all the wars they've fought and how they've managed to lose most of them despite being an incredible world power several times.
[Citation needed]

So did Rome. Remember the Huns? What if the Romans had faced the much stronger Xiognu Empire in 200 BC?

Open a book on China.
Rome won most of the wars they've fought in the end, China absorbed the ethnic population of conquerers by interbreeding or their conquerers were defeated by another conqueror.

>China (and the rest of Asia) had no way to resist the pull of Western culture.
I would argue china is the least receptive to western influences in some respects. Even if they do adopt something, it's more as if it's absorbed into the chinese entity, like with previous conquerors. And one of the core tenets of the CCP is to make china strong without relying on allies, especially western ones. Think about it, the chinese translate every foreign word or concept into chinese terms, rarely using loan words.

>the lesson from their "century of humiliation isn't
Did you mean is?

I agree with your post, bu the Chinese army probably would be easy to defeat when you consider its riddled with corruption, heavily politicized, and has been going through "corruption" purges that have claimed quite a few high level scalps.
>I would argue china is the least receptive to western influences in some respects. Even if they do adopt something, it's more as if it's absorbed into the chinese entity, like with previous conquerors.
desu this applies to Asia in general, although when it comes to religion Japan has won out in resisting the West compared to Korea/China

>applies to asia in general
Not really. Japan in particular is known to model off whatever works, first the tang, then the british forms of governments. Korea is also the only country of the three you mentioned where christianity got a foothold in, which is now declining.

>Japan has won out in resisting the West compared to Korea/China

you wot m8?

>Turks
Gokturks were BTFO by the early Tang. inb4 Xianbei were Turkics.

>Mongols
Three separate Chinese regimes,with Chinese forces forming the bulk of the infantry forces.

>Vietnamese
Never mind that the vast majority of so called "Chinese" invasions of Vietnam were punitive in nature or at the request of a fallen Vietnamese dynasty.

They were going for a culture victory