How come the korean peninsula was never absorbed by China? I hope it isn't a silly question but geographically speaking...

How come the korean peninsula was never absorbed by China? I hope it isn't a silly question but geographically speaking, they could have "conquered" it had they wanted to. Why didn't they?

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Commanderies_of_Han
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Commanderies_of_Han
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_of_Korea
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"China" is ambiguous as fuck.

japan was pretty bad ass back in the day
conquered and murdered many chinese brutally. by time they fell back and china was ready to expand korean war had started and china had a better idea to use koreans as a human shield

They do have a yin-yang on their flag. And a lot of Chinese surnames.

They tried, failed, and found out that it was easier to just make Korea a tributary.

>conquered
They arrived when Chine was at the weakest it's been in centuries.

>and murdered many chinese brutally.
They massacred civilians mostly to try and break the spirit of the people.

Communist China isn't.....

This is what I heard before but it just blows my mind how a nation as big as China couldn't deal with such a small piece of land. Is Korea deeply influenced by them though?

Not enough

Look up a topographical map of Korea. Its incredibly mountainous and surrounded on 3 sides by water. It's incredibly difficult to invade

> This is what I heard before but it just blows my mind how a nation as big as China couldn't deal with such a small piece of land.

Same reason the US doesn't invade Canada, despite having an overwhelming advantage. The benefits of direct rule is outweighed by the trouble of invading an country with easily defensible terrain. Even if you conquered the country, you are going to end up having to pacify rebels there over and over, making it not worth it.

> Is Korea deeply influenced by them though?

The Korean nobility all spoke and wrote Chinese, and official government business was conducted in Chinese. It wasn't until Sejong the Great reformed the Korean language in the 1400's that Korean superseded Chinese in government use (Korean is a shitload easier to learn than Chinese). The nobility were quite miffed because they though their knowledge of Chinese and Korean made them better than the peasants who just knew Korean. Chinese is still present in modern Korean language as Hanja, which is used in some official capacity.

They fucking tried

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Commanderies_of_Han

> History begins at 1900

Why not? Music began in 1910

???

...

Why weren't Canada or Mexico absorbed by the USA?

It's a meme

????

Follow up question: Assuming China knows how mountainous Korea was, and that Japan had success with naval invasions, why didn't they launch their own naval invasion from one of the peninsulas near korea?

China has literally never had the power to organize itself in a manner as to allow for imperialism beyond its borders.

All expansion was extremely moderate due to the political instability that is almost like a national sport in China.

They simply have had too many people to keep control of throughout history.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Commanderies_of_Han

>China has literally never had the power to organize itself in a manner as to allow for imperialism beyond its borders.
Depends on what you mean by the "borders".
China originated as a bunch of states in the northern plains of "China" today, from there they expanded into and Sinicized the barbaric and mountainous South, as far south as Vietnam, they expanded to Xinjiang, Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, far beyond what was originally "China". The modern borders exist because they expanded so far outside of their own original territory.

What anime?

I know you like thinking you know everything, but you don't.

"China" used to be a few kingdoms in North-Central China that comprised 2% of China's modern land and 5% of the population at the time.

Now I wonder how China today exists in its present form if your uninformed shitpost is accurate.

What i think it is is a circular movement of conquest followed by continuous rebellion. This is what i mean.

its empire is unruly. It could certainly have expanded much farther beyond and have been a greater power than any european nation but i believe its internal situation never allowed for this even though they had the technological edge and the resource edge.

Now their land did expand that is true but a kingdom that is almost always divided is what kept it from conducting the imperialism that the west did.

didnt the mongols invade it without issue?

Thats Taiwan during its colonial period you dumbfuck

Koreans are the true Chinese

>It could certainly have expanded much farther beyond and have been a greater power than any european nation
The size of China was already comparable to the entirety of Europe combined. China is like a Roman Empire that never fell.

>but a kingdom that is almost always divided is what kept it from conducting the imperialism that the west did.
On the contrary, the West needed to go overseas to expand and practice mercantilism because none of them could control the whole of Europe and its resources, so needed to find overseas conquests instead. Part of the drive behind the Age of Exploration was finding trade routes to China that didn't go through muslims.
China with its greater degree of unity had all the resources it needed within its own borders and didn't need to play the mercantilism game or particularly desire trade with Europe.

But i mean, how could they not fight one or two of those western powers off then if they are the rome that never fell? If they are so strong and united how could they lose to a power with 1/10th of the resources and thousands of miles away from it.

First and Second Opium wars happened before Raj was a thing so Britain didnt even have that much control over india.

How did china get crushed under the west`s boot and forced to turn its people into drug addicts if they are so great?

My point is, surely there must be reason as to why they are not able to fight back even though the odds of the wars are completely in their favor.

I say it is because it is desorganized.

If that isnt so then what do you think it is?

Imagine if the UK in the 1800s had the population of China instead.

Imagine that if the UK`s 15 million people were swapped for 300 million people that china has at this point. Would there really be any single part of land that did not belong to the Brittish empire?

The Qing dynasty wasn't disunited at the time of the opium wars. It was corrupt and stagnant sure, the golden years of the Qianlong Emperor had passed, but it wasn't the disorganized shitshow that it would become later when the Taiping Rebellion happened.

But China was capable of supporting 300 million people. The UK at the time was not.
Still, shitloads of Chinese from the South at that time did migrate overseas to Southeast Asia or America looking for a better life.

Korean and Chinese Kingdoms have been rivals, at least since the fall of the Han. Infact, the Korean Kingdom of Goguryeo is the only East Asian power to actually rival the Chinese Kingdoms, heck they even defeated the Sui Dynasty. And if Tang hadn't been formed as it did, Goguryeo could have claimed the Title of Emperor. Which I find funny, you got a great Kingdom like Goguryeo that was the arch nemisis of Sui and Tang, but their King never took the title of Emperor, DESPITE BEING THE ONLY KINGDOM TO ACTUALLY RIVAL THE CHINESE EMPEROR, but Greatest King. Meanwhile insignificant nations like Vietnam and Japan go WE ARE EMEPRURS NOW, granted they never refer to their sovereign as emperor to the Chinese Court. . .

BUT TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION after the Tang allied with Silla to conquer Goguryeo. Silla and Tang quickly got into conflict, but because of rebellion and wars in the western regions Tang had retreat and settle its borders with Silla. However, Silla knew that if Korea did not improve its relationship with the Chinese Emperor, they would become a prefecture. And The Chinese Sovereign and Imperial Court had experience how hard it was to expand into Korea, considering its terrain and to protect China's current borders but most importantly, the borders to the West are simply more valuable for China. So the settlement of close relationship was great deal for both parties. Chinese Emperors get a close ally and tributary, basically making it a prefecture, except they don't have to deal with massive uprising and Korea gets a strong ally, and to keep its independence.

>Infact, the Korean Kingdom of Goguryeo is the only East Asian power to actually rival the Chinese Kingdoms
Goguryeo at its zenith wasn't even close to the a strength of a unified Chinese dynasty,they couldn't even annex Silla and Baekje to their south.

The whole premise of this thread is anachronistic,concepts of "China" and "Korea" didn't exist while the former had at the very least a geopolitical notion of a core territory in the Central Plains.

The historical Korean peninsula was originally inhabited by para-Japonic speakers in the central/southern portions while the Koreanic Goguryeo/Buyeo were from Jilin where there was also Tungusic elements.

Furthermore, the first "Korean" polity of Gojoseon took their namesake from a polity in northeastern Hebei/Liaoxi with the historical Wiman Joseon shifting towards Liaodong/northwestern Korea of unknown linguistic affiliation besides Sinitic.

Long story short: china was a mess, japan was a prick and the koreans had supernatural abilities who allowed them to win lost wars or drag it until it was no longer worth.

So human shield they became.

Mountains are a real bitch.

>Taeguk
>Yin-yang
You fuck off

>Goguryeo at its zenith wasn't even close to the a strength of a unified Chinese dynasty
Note how i say Kingdoms, not Dynasty. I am referring to period from fall of the Jin to the establishment of the Sui and the transition period from Sui to Tang

Buffer state. They have a heavily armed puppet that keeps the Americans away. If they controlled the North directly then Communist China(not the real China, That's Taiwan) would have a direct border with a US de facto state.

>Taeguk
>not Yin-yang
a simple google search will dispel your misconceptions

Because for 90% of the history on the korean subcontinent to the Chinese it was already conquered. They came to the Emperor and paid homage, which to the Chinese was their submission. The Koreans weren't invading China, and to my knowledge weren't accousting chinese Merchants so they were left alone while they tried to manage their own Empire.

They were a vassal state anyway.

They were allied with China. There was no reason for China to keep Korea when the two were allied.

There's this huge thing called Manchuria between China and Korea

China for most of its history was by far the largest and most powerful empire in its region, at least whenever it was unified. There was no need to war and annex Korea to increase China's power because they had no geopolitical foes to compete with. In fact, controlling Korea would probably only make China even more internally unstable. Not that warring Korea would be an easy job, as mentioned why.

Instead, it was much easier and beneficial for China for Korea to act as a tributary state.

So was Constantinople

Literally China's first war with a unified Korean State (Wiman Joseon) had, for it's objectives to weaken the unity between the people of the Korean peninsula. As such, Han China merely destroyed the state, planted four provinces near their border, and watched as the Koreans went apeshit at each other.

This was largely because Emperor Wu of Han feared a second power that could potentially threaten the Empire from the North. He already had his hands full with the Xiongnu Horsenigger Empire.

>unified Korean State (Wiman Joseon)
There's nothing "Korean" about Wiman Joseon,pre Wiman Joseon was one of many polities in Liaodong that was collectively known as the Eastern Hu. Even Joseon was originally a polity/toponym in northeastern Hebei/Liaoxi.

Wei Man was a Yan refugee who managed to either usurp or found his kingdom by subjugating various ethnicities/polities such as the Sinitic Yan/Qi refugees and the native Joseon,Chinbon and Yemaek,Imdun of unknown linguistic affiliation.

>for it's objectives to weaken the unity between the people of the Korean peninsula.
By the time of King Youqu,Wiman Joseon maintained intercourse with the Xiongnu and prevented native Korean polities from contacting the Han court.

There was no unified identity during that era,scholars still debate what kind of linguistic/ethnic diversity that permeated Liaodong/Korean peninsula and modern day Jilin(None of the Three "Korean" kingdoms viewed Wiman Joseon as their geopolitical predecessor).

Hardly. It took several invasions over the course of decades with heavy losses to finally turn Korea into a vassal state, despite Korea being right on the border of their power base. Because its mountainous terrain made it easy to defend. Conquering/vassalizing Khwarezm, Kievan Rus, the Balkans, Kara-Khitai, the Abbasid Caliphate, etc. were cakewalks by comparison despite their distance from Mongolia.

China's window of weakness was roughly 150-200 years, and can be blamed almost entirely on the Manchus and their subordinates refusing to modernize. A blip on the radar on macro historical terms. They were the most powerful country in the world prior to the 19th century. Now that the 21st century hit, they're #2.

Even its so-called Century of Humiliation has been exaggerated a bit for propaganda purposes. They were weak, but not totally at the mercy of the West. For example, the Qing dynasty forced Russia to hand over disputed territory in Ili in the Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1881), because Russia acknowledged that Qing China potentially posed a serious military threat and would probably win a conflict in that region. In the Sino-French War of 1885, the Imperial Chinese forces actually checked the French on land (albeit with a large numerical advantage) and were only forced to sign a treaty favorable to the French because they had basically no navy. In the lead-up to the Sino-Japanese War, Western observers were predicting an easy Chinese victory, and they actually had a decent fleet at this time that could probably keep them from being pushed around by the more minor European powers (not Britain, but e.g. the Netherlands), but the Japanese sunk it with a few displays of tactical brilliance (shocking everyone). Et cetera.

Holy shit this is so entertaining.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_of_Korea

Mongols demand tributes, Korea tells them to fuck off. Mongols invade, Koreans drag it out and sue for peace after the capital is taken. After that, they secretly move the royal family to the korean taiwan and make it the new capital. Mongols are so fucking mad but they can't into sailing, so they start killing everything on the mainland. Island korea sues for peace again, and agrees to send some important hostages. They send some random nobodies, fucking twice. Mongols lose their fucking minds and force mainland koreans to build them ships and peace is only finally reached when someone on the island assassinates the head of the royal family.

False equivalency at its finest right here. The history of the americas is only a few hundred years old, while asia is more than 2 millennia. (plus america did take away land and beat them in a war in the 1800's.

China has never been a conquering state or people. They have never been good at wars, from the mongol invasion, to the opium wars, boxer rebellion or the japanese invasion in the 1930's, when faced with a decent opponent china has always been the most inept war state.

What a fucking awful post.

It is hard to determine china's actually warring ability, since at its strongest point it has never chosen to invade widely, and only comes into conflict when it is at its weakest

Tactically speaking, is wholesale murder of civilian population conducive to the longterm conquest of a united people? How exactly does it function in practice? Does it actually break the countrymen's will, or does it only incite further rebellion from the occupied natives?

Asking a legitimate question here. Closest parallel I could think of is when the Vietnamese people turned on American GI's for any real or imagined crimes, leading to a loss of public support for the war in Vietnam.

If its afew small tribes and you have maxim guns it might work

All the japanese did bled the nationalist party white, allowing for the CCP to win

I guess being on an island that long will do that to you

What an awful reply.

>china has never been a conquering state
is this bait?

>China has never been a conquering state
>They have never been good at wars
>"My understanding about Chinese history start at 19th century. The post".

False knowledge and typical /pol/ tier shitpost at it's finest. Shitpost may makes you sleep better at night but it won't change the fact you're still full of shit. And I'm a bit tire about bullshit like yours.

Literally every major military powers in the world, including US and weeb's favorite Japan, have to study China's Art of War and use their military heritage like guns and gunpowder. But in your twisted mind, they're just not good at wars? And your only proof are just a series of defeats and chaos from "China's weakest moments" of Chinese history? How stupid, ignorant and arrogant can you be to say something like this? I know you may think you're some expert of Chinese history because you read some shitposts from /pol/, but truth is you really are not. You're just another opinionated shitposter.

Btw, this battle literally decided the fate of Korea peninsula and the Sinofication of Korea and Japan. And look who's the winner here?

el bumpo

China got about as big as it could have with its technology.

North? Siberia and mongol horsefuckers
West? Muslims and desert and mountains
Southwest? Biggest mountain range in the world.
South? Jungles and ravaging tropical diseases.
Southeast? Giant ocean and reefs and thousands of islands with hostile inhabitants.
East? Biggest ocean in the world.
North-east? China did expand their multiple times but always realized that the net cost was far higher than just having them be protectorates.

Nonetheless, at multiple times in history China did expand to these areas. But each time the limitation of technology and geography made it extremely costly. China was and still is a geographically isolated nation.

The one issue you can say "what-if" for though is China and Korea/Japan. I assume it's cultural honestly.

those are taiwanese abos not chinese

t. Absolute idiot

Please leave Veeky Forums.

I thought they were the same thing according to young Taiwanese.

>China was and still is a geographically isolated nation.

this is the stupidest post i've read all day.

China has already pushed its borders as far as mountains and deserts and jungles and sea will allow. They're isolated.

Geography and population is always the answer.

Korea were just as isolated from China as Japan, just by mountains not sea.

And then remember the "Divine Wind" (kamikaze) typhoon that wrecked the Mongol fleet trying to conquer Japan? Apparently, the Mongols asked pissed off Koreans whom they had just conquered to build them an invasion fleet, and the Koreans built them one of purposely shitty quality (usually Korean ships were among the best in Asia, look how they wrecked the Japanese later in insane 13vs200 ship battles, etc.) hoping they would all drown and knowing Mongol inspectors didn't have a clue what a quality ship looked like, and drown they did lol.

North Korea serves as a bufferzone