To what extent is China's claim to be the world's oldest civilization justified?

to what scale?

It's absolute bullshit, the first Chiense writing date back to 1200 bc at most, they didn't have civilization until around that time.
The first Sumerian writings date back to 3500 bc, the first Egyptian writings to 3200-3100 bc, the first Indus valley ones to 2500 bc, the first Minoan hierglyphs to 2100-2000 bc, the Linear A (Minoan) to 1800 bc, Cypro Minoan to 1500 bc, I could go on, they were far from the first, even Greeks became civilized sooner (Myceneans)

Oldest surviving civilization?

Not really, Greeks are documented since 1600-1500 bc (Linear B codified the Ancient Greek language)

They are the oldest "surviving" civilization.

No, that would be the Greeks

Because Enlightenment Europe wasn't as bad as Warring States China, win which Kingdoms were literally total warring each other that Chinese Philosophers all went "Oh gods, I wish there was only one ruler for fucking all of us."

Also
>Lumping Confucianism with Legalism..
It was basically social contract. Somethinge Enlightenment Europe also came across.

>Legalism
How to run government
>Confucianism
How to run society/family
>Taoism
How to run self/world

A lot more of ancient China survives in modern Chinese cultural identity than does ancient Hellenistic culture in modern Greek identity.

Such as?

What survives from the Shang dynasty in modern Chinese exactly?

Ancestor worship

Oh please no one does that there anymore, they are all athetist materailsitic utilitarians

This looks like a warhammer painting, i had to look at it for a while to make sure there were no demons hiding in it.

You are q fucking retard.
The notion of Empire and mandate of heaven came from the Zhou dynasty.
It was them that began what is called "China". The Qin (and other warring states) merely aggregated other people beside the Han in their ranks (a condition for an empire, but still).
The notion of China and its empire is older than the Qin. They reunited China after a long period of time.

Also, what you're thinking when you say the Zhou were like feudal Europe are just the late (western?) Zhou. Before that the state was very centralized.

And to conclude, it was the time between the Zhou and the Qin that gave China the tools to maintain a state considered an empire (legalism, confuncionism, etc).

Actually China never really claim they're "the oldest" civilization.They say they're one of the oldest "continuing civilization" compare to others, and it's basically true . Mesopotamia civilization is long gone; ancient Egypt is long gone and absorbed by Islam now, Rome is gone and absorbed by other Western nations; Indus Valley Civilisation is gone and absorbed by ancient Iranic invaders(the relics and locations are not even in modern India), ancient Greece is gone, absorbed and transformed by Rome and Christians.

Although Chinese civilization also has been damaged and invaded many times, but the core culture and major population are still remains, the concept of "China"(middle kingdom, aka Zhong Guo) has kept being inherited by every dynasties and never vanished, it eventually becomes the official name we see today.

>Oh please no one does that there anymore.
>mfw they literally rebuilt the hall of Muh Clan ancestors in Fujian.
PROTIP: You can't destroy deeply rooted cultural beliefs in a historical equivalent of an overnight. Just as Communist Russia failed to fuck up Orthodoxy, so did the PRC fail to root out folk religion.

The there are cunts there who kill Tigers in the buttloads for magic penis medicine ffs.

Both Enlightenment Europe and Hundred-Schools-of-Thought China came to the meritocracy meme which curtailed the power of noble aristocracy.

Still the Zhou never styled themselves as Emperor like the first emperor of Qin did.

Mesopotamia is the oldest, you fucking faggorto.

Oldest known so far, faggot.

It just irks me how Indus valley has been joined up with Ganges for no fucking reason other than making Pujeets feel like Kangz. Indus doesnt even flow through Gujarat. Wtf is this.

Except Pre-Qin China was feudal. Ever since the Shang. You had Kings, Dukes, Marquises, Counts, and Barons running around *with actual feudal power* as opposed to the honorary modern-knighthood style titles those titles became under Imperial China.

In addition the Zhou was a kingdom established separate from the Shang. It became an empire after leading a coalition of other Kingdoms and Shang rebels against the Shang. The Kings of the lesser kingdoms became dukes under the Zhou, and married their relatives off to unite the whole thing. It therefore had the illusion of centralization largely because the first generation of ruling classes felt tied to the King. It was only later that that relationship frayed and the King had to introduce greater feudal privileges to the Dukes which then increased their power.

Sure it was an empire, but it wasn't an empire as the Imperial (and Modern) Chinese understood it- a single centralized state with no feudal subdivisions. While the Chinese notion of Empire (Tianxia) and the Mandate of Heaven came under the Zhou Period, they were Philosophical/Cultural musings under them, while Imperial China literally made them tangible realities. For example: Tianxia under the Zhou referred to the common culture of the multiple states they ruled. Even during the Warring States, the states identified themselves as part of Tianxia, even if they considered each other different. Meanwhile Imperial China made Tianxia synonymous to the word for Empire, not just a common culture shared.

Look back to the picture here . That is the formal division of Chinese history. Just like how we do Ancient/Medieval/Modern. Notice how the Zhou aren't included in Imperial History. Exactly. Even before modern times, when people in Imperial China spoke of "Ancient Times" they meant the period before the Qin unification.

Korea and Finland being the oldest in actual fact, then?

China is a republic state, though civilizations built by ancestors of modern chinese are the oldest to date excluding the Indus Valley, Norte Chico and Sumeria with Egypt.

>chinese think their culture survived communism
lol

Don't forget the Cucuteni

>To what extent is China's claim to be the world's oldest civilization justified?

Not even slightly.

>How much more of a claim to being representative of an original cradle of civilization do they have compared to Egypt or the Middle East?

They have the same exact claim as the other Primary Civilizations, not Egypt (which probably formed under Sumerian influence) but Sumer, the Indus, Mexico and the Andeans.

>not Egypt (which probably formed under Sumerian influence)

You know jack shit about ancient history, stop posting.

>but africans had no trade partners
>South American natives literally make a civilization from scratch on the otherside of the world

Notice how NONE of these first civilizations were made by african blacks.

They have 3500 year old records saying they are 10000 years deep.

The claim is a lie to prove who is the "Chinesiest", and other societies have older records.

It's like no major river system with fertile land existed in SSA.

Some Chinese can still read ancient Chinese. Many practice traditional Chinese religions, alongside heavy amounts of Confucianism and traditional "medicine".

Modern Egyptians write in Arabic, are muslim, many LARP as Arabs, and literally didn't begin consider themselves at all related to the ancient Egyptians until the 1970's.

Arabs are not at all related to Sumeria of Assyria.

Greeks literally are not the Ancient Greeks. The cultural differences are massive, not to mention the genetic differences.

Pakis are a literal made up nation/ethnic group.

To be honest though, Modern China at best connects to the Han Dynasty. Further back and it is very debateable.

>because the Greeks all spoke Greek

But this isn't true, at all. Might as well say all the Chinese spoke Chinese.

[Multiple Citations needed]

At least fucking take a minute and google the issue before showing how ignorant you are.

It's bullshit.
Chinese are the civilizational equivalent of patent trolls.

>Reeee! we fuck around with primitive black powder pack in bamboo tube a thousand year ago that mean China responsible for ALL firearm development, you owe us gweilo!

>Egypt formed from Sumer influence

Off yourself revisionist idiot.

I don't see why a few random fake claims made by idiots over 4000 years discredits everyone else. Fallacy fallacy.

Just remember how much bullshit we have in Greek/Egyptian/Iraqi history books about who WE WUZ.

Strawman. We have clear evidence of China being the first to create gunpowder and it being copied and improved upon by Arabs/Europeans centuries later.

At least direct your butthurt at a legitimate issue, like China claiming 5000 years of continuous Chinese history. Or Indians claiming India existed before the British.

>Some Chinese can still read ancient Chinese. Many practice traditional Chinese religions, alongside heavy amounts of Confucianism and traditional "medicine".
Means nothing. Their society had radically changed under Mao.

>Modern Egyptians write in Arabic, are muslim, many LARP as Arabs, and literally didn't begin consider themselves at all related to the ancient Egyptians until the 1970's.
I guess Persians, Turks, Englishmen and other people who adopted another writing system and another religion are no longer their ancestors. Also, shitloads of Coptics live in Egypt.

>Arabs are not at all related to Sumeria of Assyria.
Which Arabs? Gulf? No, of course not. Iraqis? Yes.

>Greeks literally are not the Ancient Greeks. The cultural differences are massive, not to mention the genetic differences.
Genetic evidence shows Greeks are largely related to their ancient counterparts. Cultural changes again mean shit since you're insisting Christian Europe are not the descendants of Pagan Europe.

>Pakis are a literal made up nation/ethnic group.
They're strongly connected to the Indus River.

>I guess Persians, Turks, Englishmen and other people who adopted another writing system and another religion are no longer their ancestors

Obviously not. Any person who thinks he has anything in common with his ancestors apart from genetics is fucking retarded. You probably have more in common with a chink living a world away today than with your ancestor from 2k years ago. Don't be silly.

>no major river system
what is the Congo, Niger, Zambezi

>no fertile land
retard, 60% of the worlds arable land is in Africa

Literally any people's culture is started and built up by their ancestors. Where do you think folktales, festivals and language come from?

Did I disagree with that in any way?

No doubt, there are plenty of remnants in our culture from our ancestors. But the things that tend to get stressed and survive are those that are relevant to all generations (arguably all humans in general) and/or to the political climate.

You think an Italian for today has more in common with a Roman from the Republic than with some Japanese guy from Osaka? Or an Indian? Or fucking Muslim from Egypt, at that? Take your pick. You underestimate how much we've developed, and how influenced everyone else is by the Enlightenment.

I have a hard time believing they're any older than smaller indigenous locales.

About as much claim that Byzantium is Rome. It is loosely the same polity was it was in the Bronze age, but they have been cucked and fucked so many times as to be unrecognizable. Even Mao wouldn't recognize the China of today.

yes, they are part of worlds oldest civ: the Formicidae civ

assyrians, armenians, samaritans, sardinians

Present-day China has almost nothing in common with the earlier dynasties. I don't know where this meme comes from.

>the Formicidae civ
Rude!

they just tryin to claim that they arr rook the same as the ancients, which isnt an easy feat to accomplish since euros are enriched with multiculti

>the Formicidae civ

>Chinese society in 1949 and 1976 were radically different
Wrong.

>Present-day China has almost nothing in common with the earlier dynasties
I don't know where is your false impression come from, but here are some common things:

1.Still speak same language(Han). The present "common Chinese"(mandarin) is direct derived from Qing dynasty mandarin.
2.Still write same language(Han). Simplified Chinese is still Chinese, and traditional Chinese is still been used by TW, HK and Maccow. Classical Chinese is still been taught in schools, educated people can still read scripts from 2000 years ago directly.
3.Still has the same major ethnic group: Han.
4.Still has same traditional festivals: Spring festival, Dragon Boat festival, Qing Ming...etc.
5.Still has same traditional religions such as Buddhism, Daoism...etc. Even though they'd been damaged by commies once, but they're recovered now.
6.Confucianism has been revived, Legalism has been promoted, along with other traditional Chinese values.

>along with other traditional Chinese values
this
dog and roach eating unites our prehistoric heritage

Modern China and the Han Dynasty have an immense number of cultural similarities.

It's honestly hilarious how pathetic and ignorant about this issue you guys are.

Unless you meant Shang/Xia/Zhou, then yes I agree.

PRC and Han Dynasty have:
1. Similar written language. It's legible to those who are educated and literate.
2. Same Chinese traditional religions.
3. Same ancestor worship.
4. Same extended families.
5. Similar genetics.
6. Similar Han ethnicity.
7. Same image of themselves in the world, and as a distinct ethnic group.

Iraq? Religion, language, genetics are different. Claim they are Arabs, not Assyrian/Sumerian.
Egypt? Religion, language, and many Egyptians claim they are Arabs.
Pakistan? A literal non-state made up in 1947 like India. Different religion, language, and significantly more turkic/persian influence than the Indus valley civilization.
Greece? Different written language, different spoken language, different religion, half of Ancient Greece is Turkish now, no demigods. Genetics are shifted because of Turk/Slav influx.
Mexico? Have almost nothing to do with Aztecs except massive amounts of violence.
Peru? Nothing to do with Incans, even purified cocaine is knew.

I remember a guy on Veeky Forums told me once that he could track down his family line down to the 1600s or something.

God bless bureaucracy.

>Greece? Different written language, different spoken language, different religion, half of Ancient Greece is Turkish now, no demigods. Genetics are shifted because of Turk/Slav influx.

I would argue that the generic and religion aspect doesn't even matter. A strong and unified Greece wasn't an idea in ancient times. Even when certain Greeks had an idea of uniting their people, that was all there was to it, getting all the Hellenes under a single hegemony. Any kind of "nationalistic" idea of Hellas is non-existent. Slavs are probably the best direct comparison. They might recognize each other as being part of the same people, but they can differ a great deal, and very few at all have any notion of uniting all the Slavs under a single political entity.

No European state really has a "culture" of its own anymore. Only delusional alt-righters believe this. Europeans are all pretty much all the same with only a different flavor from country to country. I mean, lol, there's literally more diversity within Greek poleis only a few kms distant from one another than there is between European countries at opposite ends of the continent. Let's not be delusional about the conformism of today.

I don't even know why most Europeans are so fucking desperate to pick on China, when we have so many things that DID stand the test of time and that form a continuity not found anywhere else in the world--like, for example, the philosophical tradition.

Danube valley civilization is older than sumer but is largely ignored because it was discovered by the soviets (first major evidence being dug up around 1960's) and vast majority of the research into it is in russian and other eastern european languages and has never been translated into english. Also leftist academics dont generally want to admit that oldest civilization in the world is infact european. Danube valley and the black sea coast had cities thousand years before sumer and probably had a writing system in form of the Vinca symbols which shares majority of its "letters" with greek linear A. Unfortunately we cant even read linear A so theres no way to translate the Vinca symbols.

>grow up with communist grandparents that tell me this area was a hotbed out of which european civilization began
>doubt them completely because none of this is in the western sources
>mfw it's slowly coming true

Christ, I hope they weren't right about God too. I'd be fucked.

The Han is a meme ethnicity. A southerner from Guangzhou is more similar to a Vietnamese person than to a northener from Beijing.

They just replaced their emperors with the CCP.

Ethnicity isn't just about genetics, dumbass.

That's not true though. Southern and Northern Han are still more closely related to each other than they are to anyone else.

>Pakis are a literal made up nation/ethnic group.
Indus Valley was Dravidian so South Indian in natue

>The Han is a meme ethnicity.
Ethnicity was never based on genetics,patrimonial descent(whether real or imagined) is the main reason why Southern Han view themselves as Han.

>Southern and Northern Han are still more closely related to each other than they are to anyone else.
Depends on what kind of Southern Han,"Southern Han" have considerable genetic variation and the Yue speaking populations are significantly closer to Dai/Vietnamese populations than to Beijing Han.

There's a genetic cline from northeastern China(Liaoning) all the way to southwestern China(Guangxi)

>Or Indians claiming India existed before the British.
It wasn't an official state but more of a kind of cultural union.

There was a cultural idea of India and the 'Indian' people, but by the definition of independent nation states India didn't exist as an official nation then.

For example, for Britain itself, in England during the Dark Ages the idea of England existed but in actual fact that region was very much divided into several sovereign kingdoms: Wessex, East Anglia, Mercia and Northumbria to name the main ones.

When Augrenzab started going ballistic it invoked a lot of the local kingdoms who wouldn't usually ally with each other in doing so.

It didn't always happen most of the time of course. People would forget their ancient history and out their regional territories and interests above the greater good but there was always an identity.

pls Don't forget the Vinca

关关雎鸠,在河之洲。
窈窕淑女,君子好逑。
It's a poem written 3000 years ago.Chinese students learn them in high school.So can you read Homer's Epic in ancient Greek?

China isn't the oldest civilization but it's one of the oldest and has lasted longer than most others.

Why are they all located in Asia?

Your mom is meme, your ass is meme, Amerifag is meme, and I bet you can't even read or speak Chinese.

A southerner from Guangzhou and a northerner from Beijin can still communicate with each others and both can read scripts from Shi Ji 2000 years ago with little to no problem. Can Vietnamese still do the same with Chinese? Even their writing system looks like Westerners now.

Not just that, it still "RHYME" in modern mandarin, that's the most amazing part!

>Egypt
>Norte Chico
>Asia

Vietnam just adopted Latin script to stop being China 2.0

Some variant of greek was spoken from magna grecia and athens to anatolia and antioceia.And they were mutually intelligble

Ancient and modern Greek does have differences but most people can understand ancient Greek, the are similar in many ways still.It'S NOT REALLY a different language.You are correct about everything else though.

Link to english version? Very interested in ancient poetry/philosophy.

Places like China and Egypt that claim to be a continuous society even when they get conquered or ruled by foreigners kinda irk me. Conquered by Mongols? Nah, that's just the Yuan dynasty.
Side note: fuck that video from the OP. Mongols conquer and rape several dozen million people? "Mongols conquer some stuff, go mongols!" Rome slaughters everyone in Carthage, destroys the city, salts the land? Not mentioned. European settlers win a war against natives? We'd better go out of our way to characterize them as murderous bastards.

The Mongols called themselves a Chinese dynasty though.

that video

But it is the Yuan dynasty. That's what the Mongols themselves declared. They did it so they could look legitimate because China was always getting split up or overthrowing their previous rulers.

That doesn't change the fact that they were conquered and ruled over by foreigners. Calling it a continuous society is like native Americans bragging about their society going to the moon under the great Nixon dynasty

Utter horse shit. "China" has been conquered and transformed by many different peoples and upheavals across the millennia. Modern day china has NOTHING to do with the first united Chinese kingdom, far less than Europe has to do with Ancient Rome/Greece.

It's a love poem from 詩經 關雎。Read traditional Chinese version, no simplified. And I have to tell you, it loses the beauty when it get translate, so read Chinese if you can.

Here you go
ctext.org/book-of-poetry/odes-of-zhou-and-the-south/zh?en=on
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_of_Poetry

China has been constantly changing throughout history. All cultures do that.

>Modern day china has NOTHING to do with the first united Chinese kingdom, far less than Europe has to do with Ancient Rome/Greece.
Now that's a laugh.

I'm sorry, even in Yuan dynasty, the political, economical and cultural system are largely remain the same, same as the major population. Getting conquered doesn't mean they lost their culture and civilization.

Lol asians are so delusional

I see you didn't even read the previous discussion.
See these posts first:

Can you read this?
建國號詔
誕膺景命,奄四海以宅尊;必有美名,紹百王而紀統。肇從隆古,匪獨我家。且唐之為言蕩也,堯以之而著稱;虞之為言樂也,舜因之而作號。馴至禹興而湯造,互名夏大以殷中,世降以還,事殊非古。雖乘時而有國,不以利而制稱。為秦為漢者,著從初起之地名;曰隋曰唐者,因即所封之爵邑。且皆徇百姓見聞之偶習,要一時經制之權宜,概以至公,不無少貶。我太祖聖武皇帝,握乾符而起朔土,以神武而膺帝圖,四震天聲,大恢土宇,輿圖之廣,歷古所無。頃者耆宿詣庭,奏草申請,謂既成於大業,宜早定於鴻名。在古制以當然,於朕心乎何有!可建國號曰大元,蓋取《易經》乾元之義,茲大冶流形於庶品,孰名資始之功。予一人底寧於萬邦,尤切體仁之要,事從因革,道協天人。於戲!稱義而名,固非為之溢美;孚休惟永,尚不負於投艱。嘉與敷天,共隆大號!

This is from Yuan dynasty, and approved and announced by Kublai himself.

>"China" has been conquered and transformed by many different peoples and upheavals across the millennia.
All of whom seem intent to found a Chinese-style Imperial Dynasty and immerse themselves into the culture away from their barbaric ancestors. Including changing their names.

>Hey Tuobas, Watcha doin?
Northern Wei Dynasty. We Mandate of Heaven now.
>Hey Khitans, Watcha doin?
Liao Dynasty. We Mandate of Heaven no-
>Hey Jurchens, Watcha doin and why did you kill the Khitans for?
Northern Jin Dynasty. We Mandate of Heaven now.
>Hey Mongols, Watcha doin?
Yuan Dynasty. We Mandate of Heaven now.
>Hey Jurch-, oh, Manchus, Watcha doin (again)?
Jin Dynas- I mean, Qing Dynasty. We Mandate of Heaven now.

As if there was this recognized solid realm to be rulers of instead of randomly carving a kingdom or something...

>Tries to tie modern Greeks with pre-Homeric Greeks