Chinese dynasties are considered each legitimate successors

>The Chinese dynasties arose from different geographical regions, were based in different capitals, controlled different territories
That's not true tho, all dynasties ruled China from Inner China and controlled the area. Just like the ERE was in fact considered the actual roman empire after the fall of WRE, but only as long as it held Italy and Rome. Once they were forced to abandon the region, legitimacy shifted to those who took over: the papacy and the HRE. The HRE, let's remember, that was considered in Europe THE empire in the same way Rome used to be (and the imperial dynasties in China) for centuries, until the imperial see lost the ability to project its influence beyond Germany.

Also let's not forget that steppenigger dynasties in China saw themselves as the imperial rulers of China holding the Mandate of Heaven, not as a fucking khanate, same goes for Charlemagne (yet not the germs in general). Compare with the ottos who didn't consider themselves as successors to Rome at all, only conquerors.

>Just like the ERE was in fact considered the actual roman empire after the fall of WRE, but only as long as it held Italy and Rome. Once they were forced to abandon the region, legitimacy shifted to those who took over: the papacy and the HRE.
this is why nobody takes Veeky Forums seriously

>The Ottomans styled themselves as being the descendants of the Roman Empire.
Mehmet was a big byzaboo, but he didn't assume the title as a way to proclaim himself successor to Rome, it was just a sovereign title for Anatolia and Greece. Let's not forget, the turks called Anatolia "Rum".
The seljuk remnants in Anatolia after the fall of the empire also called themselves rulers of Rum, because that's what they called the region.

What are you actually trying to say, that the ERE wasn't considered legitimate, or that the HRE didn't take over that legitimacy in Europe?

>Half of Europen nobility had Byzantine blood in them, even the Mongols were being married with Byzantine princesses
Half of Europe's people, never mind nobility, are probably descended from Byzantine royals.
There must be tens, perhaps hundreds-of-thousands of people in England alone who are descended from Edward III, for example, and by extension from the Komnenian Emperors

>not trying to kangz, just suggesting statistical possibilities

>all dynasties ruled China from Inner China and controlled the area.
What was Eastern Jin
What was Southern Song

The second though I may have misread your post if you meant that western Europe saw HRE as the legitimate successor of Rome at the time and if that's the case then I apologise.

Both Jin and Song dynasties ruled over China proper, and even when they lost territory they still were within China proper.

They lost the northern plains of China which were considered to be the birthplace and heart of Chinese civilization and ruled from the South, and had to move their capital cities, but didn't automatically lose their legitimacy to the barbarians who took over the north.

>The patriarch of Constantinople..
And the Pope, the patriarch of Rome, crowned Charlemagne Roman Emperor. Neither actually had the authority to do so, however, and thus neither claim has any real legitimacy.
The Ottomans were as much successors of Rome as the HRE was.

isn't being taken over by manchus the equivalent of if rome was hijacked by huns. How could the Yuan dynasty be considered a continuation of the previous dynasty. If anything that should mark an end to china until the next real chinese dynasty.

>Why is this the case?
Chinese dynasties always managed to become the one ruler over China. Those who didn't, aren't generally acknowledged by history (when was the last time you heard someone call Shu Han an imperial dynasty? Or Northern Wei?).
Once Rome split in WRE and ERE, no real hegemon ever took its place. Neither the HRE nor the ERE nor the ottos were ever in a position to rule over the Mediterranean basin and western Europe unchallenged at any point.

and Idi Amin called himself the last king of Scotland

>didn't automatically lose their legitimacy to the barbarians who took over the north
Did too (in the north anyway). Great Jin was considered a legitimate holder of the mandate in the north.

>people still pushing this meme

Well, if your goal was to look retarded so you can inevitably fall back on the 'I was just pretending' defense, then good job.

1. 'Caesar' wasn't the imperial title, that was an office often given to the heir, and later it was just an honourific, like so much else.

2. Relation to the 'imperial family' means nothing at all. You ought to know how often dynasties changed in Constantinople, and that adoption was a perfectly legitimate Roman practice.

3. Patriarchal sanction does not make an emperor. That began with Leo I, its not even something that all Christian emperors did. I'm fairly sure that one of the shitty 10th century emperors was was in fetters when he was made emperor by his clique.

4. The ERE considered itself still to be the res publica of the Roman people. That doesn't preclude monarchical rule, however. Watch this video.

youtube.com/watch?v=rbx6SSt9bq8

Had the successors of Justinian kept Italy, Spain and the middle-east, there would be no "western civilization", just Rome and everyone else, much like Han China was.

Rome didn't had anything similar to the concept of Mandate of Heaven

China also has the Twenty-Four Histories, which are officially recognized as historical canon, so the succession of dynasties is clearly defined.

The Byzantines weren't a successor they were Rome. The hre had no legitimate claim. Russia was called because of religion i believe and the ottomans were a joke

>Both Jin and Song dynasties ruled over China proper
The Western concept of China proper is wholly inaccurate and anachronistic.

Only the Central Plains geopolitical heartland was considered "Chinese" while legitimacy was never based on ethnicity.

The south and west are not "Chinese"?

>The Chinese dynasties arose from different geographical regions, were based in different capitals, controlled different territories, were ruled by different ethnicities, spoke different languages, and yet the narrative of "4000 years of Chinese history" is often taken for granted.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven

All you need to be ruler of China.
Not belonging to some speshul family.
Not hailing in "China Proper" (historically that took a long time to define)
Not belonging to a particular race.
But having Mandate.

In addition OP, the Chinese dynasties recognized each other as rulers of China so as to further the image of state continuity of the realm.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven#Enfeoffing_members_of_Overthrown_Dynasties

"It was a custom in China for the new dynasty to ennoble and enfeoff a member of the dynasty which they overthrew with a title of nobility and a fief of land so that they could offer sacrifices to their ancestors, in addition to members of other preceding dynasties. This practice was referred to as 二王三恪."

>The Han dynasty bestowed the hereditary title 周子南君 upon the Zhou dynasty royal descendant Ji Jia (姬嘉) and his descendants.[4]
>When the Han dynasty Emperor Xian of Han was dethroned by the Cao Wei Emperor Cao Pi, Cao granted Emperor Xian the title Duke of Shanyang (山陽公).
>When the Jin Dynasty Emperor Gong of Jin was overthrown by the Liu Song Emperor Wu of Liu Song, Emperor Wu enfeoffed Emperor Gong as Prince of Lingling.
>When the Northern Zhou Emperor Jing of Northern Zhou was overthrown by the Sui dynasty Emperor Wen of Sui, Emperor Wen enfeoffed Emperor Jing as Duke of Jie.
>When the Tang dynasty Emperor Ai of Tang was overthrown by the Later Liang Emperor Zhu Wen, Zhu Wen enfeoffed Emperor Ai as Prince of Jiyin.
>There were Dukedoms for the offspring of the royal families of the Zhou dynasty, Sui dynasty, and Tang dynasty in the Later Jin (Five Dynasties).[11]
>When the Ming dynasty fell and the Qing dynasty took over, the Qing Emperors granted a Ming descendant the title Marquis of Extended Grace and gave him a stipend to perform sacrifices to his ancestors, the Ming Emperors at the Ming Imperial Tombs.

Alongside the image of an eternal empire, the practice was also had ancestor-worship roots, in which every preceding dynasty was treated as an ancestor that deserved to be honored. While they were overthrown they *did* possess the Mandate at one point, making many of them favored by Heaven.

>The south and west are not "Chinese"?
Warring States era "Zhongguo" was defined by the Western Zhou heartland and the former lands of the Shang polity.

>south
Chu of the Jianghan plain was an indigenous confederation that spoke a form of para-Sinitic with a Hmong Mien/Tai Kadai substrate while Wu/Yue was non-Sinitic,possibly pre-Austronesian or Tai Kadai. "Southerners" regardless of their linguistic affiliation,were considered barbarians.

>west
Gansu was inhabited by semi-pastoralists known as the Rong,with their linguistic affiliation leaning towards Sino-Tibetans. Some of these tribes were known to carry the royal clan affiliations of Ji and Jiang.

if it was where the government went in exile, then yeah - the land would still be known as Canada, but it would still be the British Empire is per se. Likewise, as the Western half fell, the duty of maintaining the empire fell to the East. The Byzantines aren't the successors of Rome, they ARE Rome.

And all you needed to rule Rome was imperium which was literally the ability to be the most stronk in the empire

Contd.

It is, however, interesting to note that hated dynasties did not receive 二王三恪

For example, no such thing was granted to the descendants of the Qin Emperor. The Yuan Mongol Emperors were also denied the rites.

True but while the Mandate extends to the whole dynasty via succession laws, every Roman Emperor seemed to be forced to prove his possessing of the Imperium.

Hmmm it is almost like completely different ethnic rulers who use a non-native language, honor different cultural traditions, and follow a different religion are not actually "successors" and instead are LARPing for muh legitimacy points.

The PRC hasn't existed for 4000 years user.

>"Northern Plains"
>birthplace of Chinese civilization

You meant the North China Plain.
The literal capitals of the Xia and Zhou are located in a small region in the southwestern part of the North China Plain. Both Jin and Song controlled it for an extensive period of their histories.

Only in the latter stages of their collapse was it lost.

Far more complex than that.

If one Ethiopian takes political control of a group of a thousand Russians, does it become a completely different society/nation?

If the government went in exile there it would still be considered the British Empire.

>The literal capitals of the Xia
Xia doesn't exist,the textual records attesting the polity date towards the Warring States.
sino-platonic.org/complete/spp238_xia_dynasty_china.pdf

> Both Jin and Song controlled it for an extensive period of their histories.
The Jin and the subsequent southern dynasties used Zhongguo metaphorically,the geopolitical Zhongguo was always recognized as the northern Chinese plains.

The Southern dynasties were Northern Sinitic emigres ruling over local Sinitic speaking natives(who weren't considered Chinese) as well as non-Sinitic barbarians in the far south.

>Xia doesn't exist
[Citation needed]

Also, did the Zhou exist? 100 years ago everyone said they did not, even Chinese scholars.

Shang*

>did the Zhou exist? 100 years ago everyone said they did not

>

Can't prove a negative.

"Byzantine" Empire was literally the same state. The capital was moved from Rome to Constantinople because it is in a better position to govern the empire.

HRE was supposed to be a resumption of Imperial rule in the West, but its legitimacy at that was very dubious, and it mostly was its own thing. Ottomans and Russia were never considered to be the same state, even by their rulers.

It didn't control Rome. Half an empire that doesn't hold the original capital that the empire is named after is not that empire.

>It didn't control Rome.

Not a true statement. It sometimes did.

>chinese dynasties, prc & republic continued same culture
>think confucius, legalism & ancestor worship

>greco-roman culture was the classical culture
>think mount olympus & stoicism

>late rome, byzantium & ottomans were middle-eastern culture
>think 1001 prophets (moses, jesus, muhammad)

>holy roman empire was west-european culture
>think confession & faust

>moscow is russian culture
>think dostoyevsky & rasputin

>[Citation needed]
Read the link I've provided.

For starters "Xia" doesn't appear once in the Shang oracle bones or the Western/Eastern Zhou bronze inscriptions as a dynastonym or polity.

The bulk of the textual evidence that references the Xia dynasty/polity dates towards the late Spring and Autumn period or the Warring states,more than a millennium later.

Erlitou is only one of many archaeological sites that predate the late Shang polity,with some scholars making the claim that the Erlitou culture was representative of the early Shang.

>For starters "Xia" doesn't appear once in the Shang oracle bones
That is not really evidence against it, considering Shang oracle bones was only concerned with divination, not record keeping

>Western/Eastern Zhou bronze inscriptions as a dynastonym or polity.
It was during the Western Zhou records of Xia is found

>Western/Eastern Zhou bronze inscriptions as a dynastonym or polity
It is listen in Western Zhou Dynasty records

Do not forget the legends surrounding the Xia, especially the flood and Yu the Great, the legendary founder actually happened science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6299/579.full

Also sino-platonic papers are really not a good citation, considering the paper itself lack citations and can be written by nearly everyone. Infact, I could post work for the site proving the existence of Xia with the wewuz articles about how the Yellow Emperor was a blond nordic. You could at least listed respective works of Ian Morris or Sarah Allan. . .

I don't know how I fucked that up

>It was during the Western Zhou records of Xia is found
No,the character for Xia was used as seasonal word,toponym and a contemporary polity not a dynastonym(see Gilbert Mattos reply).

>It is listen in Western Zhou Dynasty records
List those bronze inscriptions and textual records.

>Do not forget the legends surrounding the Xia, especially the flood and Yu the Great, the legendary founder actually happened science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6299/579.full
A deluge doesn't prove the historicity of legendary figures or a purported dynasty.

>Also sino-platonic papers are really not a good citation, considering the paper itself lack citations and can be written by nearly everyone.
Perhaps. But unless you can point out flaws with the textual sources he referenced I would rather believe a accredited Sinologist(however biased he may be) than random user of an imageboard.

> Infact, I could post work for the site proving the existence of Xia with the wewuz articles about how the Yellow Emperor was a blond nordic.
I'm well aware of Mair's obsession with the Indo-European origin of Chinese civilization.

He would have to look elsewhere as this easily debunked by anthropology,archaeology,genetics etc.

Sorry but byzantines aren't roman. I used to think so too but other than calling themselves Rhomanoi they didn't speak latin, were greek (a people conquered by romans), worshipped christ and not roman gods. So yeah greeks larping as romans is accurate.

Ask yourself this, if USA split apart and in the west was a state full of mexicans who spoke spanish, and adopted islam or something but called themselves americans and american laws would you consider that to be USA?

Arr rook same

now this is the type of content I come to this board for

>Rome
>Didn't even hold Rome

Constantinople is New Rome
>hurr b-b-but muh mental gymnastics

Each chinese dynasty basically took over the last's state apparatus. There's no real continuity in the west after the Byzantines

Does being Christian instead of pagan really disqualified from being Roman? The Roman Empire had already become Christian before the Westin have collapsed. And the Chinese also shifted philosophies overtime sometimes favouring Taoism sometimes favouring Buddhism sometimes favouring confucianism.

>if USA split apart and in the west was a state full of mexicans who spoke spanish, and adopted islam or something but called themselves americans and american laws would you consider that to be USA?
Depending on how things turned out arguably yes, they would be a successor state to the USA if they continued to follow the US Constitution and the US form of government and law. Is Hawaii less American than Massachusetts?

Constantinople is Constantinople, Rome is Rome

tell that to Constantine :^)

The Holy Roman Empire was a bunch of krauts LARPING.

China was a contiguous blob.

Rome was a donut around the Mediterranean that was pulled apart when land powers became more powerful.

it would be more like

>eastern USA and western USA split for reasons
>western USA gets overrun by syrian and middle eastern and african refugees
>they set up their own little states in the territory of the former eastern USA and adopt US laws and state apparatus, to varying degrees
>some even end up speaking weird local derivatives of english
>in the west, the majority language is spanish
>rulers and upper classes still speak english
>they try to reconquer the east, but while they take the former confederacy and even washington DC, the areas they capture are economically devastated
>slowly lose ground to maghrebi successor states in viginia
>meanwhile, weirdo voodoo prophet galvanises carribean islands, takes mexico, texas, southern states and the south west
>western USA is left with california and pacific northwest
>it soldiers on, it has the US army, USAF and marines, and part of the military industrial complex it inherited
>eventually, since pretty much everyone speaks spanish, the government bows to public pressure and adopts spanish as the language of government
>gets hemmed in by barbars from all directions - death of a thousand cuts
>religious tension between baptist kingdoms to the east and catholic US
>the voodoohoodoos covet los angeles and try to conquer it several times
>eventually, some guy unites the northeast and the televangelist in chief calls him the president of the holy united states
>holy
>united
>states
>eventually the hoodoos march into the much reduced los angeles.
>the US is finally extinguished, the last president falls among a platoon of CMEU (USMC)
>the voodoo tete d'etat calls himself the president
>some strayan cunt calls himself the third washington because he married el presidente's sister
>some faggot on the future internet says there's no continuity between the USA and the western USA because its capital was in los angeles and not washington DC

didn't they realize those giant pants look silly, it's not the 16th century anymore

>western USA gets overrun by syrian and middle eastern and african refugees
Except that the Romans conquered the Eastern provinces, not the other way round.

shit, should actually be

>eastern USA gets overrun by syrian and middle eastern and african refugees

Interwar Italian fascism was Veeky Forums as fuck what are you on about

yeah, but i'm trying to make the analogy work with the geography. if the US had been founded in the west and had spread eastwards, i would have done that.

the core population areas were always 90% or more Han Chinese. so i think the 4000 years is referring more to the ethnic/linguistic/cultural bloc rather than a particular state

>How come two vastly different states have different histories?

Dis dumb question, OP.

>so i think the 4000 years is referring more to the ethnic/linguistic/cultural bloc rather than a particular state

Nope.jpg

There was a state, to which there ought to be a Heavenly Mandated dynasty to rule. Otherwise nobody would've given a shit about the mandate or kill other people who claim mandate. It forms a big part of Chinese culture to this day, it's largely the cause of shit like "One China Solution" and various autisms related to a singular Chink state.

That state hasn't been called Zhongguo for a long time however. Zhongguo in history has largely been a philosophical/cultural conception. Rather, the inhabitants simply called it Tianxia ("All under Heaven" literally. But means "Empire.")

Chinese legitimacy is based on Mandate of Heaven, which is not limited by ethnicities. Dynastic changes are considered as part of the course of nature.

>Veeky Forums

Wrong on many accounts. Xia is considered semi-legendary because it is known that a sinitic polity existed before the Shang, but many of the other claims from Simi Qian have not been proven yet.

Erlitou culture appears to be sinitic and is in the same location as Shang during the attested time period.

We do not know if the Xia (a sinitic dynasty with the attested line of kings) existed. That is a fact.

dulce incarnate?

>China gets conquered by someone
>heh they're Chinese anyway, we'll just call them a start of a new dynasty.
>Woops, China has survived 5000 years.

Simply the Chinks thought of anyone that conquered them as Chinks, that's why they claim to be the oldest surviving ancient civilization even though they were conquered so many times. Modern day Chinks are complete posers that have absolutely no relation to the ancient dynasties besides being of Asian descent.

Rome was special because it survived almost 2,000 years uninterupted and once it fell, it fell. There was no "Third Rome", "Fourth Rome" or any of that bullshit.

What was wrong with his argument?

I think this is a good point. Nobody really could replicate what Rome did (control the whole Mediterranean) so any nation that claimed to be Rome was just laughed at and not acknowledged simply because they didn't have the power Rome did.

That's why so many people don't acknowledge even Byzantium as Rome even though they were a literal continuation of Rome itself. They just didn't have the power (even though they were pretty much the strongest European nation for most of their existence) and controlled an extremely small part of what Rome was for most of it's history.

Well if you are not strong enough to fight of an invader or not clever enough economically clearly you have lost your "Mandate of Heaven".

But in almost every instance, the conquerors do adopt many of the "Chinese ways" in policies and philosophies many of which still survive to this day and are the foundation of Chinese culture.

To say chinks today have no relation to previous Chinese civilization is poor b8 m8

Constantinople was literally called "Nova Roma"(New Rome) by Romans, you idiot.

>Simply the Chinks thought of anyone that conquered them as Chinks, that's why they claim to be the oldest surviving ancient civilization even though they were conquered so many times.
There were only 2 nomadic dynasties and they're all basically Sinicized in the end in order to claim the mandate of heaven. Get your head out of your ass for once, please.

>Modern day Chinks are complete posers that have absolutely no relation to the ancient dynasties besides being of Asian descent.
Modern Chinese basically still has same languages, customs, religions and ethnicity. You really are some /pol/ tier shithead, aren't you?

>There was no "Third Rome", "Fourth Rome" or any of that bullshit.
Russian Empire literally called themselves "Third Rome". You fucking imbecile.

How comes an ignorant idiot like you still have balls to shitpost is really beyond me.

>Why is this the case?
Because of politically motivated Renaissance German historians.
Throughout history, until the 100 years after the collapse of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottomans, the "Eastern Roman Empire" was called the Roman Empire by everyone.
The term "Byzantine Empire" did not show up until 1557 by Hieronymus Wolf, who was born in the Holy Roman Empire.

So for basically 500+ years, the Latins and Germans brainwashed everyone into thinking the Eastern Roman Empire was not a legitimate successor state of Rome, because of political reasons, mainly to boost the Holy Roman Empire's authority, especially after the fall of Constantinople.

Understand that during the Renaissance (1300-1700), a lot of people were fawning over the great Golden Age of the Roman Empire. They could not do that reconcile that with a collapsing Roman Empire existing at the same time. So 100 years later after the Romans (Byzantines) disappeared, historians went on a historical revisionism tour that has fucked world history to this point.

>b-b-but the Byzantines didn't control Rome
The ERE was the senior partner of the WRE, and it also controlled Rome for almost a collective 200 years after the fall of the WRE.
The WRE's capital was not Rome for 190 years.
They moved it to Milan from 286 to 402, then to Ravenna from 402 to 476.

To add, it was not until Heraclius, who was still crowned with a Latin name in 610 AD, did the empire change its language to Greek from Latin.

>Wrong on many accounts.
Name one source prior to the late Spring and Autumn period that speaks of a Xia dynasty.

>Erlitou culture appears to be sinitic and is in the same location as Shang during the attested time period.
No. Sinitic is a linguistic term,neolithic cultures such as Erlitou lacks any sort of script. Same reason why Liangzhu or Dawenkou can't be Austronesian.

>We do not know if the Xia (a sinitic dynasty with the attested line of kings) existed. That is a fact.
Correct. The Xia dynasty was most likely a Warring States forgery based on surviving texts.

>Simply the Chinks thought of anyone that conquered them as Chinks
Not since the late Tang where the ethnocentric Hua-Yi school supplanted the Gongyang school(Sinicization).

> Modern day Chinks are complete posers that have absolutely no relation to the ancient dynasties besides being of Asian descent.
Modern ethnicities have little to do with past empires.

Why would warring states in the Warring States forge something like that?

>Why would warring states in the Warring States forge something like that?
Any number of reason: to provide a linear succession of the Xia and the subsequent Zhou conquest of the Shang,shared mythology etc.

Semi-legendary figures such as Huang Di were propagated during that time period,some of which were non-Sinitic in origin.

>Once they were forced to abandon the region, legitimacy shifted to those who took over: the papacy and the HRE. The HRE, let's remember, that was considered in Europe THE empire in the same way Rome used to be (and the imperial dynasties in China) for centuries, until the imperial see lost the ability to project its influence beyond Germany.
Historical revisionism.
The ERE were still called Romans until the conquest of Constantinople by 1453. Retroactively calling them Byzantine did not start until 1557.
ERE controlled Rome as well after the fall of the WRE under the reign of Justinian I and his successors. HRE did not officially start until 962 AD. The earliest it may be claimed to have started was in the early 800s. There was no other Roman Empire from the fall of the WRE 476 AD to at least 800 AD. That's over 320 years of nothing in between to claim a line of legitimate succession. The Papacy as we know it was established in power in 538 AD. That's a 62 year legitimacy gap.
The ERE was an actual Roman administrative region (half of the empire) that started when the Roman Emperor moved the capital from Rome to Constantinople in 330 AD. That's over 145 years before the fall of the WRE. The HRE was also never considered "THE" Empire in the same way Rome used to be. The ERE was still the richer (and more scientifically advanced in terms of technology applications) empire during the same time period because the ERE controlled almost all trade routes into Europe until the Venetians came along and started to take away commerce from the ERE around 1000 to 1100 AD.

But they did hold Rome for long periods of time.

>Once they were forced to abandon the region, legitimacy shifted to those who took over: the papacy and the HRE. The HRE, let's remember, that was considered in Europe THE empire in the same way Rome used to be (and the imperial dynasties in China) for centuries, until the imperial see lost the ability to project its influence beyond Germany.
Historical revisionism.
The ERE were still called Romans until the conquest of Constantinople by 1453. Retroactively calling them Byzantine did not start until 1557.
ERE controlled Rome as well after the fall of the WRE under the reign of Justinian I and his successors. HRE did not officially start until 962 AD. The earliest it may be claimed to have started was in the early 800s. There was no other Roman Empire from the fall of the WRE 476 AD to at least 800 AD. That's over 320 years of nothing in between to claim a line of legitimate succession. The Papacy as we know it was established in power in 538 AD. That's a 62 year line of succession/legitimacy gap. During both gaps, the ERE still functioned as a direct successor of the full Roman Empire.
The ERE was an actual Roman administrative region (half of the empire) that started when the Roman Emperor moved the capital from Rome to Constantinople in 330 AD. That's over 145 years before the fall of the WRE. The HRE was also never considered "THE" Empire in the same way Rome used to be. The ERE was still the richer (and more scientifically advanced in terms of technology applications) empire during the same time period because the ERE controlled almost all trade routes into Europe until the Venetians came along and started to take away commerce from the ERE around 1000 to 1100 AD.
The HRE also had legitimacy problems during its existence in a way that the ERE did not.

So if you're right, then really, how long is Chinese history in actual historical terms?

I can get behind this alt future.
>Weird Mexican Asian fusion culture in LA basin, ruled by the Emperor of California his seat from San Francisco
>Comanche pagan raiders of the great plains, following the great herds of bison that have returned to the land
>Michigan and Ontarian Vikings, with Germanicized settlements in Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin
>Southern knights and elite lancers, with Capitoline cataphracts
>New York + New Jersey become the Serene Republic of Gotham
>New England become home to the Puritan clergy, a Protestant Rome
>Quebec become New France
>Newfoundland becomes New Scotland

>So if you're right, then really, how long is Chinese history in actual historical terms?
Do keep in mind that polities that formed within modern nation states aren't easily delineated in neat categories e.g. Gojoseon was originally a polity in Hebei/Liaoxi that moved eastwards towards the Liaodong peninsula/Northwestern Korea but it considered part of "Korean" history.

The Shang was earliest known Sinitic speaking polity that identified with the geopolitical center.

In my opinion Zhou high culture established a framework for a geopolitical Zhongguo,the autonyms of Hua(florescent) and Xia(grand,variegated) and the gradually inclusion of periphery barbarians(Dongyi,Nanman etc.) that paved the way for a Chinese identity.