China

Why was China so irrelevant up until recently in the modern era?

Would modern China be better off if the nationalists had won the civil war?

>ywn have a cute nationalist chinese gf
Why live?

Also saged this thread for being brainlet tier b8.

k moron

>Why was China so irrelevant up until recently in the modern era?
Congrats on writing the most ignorant sentence on Veeky Forums well done

Can we turn this into an actual chinese history thread?
What's a good place to start with ancient China? Or even better, a good book?

Shang to Zhou Dynasty is pretty interesting. In these two dynasty the main themes of Chinese history are created and Chinese culture is more or less fully developed. This time period also has such famous and influential figures, as Confucius, Laozi, and the Duke of Zhou. I am especially interested in the feudalism practiced in ancient China and when researching you will see many similarities to European feudalism. The two types despite being separated by thousands of miles and years shared similar structures and equivalent noble titles such as 公 being duke and 候 being Marquess. There was also the equivalent of knights called 士 who originally fought on chariots and like their European equivalents wore swords as part of their daily attire. Towards the later part of the Zhou Dynasty however, these "knights" would lose their military importance as large scale infantry warfare was adopted and would become the scholars found in later dynasties.

>however, these "knights" would lose their military importance as large scale infantry warfare was adopted and would become the scholars found in later dynasties.
Sort of like how the samurai evolved into a cultural class?

Id like to thank u for this post and demand some more my guy, my tiny little china brainlet grew an inch.

Yes exactly like the samurai. They became the administrators of the empire.

You're welcome. It's always a pleasure to share my love of history. Is there anything else you want to know?

Im rather in the dark with most of modern chinas history outside WW1-2 dealins with japan, itd be nice if you could point me in a direction for their communist period.

>Why was China so irrelevant up until recently in the modern era?

Please be patient I'm still typing.

If the nationalists had won China would have fallen back into Western domination and would have probably balkanized.

Such a situation would be better for people living in wealthy cities that would inevitably benefit from capitalist penetration (Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing) but would hurt Chinese everywhere else.

Compared to the communists the KMT had serious problems with corruption and inefficiency. I expect that they'd have been less able to develop and educate the Chinese countryside, but would probably be less likely to enact disastrous reforms like Mao had done.

Which themes?

I can't say that's my specialty I mostly like pre-modern history but I will do my best. Please keep in mind that what I am about to say may not entirely factually correct but oh well this is my understanding.

To point you "in a direction" you must first understand that shortly before and well after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, there was an intellectual movement that saw traditional Chinese culture as ineffective and out of place in the modern age. After all China had just been crushed by invasions from so many western powers and just recently had been defeated by Japan. And how was Japan able to defeat China? By adopting many many aspects of western technology, politics, and culture. They saw Chinese culture as being responsible for the terrible state China was in, and for the social ills like opium smoking, foot binding, and other things that were seen as barbaric by their new, western influenced, sensibilities. Put the terrible state of both the Qing and post-Qing Governments, social problems, lack of confidence in their culture and traditions and you get a left wing drift. This would result in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution that established the Republic of China under Sun Yat-sen, who's political theory of three principals of the people could be seen as quite socialistic. Yet this government and the warlords that came after it did not stop the problems leading to more and more radical and more and more leftist beliefs culminating with the May 4th Movement in 1919. This movement began the spread of Marxist ideas that lead to the formation of the CCP in 1921. The Guomingdang party (which was also socialist), now under Jiang Jieshi (AKA Chang Kaishek), and CCP then allied (USSR persuaded them) to defeat many of the warlords, but then as the CCP became more and more powerful Jiang got nervous and after his Northern Expedition he marched the NRA to Shanghai in 1927 and massacred the communists starting the civil war and we know how that went.

Mandate of Heaven mostly.

btw at that point Shanghai was already communist and run by worker communes and unions who had somehow been able to kick out the local warlord.

If you're referring to the only period in history when China was irrelevant, the early 20th century, then it was because of severe disunity thanks to warlords who had their origins during the Taiping Rebellion.

Jonathan D. Spence - The Search for Modern China

And Humanism, perfectibility of man, moral role of government (they're still trying this one today), collectivism, importance of social hierarchy, patriarchal tendencies, and prioritizing commercial over industrial development (might be stretching this one).

My brainlet grew three sizes on this lonely friday night :^)

well you can never be too sure about what would have happen,. but for sure China would not have been as autocratic as it is today. as far the development is concerned it would be on the similar line as India because of liberal democracy and not as disciplined as it is today where China works like a machine.
For the relevance part , China was quite relevant before as it accounted for around 20% of world trade in 17th century

Go further, expand your mind. I know of some English versions of Chinese history documentaries on YouTube if you are interested.

>Why was China so irrelevant up until recently in the modern era?

>Why was China so irrelevant up until recently in the modern era?
what the fuck

All Under Heaven by Rayne Kruger is pretty good, very long though