Which Chinese dynasty was the "most powerful"?

Which Chinese dynasty was the "most powerful" at its height?

  • Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD)

    Votes: 8 7.1%

  • Tang Dynasty (618–907)

    Votes: 42 37.2%

  • Song Dynasty (960–1279)

    Votes: 10 8.8%

  • Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368)

    Votes: 8 7.1%

  • Ming Dynasty (1368–1644)

    Votes: 14 12.4%

  • Qing Dynasty (1644–1912)

    Votes: 7 6.2%

  • People's Republic of China (1949-2014)

    Votes: 24 21.2%
  • Total voters
    113

polyharmonic

In Chinese history, there's been many powerful dynasties.

One interesting question is:
At its height, which dynasty was the most powerful when compared to its contemporary peers, relatively speaking?

Note: Do NOT compare dynasties with each other directly otherwise PRC is clearly the most powerful. If you pick PRC, then it is only because you feel that PRC's relative position in the world today is greater than, say, Tang's relative position in the world during the time of the Tang dynasty.

The question is obviously very subjective and should take into account culture, technology, economy, military might, territory, etc. It is also a question about "relative power" to the rest of the world at the same period in history.

Here are the obvious candidates:
Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD)
Tang Dynasty (618–907)
Song Dynasty (960–1279)
Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368)
Ming Dynasty (1368–1644)
Qing Dynasty (1644–1912)
People's Republic of China (1949-2014*)

* Although the PRC did not end in 2014, only consider up to the present to avoid speculation about the future.

Also, if you can, perhaps rank them in order from least powerful to most powerful (again relative to the rest of the world at the same period in history).
 
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Jeb Bush

With Europe in the dark ages, and before the rise of the Great Islamic Caliphates, the Tang, especially the early period was when China was the most powerful compared to the rest of the world.
 

EternalCynic

Toss up between early-mid Tang, and early-mid Ming. Probably the latter, when its tributary system was at its most developed, and when its ships were both respected and feared.

PRC isn't as weak as the Qing, but it isn't relatively powerful either. It *is* the world's largest economic power, but it is still unable and unwilling to project force anywhere outside its immediate vicinity.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
The PRC is a nuclear power.

The PRC is a nuclear power.

Being able to destroy human civilization in the course of a day kind of trumps everything else, don't you think?

Best,
 

TRH

TFSmith121 said:
The PRC is a nuclear power.

Being able to destroy human civilization in the course of a day kind of trumps everything else, don't you think?

Best,
Click to expand...

polyharmonic said:
One interesting question is:
At its height, which dynasty was the most powerful when compared to its contemporary peers, relatively speaking?
Click to expand...

Maybe re-reading would yield a more considered response?

For myself I figure Tang sounds right. European demography was in the dumps and Japan wasn't worth considering yet, although I don't know enough about Indian history to say what things looked like then.
 
Beedok

Beedok

Don said:
With Europe in the dark ages, and before the rise of the Great Islamic Caliphates, the Tang, especially the early period was when China was the most powerful compared to the rest of the world.
Click to expand...
Ignoring India which was undergoing an age of prosperity for a good chunk of the Tang's age.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
No, I'd say being able to destroy the world pretty much does it;

TRH said:
Maybe re-reading would yield a more considered response?

For myself I figure Tang sounds right. European demography was in the dumps and Japan wasn't worth considering yet, although I don't know enough about Indian history to say what things looked like then.
Click to expand...


No, I'd say being able to destroy the world even once is enough; making the rubble bounce doesn't really matter, does it?

Best,
 

TRH

TFSmith121 said:
No, I'd say being able to destroy the world even once is enough; making the rubble bounce doesn't really matter, does it?

Best,
Click to expand...

Even defining it on those terms suggests that China has, at best, parity with several other countries with similar capabilities. Does this mean that you don't think there was any other period in Chinese history where they didn't have multiple peers of equal strength?
 

polyharmonic

TFSmith121 said:
No, I'd say being able to destroy the world even once is enough; making the rubble bounce doesn't really matter, does it?

Best,
Click to expand...

Just to be clear, I meant comparing a given dynasty at its height compared the its contemporary peers and considering "everything" (culture, technology, economy, military might, territory, etc). I am obviously NOT comparing one dynasty to another directly otherwise PRC wins overwhelmingly (same is true of any other country comparing to itself in the past).

And sure being a nuclear power is something that must be considered. But nuclear capability is but one small aspect of military power which is again only one aspect of "total power".

To make this more clear, the DPRK has nuclear weapons and ICBM capability. Germany does not. But taking into account "total power", Germany ranks A LOT higher than North Korea, don't you think?
 
Beedok

Beedok

Imperator Maximilianius said:
But how powerful was it?
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Hard to say. I'm not an expert, but it apparently had pretty major economic and soft power.

TFSmith121 said:
No, I'd say being able to destroy the world even once is enough; making the rubble bounce doesn't really matter, does it?

Best,
Click to expand...
Modern China could also be reduced to rubble far faster than any historic powers, which means you could argue it's the weakest and most fragile yet.
 

Richard V

The Han dynasty deserves consideration. It was only one of two superpowers in the world. And if distant Rome can be compared as a peer competitor, you could make the case the Tang had peers with the Byzantine Empire, Sansanian Persian, and Abbasid Caliphate. The latter was a threat to the Tang while Rome never challenged the Han.
 

polyharmonic

Ravenclaw said:
Yuan. I'd say forming the largest contiguous empire in history counts for something.
Click to expand...

It should be noted though that the Yuan Dynasty is not the same as the Mongol Empire at its height. Rather Yuan was a "breakaway" part of the original Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan. By the time of Yuan under Genghis' grandson Kublai Khan, the Mongol Empire has broken up into many different "khanates".

So while Kublai Khan also claimed the title of Great Khan, supreme over the other successor khanates, their subservience was merely nominal and they each continued their own separate development.

Thus the Yuan Dynasty extent was more or less the size of Qing Dynasty at its height in reality.
 
Beedok

Beedok

Richard V said:
The Han dynasty deserves consideration. It was only one of two superpowers in the world. And if distant Rome can be compared as a peer competitor, you could make the case the Tang had peers with the Byzantine Empire, Sansanian Persian, and Abbasid Caliphate. The latter was a threat to the Tang while Rome never challenged the Han.
Click to expand...
They had a number of powerful Indian states contemporary to both.

Why does everyone seem to ignore on the most important segments of the world?
 

Richard V

Beedok said:
They had a number of powerful Indian states contemporary to both.

Why does everyone seem to ignore on the most important segments of the world?
Click to expand...

You're right it should be. But one problem with gauging the power of Indian states is their histories are not well understood, not even by contemporary Indian historians. It's also hard to define soft power, we don't claim for example ancient Israel was a superpower as it was the source of Abrahamic religions. Both India and China led the world in GDP for much of the 19th century, yet they're not powerful in this era despite their wealth.
 

polyharmonic

Beedok said:
They had a number of powerful Indian states contemporary to both.

Why does everyone seem to ignore on the most important segments of the world?
Click to expand...

The most powerful Indian Empires, to my knowledge, were:
Maurya Empire: 322 BCE – 185 BCE
Gupta Empire: 320 CE – 550 CE
Mughal Empire: 1526–1857

The Maurya and Gupta Empires can definitely compare to its Han and Tang dynasties and may or may not be even more "powerful". But regardless these empires were NOT really contemporaneous with the Chinese dynasties in question.

Maurya preceded the Han dynasty so when Han was at its height, Maurya was already in steep decline.

It is the same with Tang vs Gupta. Tang started in 618AD while Gupta was already disestablished by 550AD.

Now the Qing and Mughal Empires were somewhat contemporaneous. But when Qing was at its height in the mid 18th century, Mughal Empire was already in its death throes so to speak.

Aside from these three Indian Empires, I don't know of others that would be considered "world powers" although I stand to be corrected.
 
Beedok

Beedok

Richard V said:
You're right it should be. But one problem with gauging the power of Indian states is their histories are not well understood, not even by contemporary Indian historians. It's also hard to define soft power, we don't claim for example ancient Israel was a superpower as it was the source of Abrahamic religions. Both India and China led the world in GDP for much of the 19th century, yet they're not powerful in this era despite their wealth.
Click to expand...
Still, like a quarter or a third of the world's population lived there for a lot of history. They were about as important to human history as China or the Euro-Middle East region (at least before Europe conquered them). Not going in depth I understanding, but from these conversations you'd almost think the subcontinent didn't exist.
 

Jeb Bush

Beedok said:
Still, like a quarter or a third of the world's population lived there for a lot of history. They were about as important to human history as China or the Euro-Middle East region (at least before Europe conquered them). Not going in depth I understanding, but from these conversations you'd almost think the subcontinent didn't exist.
Click to expand...

I agree that even a forum based on history like ours do not focus enough on Indian history. However to be fair, for the majority of Indian history, it was not a unified nation, but rather a cacophony of independent and feuding states. Furthermore unlike China, it was also dominated by a wide variety of different ethnic/religious sects, making it much harder to say what is really Indian vs what is Chinese/Japanese/British etc.

The Indian subcontinent historically like its geographic term suggests is more similar to a continental landmass home to various nations/people, then an actual unified country.
 
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