Why is China united and Europe divided?

matashowski

I believe i saw this thread on here ages ago, but i figured i would start a new one. I read once ages ago that China is a world unto itself, an empire that has existed for so long that we stopped thinking of it as an "empire". And perhaps it isn't in the conventional sense. I feel i should preface by saying i know exactly nothing extra about Chinese history. (Its long, they invented a lot of stuff, dynasties, communism. Here we are today.) So what i'm wondering today is, why is Europe divided up into different states but China remains whole? I have two theories i figured i'd begin with:


1. England and Japan. England is the product of multiple invasions that left an imprint on their psyche as a nation. You don't encounter the Romans, Normans, Vikings, etc without becoming "aware" of what lies across the water. On the other side of Eurasia sits Japan. They are both island nations that hug the same continent, why did one try taking over the earth while the other sealed itself away? I assume it was because of the Mongols. Have the only invasion (that wasn't an early prestate migration) fail didn't leave the imprint on the Japanese that their nation needed to be concerned with the goings on in China. Now i know they did conduct wars along the coast line, but they don't seem to have the same degree of "meddling" in continental affairs that the British did. And so these two islands with differing psyches may have played a role on the formation of the continent. Could be entirely off, but its the major difference in geopolitical gravity that i noticed.


2. The Mediterranean. I noticed a while back that it would appear the Mediterranean is conquerable from almost any angle. You have power projected from Phoenicia, Tunis, Italy, Greece, Spain, etc. I'm sure there are bits of coastline that you couldn't start an empire from, but it would appear that pretty much anywhere is a suitable starting point. So i wonder if having this has anything to do with Europe remaining fractured. Obviously it can become a single "world" at least during the technological level of the Romans.


So, any thoughts? I figure there are many other factors at play I'm overlooking. Christianity as a power structure within society perhaps, or Latin as a shared language, who knows.
 

Delvestius

Banned
Caoster said:
It is very simple. The Yellow and the Yangtze rivers. These are massive communication and transportation systems stretching the length of China from east to west, and there are no pesky mountains like the alps and others that interfere. Europe has nothing equivalent.
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India has much the same lack of internal geographic barriers, and it is for this reason that none of the petty Rajas could establish imperial dominance over their neighbors for too long before succumbing to that exact fate. Of course there were sultanates in the North after the Turks brought Islam, but overall it is lack of defensible locations why it was constantly divided.

That being said I do believe that these "protected" sub-continents can be conducive to either situation, as is evident in our TL, however I think we must also investigate cultural and linguistics aspects to differentiate the processes.

India is linguistically bisected horizontally. The northern languages are Indo-European and descendant of Sanskrit, while the southern languages are Dravidian, the ethno-linguistic identity of the original Indus river valley civilization, before they were pushed out by the Indo-European Aryans. Today India suffers from a struggle between regionalist and nationalist powers and factions.

China has its share of ethno-linguistic diversity, though the majority of the Chinese heartland is of the Sinic "Han" culture family. While Cantonese, Wu and other Chinese speakers have languages distinct from Mandarin, this is due to the lack of phonetic value in Chinese logogramic orthography, which was conducive to considerably quicker variation in all facets of language. Despite linguistic variation these communities identify with ethnic "Han" culture . The Manchus, Mongols, Uighurs and Tibetans are all considerable minorities, though all located on the periphery of the continent and could generally be considered conquered peoples.

Considering religion, India's Hindu traditions varied extensively by region, and vied with other sects such as Jainism and Buddhism for influence. When Islam was introduced this complicated things even further, and a wholly different cultural aspect was introduced to a country that now leads the world in minority Muslims.

China on the other hand had fewer faiths and philosophies to deal with, and those it did were combined and crossed based on the situation and were all set within a greater code of being, Confucianism. This provided a firm base for an extensive bureaucracy to take root and effectively rule the most populace region on the planet.

Both geography and social pressures need be considered.
 
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Delvestius

Banned
matashowski said:
1. England and Japan. England is the product of multiple invasions that left an imprint on their psyche as a nation. You don't encounter the Romans, Normans, Vikings, etc without becoming "aware" of what lies across the water. On the other side of Eurasia sits Japan. They are both island nations that hug the same continent, why did one try taking over the earth while the other sealed itself away? I assume it was because of the Mongols. Have the only invasion (that wasn't an early prestate migration) fail didn't leave the imprint on the Japanese that their nation needed to be concerned with the goings on in China. Now i know they did conduct wars along the coast line, but they don't seem to have the same degree of "meddling" in continental affairs that the British did. And so these two islands with differing psyches may have played a role on the formation of the continent. Could be entirely off, but its the major difference in geopolitical gravity that i noticed.
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Japan engaged in many centuries of endemic warfare, probably on account of the Bakufu military government.

While the Yuan dynasty was the root of Japanese isolationism, Japanese closedness had it's roots in the ninth century when the court stopped importing Chinese influence wholesale as a matter of prestige.

matashowski said:
2. The Mediterranean. I noticed a while back that it would appear the Mediterranean is conquerable from almost any angle. You have power projected from Phoenicia, Tunis, Italy, Greece, Spain, etc. I'm sure there are bits of coastline that you couldn't start an empire from, but it would appear that pretty much anywhere is a suitable starting point. So i wonder if having this has anything to do with Europe remaining fractured. Obviously it can become a single "world" at least during the technological level of the Romans.
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When there's that much crucial trade going on it's hard to keep track of it all; if people have the means, they will fund their power projection. In Italy there were so many rich city states doing this it didn't unite until 1861. Spain is relatively secluded geographically, making for a nice natural state. The whole of Europe is for the most part considering all the mountains and rivers. Also consider the multiple migrations of ethno-linguistically distinct Indo-Europeans. Such was not the case in the formative years of the Indian or Chinese societies.

EDIT: Using nineteenth-century Italy was a bad example, it was was disunited because France and Austria were using the Italians as proxy states. Renaissance Italy/Germany would be better examples.
 
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Deleted member 67076

I'd say it was Islam blocking the development of a China like state around the Mediterranean Basin.
 

Fiver

matashowski said:
I believe i saw this thread on here ages ago, but i figured i would start a new one. I read once ages ago that China is a world unto itself, an empire that has existed for so long that we stopped thinking of it as an "empire". And perhaps it isn't in the conventional sense. I feel i should preface by saying i know exactly nothing extra about Chinese history. (Its long, they invented a lot of stuff, dynasties, communism. Here we are today.) So what i'm wondering today is, why is Europe divided up into different states but China remains whole?
Click to expand...

China has been divided at many points in its history.
* The Spring and Autumn Period 722-476 BC
* The Warring States Period 476-221 BC
* The Three Kingdoms Period 265-316 AD
* The Sixteen Kingdoms 304-439 AD
* The Northern and Southern Dynasties 420-589 AD
* The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms 907-960 AD
* The Warlord Era 1916-1928
* The Chinese Civil War 1927-1950
 

Tripwire

The Chinese majority is more ethnically similar than the various countries in Europe are to each other, excepting the Roman Empire, which could have continued as a China equivalent.
 

scholar

Banned
Caoster said:
It is very simple. The Yellow and the Yangtze rivers. These are massive communication and transportation systems stretching the length of China from east to west, and there are no pesky mountains like the alps and others that interfere. Europe has nothing equivalent.
Click to expand...
Would it surprise you that in the beginning the Yangze was actually an impetus to the unification of China, allowing for southern states to actively resist northern ones?
 

pa_dutch

Sucrose said:
The Chinese majority is more ethnically similar than the various countries in Europe are to each other, excepting the Roman Empire, which could have continued as a China equivalent.
Click to expand...

The creation of the modern Han Chinese people involved a lengthy and difficult process of assimilation, migration, and intermarriagr of various peoples. Today's southern Han from Guangdong, Fujian, and Hainan descend from the Yue peoples, while the far northern Chinese have some descent from various northern invaders like the Khitan.

Geography is the main problem here. You might as well first ask why an agrarian civilization arose in China long before the same reached Europe, which is where you begin.
 

profxyz

I wouldn't go so far to say that China was 'fated' to be united - archaeological research indicates the existence of several poles of development in China (Sichuan, Guangdong, Yellow River valley, Northeastern China) ranging back to the Neolithic.

Hell, the first two dynasties of China - the Xia and the Shang - have been postulated to be two different peoples entirely (Er-li-tou vs. Er-li-gang cultures), with the Xia being the descendants of the steppe people that would plague Chinese emperors later on.

Even until Qin unification in the 3rd Century BC the Chinese 'people' (if such a term even existed) had no standardized language, writing or measurements.

Nevertheless, it is true that China has experienced unitary government for a rather longer period than Europe has, and I'd list out a few reasons below:

1) Geography. The Yellow/Yangtze as important communication corridors, the flat expanse of the North Chinese plain allowing for the easy emergence of one dominant culture. It's important to note that the Yangtze has been as much a barrier as a facilitator of unity, however. The geographic isolation of the Chinese state from the rest of the world has also shielded it, to an extent, from foreign cultural invasion.

2) Elite co-optation. The Chinese bureaucracy has always been a powerful method to co-opt local elites, especially after the idea of meritocracy became entrenched. The bureaucracy brought various elites from different regions of the country together, and it was from the bureaucratic apparatus that a common language, a common script and a common set of beliefs emerged in the Chinese state. You may see massive variation among peasants, but as long as the elite felt like they were culturally similar to each other, the impetus for unification was always there.

3) Assimilation. In China's relations with its nomadic periphery you always see tension between the more 'settled' nomads who see greater integration with the Chinese culture as desirable vs. the nomads who reject this foreign influence. Such tensions usually only occurred with 'successful' nomads who ruled over parts of China, so they were not under pressure to 'flee' into the country.

As such, those nomads who wanted to keep their cultural independence simply stayed out of China, rather than attempting to impose their norms upon the land. This also meant that the ones most amenable to assimilation were usually the ones who remained within the country.

You also have to take into account the influence of certain events in China's history, such as the megalomaniacal nature of China's first Emperor, Qin Shihuang, the decisions to adopt Confucianism by Emperor Wu of Han, the voluntary 'Sinicization' of the Xianbei under Emperor Yuan of the Northern Wei, and the development of a truly meritocratic system under Taizu of Song.

It's worth examining why Europe/the Med was so difficult to unify as well. For starters, it is pretty much the worst terrain for a unified Empire (which was why the Roman Empire's achievement was so extraordinary) - a hollow ring around a rather stormy sea, various fertile areas that could nurture competing cultures, mountains and rivers criss-crossing and sealing off large regions from invasion. John Mearsheimer's observation about the 'stopping power of water' is always a relevant comment to look into for questions of unification.
 
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Faeelin

Banned
profxyz said:
Hell, the first two dynasties of China - the Xia and the Shang - have been postulated to be two different peoples entirely (Er-li-tou vs. Er-li-gang cultures), with the Xia being the descendants of the steppe people that would plague Chinese emperors later on.
Click to expand...

Is there evidence of Indo-European words used in the Xia dynasty, or am I crazy?
 

scholar

Banned
profxyz said:
Hell, the first two dynasties of China - the Xia and the Shang - have been postulated to be two different peoples entirely (Er-li-tou vs. Er-li-gang cultures), with the Xia being the descendants of the steppe people that would plague Chinese emperors later on.
Click to expand...
The Zhou are also thought of to be another people, though one more closely related to the Shang than the Shang was to the Xia.
 

Tripwire

pa_dutch said:
The creation of the modern Han Chinese people involved a lengthy and difficult process of assimilation, migration, and intermarriagr of various peoples. Today's southern Han from Guangdong, Fujian, and Hainan descend from the Yue peoples, while the far northern Chinese have some descent from various northern invaders like the Khitan.

Geography is the main problem here. You might as well first ask why an agrarian civilization arose in China long before the same reached Europe, which is where you begin.
Click to expand...

Oh I agree. I was mostly talking about after that had already happened. But you're right, you could also ask the question of why conditions were right in China for one group to have huge population growth and expansion.

Faeelin said:
Is there evidence of Indo-European words used in the Xia dynasty, or am I crazy?
Click to expand...

From the Tocharians? (Sorry I know very little about Chinese history)
 

profxyz

Faeelin said:
Is there evidence of Indo-European words used in the Xia dynasty, or am I crazy?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure there is much evidence at all of Xia language, seeing that the Shang language is only preserved through oracular inscriptions which the Xia didn't use as much.

That said, an analysis of Chinese metalworking cultures shows that Xinjiang and the Hexi corridor (Gansu) used methods derived from the Indo-Europeans, while the Yellow River plains might have developed them independently (and north and south might have even discovered metalworking independent of each other - it does depend on how complicated one assumes metalworking development/casting/smelting is).

scholar said:
The Zhou are also thought of to be another people, though one more closely related to the Shang than the Shang was to the Xia.
Click to expand...

That's true and the Shang were of course fighting the Zhou way before the latter came into dominance. It's even been postulated that the martial Shang preferred the right, while the more ritual Zhou preferred the left (hence why in Imperial China, the 'left' Chancellor was the more senior one).

Then again, the Shang were not much like most other Chinese dynasties, with their martial bent, their penchant for oracular divination, and of course human sacrifice.
 
Tripledot

Tripledot

Fiver said:
China has been divided at many points in its history.
* The Spring and Autumn Period 722-476 BC
* The Warring States Period 476-221 BC
* The Three Kingdoms Period 265-316 AD
* The Sixteen Kingdoms 304-439 AD
* The Northern and Southern Dynasties 420-589 AD
* The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms 907-960 AD
* The Warlord Era 1916-1928
* The Chinese Civil War 1927-1950
Click to expand...

Well, given that timeline, China was a unified state for almost 1000 years.
 

scholar

Banned
Tripledot said:
Well, given that timeline, China was a unified state for almost 1000 years.
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Its highly incomplete. The later half of the Song was a divided China, the Yuan-Ming contention was another half century, the Qing-Ming contention was another half century, and longer if one includes elements like the Koxinga.
 

Sime

Soverihn said:
There was the development of an increasingly uniform 'Roman' cultural union around the Med.
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I agree with this. Even after the fall of the WRE, there was still commerce and communications between the élites of the Mediterranean.

This is basically the Pirenne's argument, but i'd say that the whole "the barbarians caused middle ages" theory can be restricted only to the Franks, because they were not tied to the Eastern Empire for legitimacy, and created a union between the gallo-roman élites and the frank ones, obliterating the "roman identity" of the population. It was an alternative to the separation method pursued by the Goths in Italy and Spain, who saw themselves (at least at first) as mere occupants.

I think that without Islam (and the devastation of the Gothic wars from Justinian), the gothic West could have fared pretty well, and if they succedeed to keep the Franks away from the Mediterranean, securing Occitania, i think that some kind of new roman empire could have ultimately be formed.
 
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