How to reverse East and West ?

Greetings, gentlemen :)

In OTL, Rome felt at the begining of our era, whereas China was a powerful empire in far east... But could have history happened in another way, with an united western world under the banner of a more resistant but isolated roman empire and a few chinese states discovering the world a building an asiatic modernity ?

That's my challenge for you, be free to give any idea you have to make this situation plausible...
 
To be honest, geography may put the stopper on that. The geographical argument for a disunited Europe has always been quite convincing to me.
 
This is true, China doesn't have as many natural barriers, which promotes unification.

Its probably easier to get an army from France to Greece than from Manchuria to Tibet. The North European plain doesn't really have major natural borders, and any state that consolidated that area could project power fairly easily onto Italy and Iberia.
 
Its probably easier to get an army from France to Greece than from Manchuria to Tibet. The North European plain doesn't really have major natural borders, and any state that consolidated that area could project power fairly easily onto Italy and Iberia.

Not really. China Proper is basically a giant plain, divided by some major rivers. With the construction of the Grand Canal, not even that.

To go from France to Greece, one must pass through the Alps (the Franco-Italian border) or take the long way through Germany. Then, you must cross the Hungarian Plain, from thence through the Balkans. The road to Greece from Hungary is mountainous near the whole way.

I would argue it's actually much easier to go from Qinghai to Shandong, than Brittany to Macedonia.
 
Not really. China Proper is basically a giant plain, divided by some major rivers. With the construction of the Grand Canal, not even that.

To go from France to Greece, one must pass through the Alps (the Franco-Italian border) or take the long way through Germany. Then, you must cross the Hungarian Plain, from thence through the Balkans. The road to Greece from Hungary is mountainous near the whole way.

I would argue it's actually much easier to go from Qinghai to Shandong, than Brittany to Macedonia.

Alternately, you could go via the Mediterranean - but that's certainly not more practical (than China).

And the Northern European Plain looks to be that area that had a lot of forest and swamp - not exactly an ideal place to form a single solid political unit, even if its flat.
 
Alternately, you could go via the Mediterranean - but that's certainly not more practical (than China).

And the Northern European Plain looks to be that area that had a lot of forest and swamp - not exactly an ideal place to form a single solid political unit, even if its flat.

I was mentally using Paris as the start point, which which may have affected it. Mediterranean is not so bad a method, to be sure; the one polity that ruled much of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East combined for a significant amount of time had it for its backbone. But you're right, it does have significant weaknesses compared to a land centric Empire.
 
Its probably easier to get an army from France to Greece than from Manchuria to Tibet.

Neither Manchurian nor Tibet were consistently part of Imperial China. Getting armies around the actual Chinese heartland is a lot easier than in Europe.

You see a similar situation in India where geography tended to scotch the consolidation of major empires across the entire subcontinent although, naturally, the OP has assumed that Asia=China
 
I was mentally using Paris as the start point, which which may have affected it.

Yeah. The route I was thinking was going south by land, then hitting the Mediterranean, and sailing.

Mediterranean is not so bad a method, to be sure; the one polity that ruled much of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East combined for a significant amount of time had it for its backbone. But you're right, it does have significant weaknesses compared to a land centric Empire.

Especially one with either rivers or (though this isn't China or India) the conditions for nomads.

I think the real problem though is that Rome and China developed in dramatically different ways, beyond the generalization of "growth by conquest", in different (political) environments.

Could you get a crumbled China and a surviving "Roman Empire"? Yes. But between geography and politics (internal and external), it won't be like OTL China any more than What-was-China is like OTL Europe.
 
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