Plausibility: European "Legalism" emerging during the Feudal Era

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Legalism here referring to the Chinese philosophy. Its been argued that the Chinese warring states, Legalism emerged as a reaction to the increased feudalization of the region.

Legalism, as we know stressed human beings are more inclined to do wrong than right because they are motivated entirely by self interest. Therefore strict laws, strong central governments, institutions, and absolute obedience were needed to give effective government for all. In return, the state should reward on merit, and punish harshly.

Going with this interpretation, is it possible that such a philosophy could be recreated during the European Feudal Era and gain traction amongst a state, much like it did in China? If so, what effects would this have?
 

Skallagrim

Banned
To some extent, such a philosophical/ideological reaction to chaotic situations is often seen, and in fact, Europe is no exception. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes is pretty much this, albeit in reaction to the English Civil War. Likewise, and earlier, The Prince is also this, to some extent, being written to avoid chaos and division. (Before anyone mentions it: people who think The Prince is meant to be satirical are utterly misinformed.) There are other such works produced in other European countries, reacting to situations particular to those countries. Incidentally, the same is true for Chinese Legalism, which was the philosophy of Qin, and emerged when (and because) Qin was weak and divided against itself.

Now, those European versions of this had their effects across national borders (inspiring foreign leaders on more than one occassion), but the big difference is that in China, Qin actually conquered the whole Chinese cultural region and spread out its ideology more widely. (Not that it lasted, and with good reason: something that extreme rarely lasts long. Once order is restored, you either mellow out, or you get kicked out of power-- like the Qin rulers.)

The reason Qin could do what it did was that despite the division of the Warring States, there was a sense of Chinese unity. All the Warring States wished to gain absolute supremacy, in a way no European power ever claimed to have a holy imperial heavenly mandated right to govern all of Europe. Such a unity had never existed. So "Alt-Legalist Europe" is hard to achieve. There's no-one around to enforce the ideology universally. One might, however, achieve a situation where one or more European nations adopt an Alt-Legalist philosophy, and looking to men like Hobbes or Machiavelli seems like a good bet to get that ball rolling.
 
I cannot speak for Hobbes as i haven't read him, but i have read Machiavelli. The whole point of his philosophy is doing that which is necessary to secure stability, and thereby liberty. Some may be surprised to learn, but niccolo was in fact a Republican. He was such a big fanboy of the Roman republic it actually kinda gets ridiculous in his 'art of war'.

At any rate, he placed importance on having a republic that works for the common welfare of the people, and viewed the sociopolitical struggle of the commoners with the aristocrats in rome as vital in its process of becoming more perfect in being able to do so. This is, as far as I know, very much opposed to the fundamentally autocratic nature & source of chinese legalism.

And reguards to harshness, Niccolo is very clear that, while being feared may be usesful, one should avoid being hated and too harsh.

"He ought to be slow to believe what he hears and slow to act. Nor should he fear imaginary dangers, but proceed with moderation, prudence, and humanity, avoiding carelessness born of overconfidence and unbearable harshness born of excessive distrust"
Or
"[One] should make himself feared in such a way that, though he does not gain love, he escapes hatred"
 
To some extent, such a philosophical/ideological reaction to chaotic situations is often seen, and in fact, Europe is no exception. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes is pretty much this, albeit in reaction to the English Civil War. Likewise, and earlier, The Prince is also this, to some extent, being written to avoid chaos and division. (Before anyone mentions it: people who think The Prince is meant to be satirical are utterly misinformed.) There are other such works produced in other European countries, reacting to situations particular to those countries. Incidentally, the same is true for Chinese Legalism, which was the philosophy of Qin, and emerged when (and because) Qin was weak and divided against itself.

Now, those European versions of this had their effects across national borders (inspiring foreign leaders on more than one occassion), but the big difference is that in China, Qin actually conquered the whole Chinese cultural region and spread out its ideology more widely. (Not that it lasted, and with good reason: something that extreme rarely lasts long. Once order is restored, you either mellow out, or you get kicked out of power-- like the Qin rulers.)

The reason Qin could do what it did was that despite the division of the Warring States, there was a sense of Chinese unity. All the Warring States wished to gain absolute supremacy, in a way no European power ever claimed to have a holy imperial heavenly mandated right to govern all of Europe. Such a unity had never existed. So "Alt-Legalist Europe" is hard to achieve. There's no-one around to enforce the ideology universally. One might, however, achieve a situation where one or more European nations adopt an Alt-Legalist philosophy, and looking to men like Hobbes or Machiavelli seems like a good bet to get that ball rolling.
There was as much sense of Chinese unity as there was in Europe.The mandate of heaven thing prior to the Qin unification of China had as much merit as the Holy Roman Emperor's claim of being the universal monarch(at least in Europe).The Son of Heaven was basically just a primus inter pares among the different rulers of Chinese states.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
There was as much sense of Chinese unity as there was in Europe.The mandate of heaven thing prior to the Qin unification of China had as much merit as the Holy Roman Emperor's claim of being the universal monarch(at least in Europe).The Son of Heaven was basically just a primus inter pares among the different rulers of Chinese states.

That equation of China and Europe during the relevant periods is simply not correct. Never had all of the European cultural area been unified, nor did any European ruler actively claim to be the rightful emperor of all Europe (the Holy Roman Emperor, for instance, did not claim an automatic right to rule France or Poland-Lithuania). In China, on the other hand, all the Warring States descended from the empire of the Zhou dynasty, were part of Chinese culture, wished to claim the Mandate of Heaven for themselves, and sought to gain imperial supremacy over all China.

Whether the Emperor was an abolsolute monarch or more like the Holy Roman Emperor is beside the point. That the Mandate of Heaven wasn't a thing before the Qin unification is just a complete lie. The concept came up as the key legitimising factor when the Zhou dynasty supplanted the Shang dynasty... in the 11th century BC. Pretending that China was just as culturally divided as Europe is simply not correct. China was far more of a cultural unity (despite existing divisions; I do not claim there were none at all) and in particular had a shared imperial background to fall back on, whereas Europe had never been fully united like that. Furthermore, Chinese states all sought to gain such imperial hegemony, while European states did not.

These are key diffences. Ignoring them is unhelpful in general, and in this case specifically unhelpful when it comes to determining in what way a "European Legalism" might develop. Given the above, I remain of the opinion that it's not going to go in the Chinese way, with one state adopting the ideology, defeating all rivals, and founding a European empire along such lines. More plausibly, a "national variety" of such an ideology would have the best chances instead, and could then be adopted (perhaps in a diffferent form) by other countries, on a national basis.
 
That equation of China and Europe during the relevant periods is simply not correct. Never had all of the European cultural area been unified, nor did any European ruler actively claim to be the rightful emperor of all Europe (the Holy Roman Emperor, for instance, did not claim an automatic right to rule France or Poland-Lithuania). In China, on the other hand, all the Warring States descended from the empire of the Zhou dynasty, were part of Chinese culture, wished to claim the Mandate of Heaven for themselves, and sought to gain imperial supremacy over all China.

Whether the Emperor was an abolsolute monarch or more like the Holy Roman Emperor is beside the point. That the Mandate of Heaven wasn't a thing before the Qin unification is just a complete lie. The concept came up as the key legitimising factor when the Zhou dynasty supplanted the Shang dynasty... in the 11th century BC. Pretending that China was just as culturally divided as Europe is simply not correct. China was far more of a cultural unity (despite existing divisions; I do not claim there were none at all) and in particular had a shared imperial background to fall back on, whereas Europe had never been fully united like that. Furthermore, Chinese states all sought to gain such imperial hegemony, while European states did not.

These are key diffences. Ignoring them is unhelpful in general, and in this case specifically unhelpful when it comes to determining in what way a "European Legalism" might develop. Given the above, I remain of the opinion that it's not going to go in the Chinese way, with one state adopting the ideology, defeating all rivals, and founding a European empire along such lines. More plausibly, a "national variety" of such an ideology would have the best chances instead, and could then be adopted (perhaps in a diffferent form) by other countries, on a national basis.
Where in my post did I say Mandate of Heaven was not a thing before the Qin unification?I only said that it's as little respected by the rulers of Chinese states as various princes of Europe did towards the HRE.At the very least in the case of Europe,there existed a period where much of Europe was fully controlled by the Roman Empire.In China however,the control of the Zhou rulers,the Shang rulers and the predecessors was extremely loose,and often never amounted to anything other than symbolic deference.

To say that China before the Qin unification is less culturally divided as Europe during the Middle Ages is definitely a lie.Most of the states used different scripts and had widely separate cultural customs.The people of Qin,Chu,Wu and Yue were for example commonly seen by the people of the Central plains as barbarians.

The Holy Roman Emperor definitely claimed that he was a universal ruler.The Pope as well saw himself as the head of all the secular princes.Similarly,there were bitter contests between the HRE and the ERE over who was the true emperor,due the belief that the emperor was the rightful ruler of all Christendom and the world.The Church in particular had more of a presence and influence in various Christian states than the Zhou monarchy and their predecessor ever did in their vassal states.
 
We may need to consider here that philosophy of the feudal period in Europe was heavily influenced or not totally separable from Catholic religious thought.

When we discuss feudalism conventionally we discuss the 9th to 15th century, and even a work like The Prince only enters the stage of history in the 16th century, which is quite firmly in the early modern period, where there are much different states and the role of the church, as against literate individuals unaffiliated with the church, in production of political thought is much different.

So we would have to consider the extent a legalism like philosophy is compatible with clergy who are producing work that is compatible with Catholic theology, or whether the base assumptions about "human nature" and so on are too divergent.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
Where in my post did I say Mandate of Heaven was not a thing before the Qin unification?

You didn't. As you restated in this latest post, you said that it had "as much merit as the Holy Roman Emperor's claim of being the universal monarch". And I dispute that view. No European monarch ever claimed to be the rightful ruler of all Europe in both theory and (desired) practice, and there was certainly no situation whereby various (or even all) major European monarchs made that same claim in competition. Both were true for China, however. Nor is it the case that all European states felt themselves part of a European culture (beyond 'Christendom', no such unifying culture had formed).


I only said that it's as little respected by the rulers of Chinese states as various princes of Europe did towards the HRE.At the very least in the case of Europe,there existed a period where much of Europe was fully controlled by the Roman Empire.

At no point did either of these polities unite Europe; both left vast portions outside their control. There has simply never been a single unifying hegemony over all Europe. No imperial crowen can claim that legacy. The Chinese Warring States considered themselves just that: Chinese Warring States, each eventually claiming absolute hegemony. In Europe, conversely, it was about order of supremacy within Christendom, but the various monarchs did not claim to be the madated rulers of all Europe, nor to represent a hypothetical all-European culture.


In China however,the control of the Zhou rulers,the Shang rulers and the predecessors was extremely loose,and often never amounted to anything other than symbolic deference.

I am not disputing this loose arrangement: it has no bearing on the discussion. The fact remains that however losse it was (at times) in practice, the priciples on which Chinese hegemony was based ware different from the principles on which, say, the HRE based its claim of being the foremost monarchy in Chistendom. That is: anyone claiming the Mandate of Heaven is, at least in theory, claiming that all other monarchs exist as vassals to him, within his empire. The Holy Roman Emperor does not claim to rule Poland. He merely asserts that as Emperor, he is the foremost of the temporal princes of the earth, and thus enjoys primacy over all peers. But he does not extend the hypothetical boundaries of his domain to cover their kingdoms.


To say that China before the Qin unification is less culturally divided as Europe during the Middle Ages is definitely a lie.

It's really not.


Most of the states used different scripts and had widely separate cultural customs.The people of Qin,Chu,Wu and Yue were for example commonly seen by the people of the Central plains as barbarians.

Different variant scripts for the same fundamental language. Certainly there were regional variants in culture; there will always be. That does not make China more culturally divided than Europe during the Middle Ages. We are looking at a bunch of Chinese states that all derive from one fractured empire. Europe, contrarily, unites vastly different areas, many of which (Germans, Balts, Slavs, Scandinavians, Hungarians) were never part of the Roman Empire.

If you want an analogy for "barbarians" being absorbed into a culture, you need to look at Han dynasty China absorbing the Hundred Yue. Incidentally, they did a much more thorough job absorbing them into Chinese culture than Christendom ever did of foring a single European identity out of all those many ethnicities in Europe. Might that have something to do with the fact that there was such a thing as coherent Chinese culture, whereas European culture is more of an amalgation?


The Holy Roman Emperor definitely claimed that he was a universal ruler.The Pope as well saw himself as the head of all the secular princes.Similarly,there were bitter contests between the HRE and the ERE over who was the true emperor,due the belief that the emperor was the rightful ruler of all Christendom and the world.The Church in particular had more of a presence and influence in various Christian states than the Zhou monarchy and their predecessor ever did in their vassal states.

I already went into that claim about the Holy Roman Emperor. The Pope is another matter, and some kind of super-papacy that achieves temporal power over all Europe under the aegis of a pope-emperor is probably the closest equivalent to the Mandate of Heaven you can get. Do not that no such thing existed in OTL. (Nevertheless, I'd love to see it explored!)

Then there's the contestation between the HRE and the ERE over who was the true emperor. This was again over primacy, rather than power. They both wanted to be recognised as the true heir to Rome, and thus the true foremost Christian monarch. But neither attempted to annex the other, nor did they pretent that their decrees had power in each others' territories.


In conclusion, while similarities can of course be seen, and analogies drawn, too much equation of Europe in the Middle Ages and China in the Era of the Warring States remains unwise. There are fundamental differences, and when attempting to create a European analogy for a historical Chinese philosophy, those differences must be taken into account. European history will not, and cannot, follow the exact same pattern as Chinese history did.


We may need to consider here that philosophy of the feudal period in Europe was heavily influenced or not totally separable from Catholic religious thought.

When we discuss feudalism conventionally we discuss the 9th to 15th century, and even a work like The Prince only enters the stage of history in the 16th century, which is quite firmly in the early modern period, where there are much different states and the role of the church, as against literate individuals unaffiliated with the church, in production of political thought is much different.

So we would have to consider the extent a legalism like philosophy is compatible with clergy who are producing work that is compatible with Catholic theology, or whether the base assumptions about "human nature" and so on are too divergent.

I suspect that the 16th century is pretty much the earliest you're likely to see this kind of thing, honestly.

Also note that the period in China that produced legalism also produced theories on a right to depose unfit and cruel monarchs, and such things. In some ways, you might see Locke's reaction to his circumstances as much reflected in Chinese thought as Hobbes' reaction to those circumstances. One might go into a whole hypothesis about how certain situations often tend to produce certain types of intellectual responses. I for one subscribe to such a view. Yet as I mentioned above, there are also differences between China and Europe that cannot be discounted. China had a 'universal hegemony' precedent to an extent that Europe did not. As such, the idea of a strong, centralising ideology just emerging without such a precedent to legitimise it... is difficult to see.

Rather, the same sort of developments that inspired The Prince and Leviathan in OTL should be looked for as the impetus for such an emergence.

That, or we're back to the the whole "super-papacy that achieves temporal power over all Europe under the aegis of a pope-emperor becomes a European equivalent to the Mandate of Heaven"-idea. That simply makes the political realities of Europe more like those of China, and if that Holy European Empire then falls apart, you basically just get "Warring States Period: European Edition". Which is cool, but a bit beyond the scope of the OP, I guess.


I cannot speak for Hobbes as i haven't read him, but i have read Machiavelli. The whole point of his philosophy is doing that which is necessary to secure stability, and thereby liberty. Some may be surprised to learn, but niccolo was in fact a Republican. He was such a big fanboy of the Roman republic it actually kinda gets ridiculous in his 'art of war'.

At any rate, he placed importance on having a republic that works for the common welfare of the people, and viewed the sociopolitical struggle of the commoners with the aristocrats in rome as vital in its process of becoming more perfect in being able to do so. This is, as far as I know, very much opposed to the fundamentally autocratic nature & source of chinese legalism.

And reguards to harshness, Niccolo is very clear that, while being feared may be usesful, one should avoid being hated and too harsh.

"He ought to be slow to believe what he hears and slow to act. Nor should he fear imaginary dangers, but proceed with moderation, prudence, and humanity, avoiding carelessness born of overconfidence and unbearable harshness born of excessive distrust"
Or
"[One] should make himself feared in such a way that, though he does not gain love, he escapes hatred"

You're not wrong. Hobbes is really the better analogue for the more typical Legalist view, which is why I qualified my citation of Machiavelli as "being this, to some extent". That said, Legalism itself could be interpreted in various ways, and to a certain extent also aimed at bettering the lives of the people. Nor did it explicitly encourage cruelty. It advocated for strong, central government as the cure for chaos and division. The problem is that such strong, central government must typically be imposed by force. The one who enforces it often tends towards a certain harshness, as the First Qin Emperor did. As I said: that then causes trouble of its own. One mellows out, or one faces intense backlash.

Could go either way.
 
You didn't. As you restated in this latest post, you said that it had "as much merit as the Holy Roman Emperor's claim of being the universal monarch". And I dispute that view. No European monarch ever claimed to be the rightful ruler of all Europe in both theory and (desired) practice, and there was certainly no situation whereby various (or even all) major European monarchs made that same claim in competition. Both were true for China, however. Nor is it the case that all European states felt themselves part of a European culture (beyond 'Christendom', no such unifying culture had formed).
As I've mentioned,the rulers of the HRE claimed they are the universal monarch--the fact that they don't own much of Europe in practice is the same as the Zhou rulers,they don't own most of China either.As to the claim that no major European monarch made the claim to be the rightful ruler of Europe,that's kind of false.The title of emperor was highly prestigious for the reasons I have mentioned,and oh boy plenty of major Christian princes have fought over the title,especially the early years of Charlemagne's division of the empire.Later on,by virtue of the title being elective,plenty of major monarchs of European states have tried to get the title through force or by bribing the electors.



At no point did either of these polities unite Europe; both left vast portions outside their control. There has simply never been a single unifying hegemony over all Europe. No imperial crowen can claim that legacy. The Chinese Warring States considered themselves just that: Chinese Warring States, each eventually claiming absolute hegemony. In Europe, conversely, it was about order of supremacy within Christendom, but the various monarchs did not claim to be the madated rulers of all Europe, nor to represent a hypothetical all-European culture.
Charlemagne's coronation as the Western Emperor was basically this.....



I am not disputing this loose arrangement: it has no bearing on the discussion. The fact remains that however losse it was (at times) in practice, the priciples on which Chinese hegemony was based ware different from the principles on which, say, the HRE based its claim of being the foremost monarchy in Chistendom. That is: anyone claiming the Mandate of Heaven is, at least in theory, claiming that all other monarchs exist as vassals to him, within his empire. The Holy Roman Emperor does not claim to rule Poland. He merely asserts that as Emperor, he is the foremost of the temporal princes of the earth, and thus enjoys primacy over all peers. But he does not extend the hypothetical boundaries of his domain to cover their kingdoms.
In the early years of Poland's existence,the HRE tried to keep Poland under vassalage,but that's a story for another day.Back in Charlemagne's day,he was essentially claiming the entire legacy of the Romans as the supposed universal rulers of the world.The fact that the emperors later became a first amongst equals has a lot to do with ground realities,just like how the Zhou kings were later forced to accept that the ruler of the other states are independent kings but that he's still theoretically first amongst equals as the Son of Heaven.



Different variant scripts for the same fundamental language. Certainly there were regional variants in culture; there will always be. That does not make China more culturally divided than Europe during the Middle Ages. We are looking at a bunch of Chinese states that all derive from one fractured empire. Europe, contrarily, unites vastly different areas, many of which (Germans, Balts, Slavs, Scandinavians, Hungarians) were never part of the Roman Empire.
As I've mentioned,this empire was more of a loose confederacy than a genuine centralised empire.It's basically the sort that people can come and go,which the rulers of Chu basically did when they told the Zhou Kings that since they are barbarians,they don't have any need to obey the king of China.By saying that they are culturally the same because they derived from one fractured empire is like saying Thailand and Korea are culturally the same as China because they were vassals to the emperor of China back in the Ming Dynasty.
If you want an analogy for "barbarians" being absorbed into a culture, you need to look at Han dynasty China absorbing the Hundred Yue. Incidentally, they did a much more thorough job absorbing them into Chinese culture than Christendom ever did of foring a single European identity out of all those many ethnicities in Europe. Might that have something to do with the fact that there was such a thing as coherent Chinese culture, whereas European culture is more of an amalgation?
For a lot of states,especially the likes of Chu,Yue and Wu,I see them as more in line with states like Norway,Sweden and Denmark where they were never conquered by Christian powers,but emulated the culture and system of the continent.
 
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Skallagrim

Banned
Charlemagne's coronation as the Western Emperor was basically this.....

Let's start here, because this is the core of the problem I have with your claim. You stretch the meaning of the words 'basically this', so as to fit your approach, to the point where their meaning becomes equivalent to 'totally not this'.

I can also say that the King of France was basically the same as the Roman Emperor or the Emperor of China, and I can even come up with some nice points of comparison, but it's still not accurate. The equivalence is false.


As I've mentioned,the rulers of the HRE claimed they are the universal monarch--the fact that they don't own much of Europe in practice is the same as the Zhou rulers,they don't own most of China either.

Again, you equate direct rule to matters of imperial hegemony. No-one claims the Holy Roman Emperor was all-powerful inside the HRE, but we do know which parts of Europe were parts of the HRE and which (considerable) parts were not.

The Mandate of Heaven, on the other hand, was not limited in that way. You equate a European concept of 'universal monarchy' (in a specific context) to a Chinese concept, when in truth the two had different meanings and backgrounds.


As to the claim that no major European monarch made the claim to be the rightful ruler of Europe,that's kind of false.The title of emperor was highly prestigious for the reasons I have mentioned,and oh boy plenty of major Christian princes have fought over the title,especially the early years of Charlemagne's division of the empire.Later on,by virtue of the title being elective,plenty of major monarchs of European states have tried to get the title through force or by bribing the electors.

"Kind of". Again, stretched to the point where it loses all meaning, and resembles "kind of not at all".

The fact that a title is prestigious does not mean that it is a title that endows its bearer with an explicit (or even implict) hegemony over all Europe or all Christendom. As I mentioned before, in Europe it was a matter of primacy, in China a matter of hegemony. The Son of Heaven by definition claims to rule all China and in fact all the world. The various European emperors could not even agree on which title was the most legitimate heir to the Roman imperium, and all any of them could claim was to be the foremost of the tempiral rulers within Christendom.

That's nothing to spit at, and they sure fought over it, but it does not equate to what we saw in China. Neither philosophically nor practically.


In the early years of Poland's existence,the HRE tried to keep Poland under vassalage,but that's a story for another day.

And Napoleon happily marched across Europe, but that never made him an equivalent to the Son of Heaven in European culture, either. Power =/= legitimacy.

My point is that you're trying to take a concept that never existed in that form in Europe, and to then apply it to historical European polities that it doesn't actually suit or fit. Which is shown again directly below.


Back in Charlemagne's day,he was essentially claiming the entire legacy of the Romans as the supposed universal rulers of the world.

The Romans didn't claim to rule the world, they claimed to be the foremost power in the world, and the Bestest Dudes Ever. Charlemagne didn't claim to rule the world, either. He had this whole thing with the ERE where they both tried to claim the true legacy of Rome, and to diminish the other's claim to same. But even when both claimed the full imperial legacy (and thus full dominion over the other's empire), neither suddenly claimed to rule all of Europe (let alone the world) beyond their respective borders. (For instance: Charlemagne didn't claim to rule England, but he did feel that lesser Christian monarchs should recognise his primacy - which is not hegemony - since he was an Emperor.)

Also observe that this mutual claiming and grandstanding soon ended, and in fact, the treaty of 811 AD led to mutual recognition and total claim-dropping. That's right. From that moment on, both the Carolingian Empire (later succeeded by the HRE) and the ERE recognised each other as being full imperial heirs to Rome, and explictly dismissed any claim of authority over each other's territories.

Myth of European imperial universalism: busted.


The fact that the emperors later became a first amongst equals has a lot to do with ground realities,just like how the Zhou kings were later forced to accept that the ruler of the other states are independent kings but that he's still theoretically first amongst equals as the Son of Heaven.

Again, the directness of imperial rule is of no relevance here. What matters is whether (however strong or weak) imperial rule covers the entire cultural area, or is explicitly limited to a certain domain. In China, it was the former. In Europe, as I demonstrated above, the latter.

That difference is crucial.


As I've mentioned,this empire was more of a loose confederacy than a genuine centralised empire.It's basically the sort that people can come and go,which the rulers of Chu basically did when they told the Zhou Kings that since they are barbarians,they don't have any need to obey the king of China.
For a lot of states,especially the likes of Chu,Yue and Wu,I see them as more in line with states like Norway,Sweden and Denmark where they were never conquered by Christian powers,but emulated the culture and system of the continent.

I can see where you're going with this bit, and I agree to a great extent. I hope you do see that it doesn't change anything about the two key differences between China and Europe in the relevant periods. To recapitulate: Chinese universal empire and claims of universal hegemony, versus European geographically demarcated empire(s!) and claims of universal primacy.

Also, regardless of some unfixed periphery, it remains a fact that Chinese culture - certain internal differences and regionalisms notwithstanding - was far more of a united whole than "European culture", which we must even put in quotation marks because it was actually an amalagation of multiple cultures, united by a shared religion. (And growing closer, over the centuries, towards more shared cultural primises and values-- but by the Middle Ages, that was yet to come.)
 
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