What do you make of this explanation of China's inability to resist the west?

The "too long out of practice fighting first-class opponents" explanation is

  • convincing as the primary explanation for Chinese weakness vs the West and Japan

    Votes: 14 11.8%
  • *not* convincing as the primary explanation for Chinese weakness vs the West and Japan

    Votes: 105 88.2%

  • Total voters
    119
So what? Hong Kong is Chinese now and arguably was even when ruled from London.
Many disagree.I am saying this as someone who has lived in HK before.
I know I am being deliberately obtuse and ignoring the real question posed, which is about Chinese military strength between oohh say 1800 and 1945, I just felt it needed pointing out that China resisted the West quite nicely thank you. Far, far better than say the Inca did.

Really? Japan was close to conquering China?, a country so militaristic it made Prussia look sane threw everything they had at China for 10 years and then were so desperate they attacked The USA to break the dead lock.
Is there anybody here who thinks Japan came close to colonising China in the 20thC?

Like I said with the usual arguments over definitions.

Can you please tone down your nationalist outburst?I am saying this as someone who is ethnically Chinese.For a country with the size and population of China,it has seriously under-performed for the most part since the Anshi Rebellion due to horrible policies and subsequent isolationism.
Am I the only one that thinks that China resisted the West perfectly well and after only 100 years or so is the most powerful state in the world again ( with the usual arguments over dates and definitions of "power" and "state").
It seems to me that China did what it has always done when confronted by powerful barbarians, absorb people, ideas and inventions while hanging on to what mattered culturally. Note that Britain, Japan, America and Russia did not at anytime conquer or look likely to conquer the Chinese.
The Song Dynasty screwed up immensely with the policies of subjugating military command to a civilian bureaucracy.The Ming Dynasty screwed up due to it's taxation policies,imperial examination system(which produces people who talk more than they are capable of doing),ridiculously low salary for bureaucrats,isolationist policies,the caste system and over-indulgent privileges granted to imperial family members.The Manchu Dynasty meanwhile was just an apartheid colonial regime.

It's fair to say that while their enemies are powerful,most of the time,they just screwed up themselves.
 
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RousseauX

Donor
Am I the only one that thinks that China resisted the West perfectly well and after only 100 years or so is the most powerful state in the world again ( with the usual arguments over dates and definitions of "power" and "state").
It seems to me that China did what it has always done when confronted by powerful barbarians, absorb people, ideas and inventions while hanging on to what mattered culturally. Note that Britain, Japan, America and Russia did not at anytime conquer or look likely to conquer the Chinese.
This is actually a really good point to be made: China exists as a sort of modern country today holding like 95%+ of the territory it actually cares about.

OTOH: where's the Ottoman Empire or Austria-Hungary today?

Can you honestly tell me that China in the 19th century did worse than the Ottomans?
 
This is actually a really good point to be made: China exists as a sort of modern country today holding like 95%+ of the territory it actually cares about.

OTOH: where's the Ottoman Empire or Austria-Hungary today?

Can you honestly tell me that China in the 19th century did worse than the Ottomans?
OE and AH are really bad examples.For the most part the OE and Austria-Hungary aren't even nation states.China had over two thousand years to create a national identity.
 

RousseauX

Donor
OE and AH are really bad examples.For the most part the OE and Austria-Hungary aren't even nation states.China had over two thousand years to create a national identity.
And China in the 19th century was not a very cohesive nation, there's also the analogue here where most of the Ottoman Empire was Arabic and had long periods of political unity holding them together. Ruled by the descendant of invaders who form a minority of the population.

China in the 19th century probably weren't much more cohesive than the Arab world, and yet the Arab world is split into a bunch of different states and China isn't.
 
And China in the 19th century was not a very cohesive nation, there's also the analogue here where most of the Ottoman Empire was Arabic and had long periods of political unity holding them together. Ruled by the descendant of invaders who form a minority of the population.

China in the 19th century probably weren't much more cohesive than the Arab world, and yet the Arab world is split into a bunch of different states and China isn't.
The Arab world had a much greater history of separating into fragmented states.Prior to the rise of the Turks,the last time the Arabs were largely united was during the days of the Abbasid Caliphate.Besides that,there's the population factor to take into consideration.China had a much higher population than the OE.So that factor makes them harder to govern for the European nations.The Boxer rebellions actually helped convince the Europeans that it's a bad idea to directly govern large parts of China.
 

Redbeard

Banned
I really don't know what to answer of the two options but first of all I find it interesting that we usually have ridiculed the Chinese for their historical isolationism. It has often been claimed that exactly this isolationism, instead of opening up and learning to do things our way, was the cause of Chinese weakness.

In a number of isolated cases the claim probably has a certain point, but I'll also claim that had the Chinese since contact with the western world been eagerly multicultural and openminded, hailing diversity etc etc. there wouldn't have been any China apart from a slight tone to the global trend and some silly gadgets in the souvenir stands.

You might argue that China today, in the same tact as its economy grows, also turn less Chinese and more global, at least its leaders seem worried, but had it not been on the basis of previous centuries of "lock out the barbarians" there wouldn't have been any China today in which to perform a historical economial miracle (to which they IMHO are welcomed and entirely entitled through their hard work).
 
I really don't know what to answer of the two options but first of all I find it interesting that we usually have ridiculed the Chinese for their historical isolationism. It has often been claimed that exactly this isolationism, instead of opening up and learning to do things our way, was the cause of Chinese weakness.

In a number of isolated cases the claim probably has a certain point, but I'll also claim that had the Chinese since contact with the western world been eagerly multicultural and openminded, hailing diversity etc etc. there wouldn't have been any China apart from a slight tone to the global trend and some silly gadgets in the souvenir stands.

You might argue that China today, in the same tact as its economy grows, also turn less Chinese and more global, at least its leaders seem worried, but had it not been on the basis of previous centuries of "lock out the barbarians" there wouldn't have been any China today in which to perform a historical economial miracle (to which they IMHO are welcomed and entirely entitled through their hard work).
China today is behind.Without isolationism,China can most likely be much more successful in modern days.It's worthwhile to note that after many years of hard work,China still lags behind the west in many categories.Even with the so-called Chinese economic miracle,the GDP per capita of the Chinese is still relatively meager compared to developed countries.If China caught up with the west much earlier,it's GDP per capitals probably going to be much higher.
 
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