https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChinaSooo.... China then. It's a pretty big place, about 19% of the humanity and the largest country by size that doesn't contain significant parts of arctic, even if it does get pretty cold up north. When writing about China it is customary, even in supposedly 'sophisticated' commentary, to make all kinds of naff historical illusions after its great continuity throughout history, its antiquity, its supposedly 'Confucian' culture with its mandarins and emperors (which apparently still exists despite everything the last two hundred years has thrown at it), its isolationism, its indifference to religion and its 'difference' from the rest of the world. Orientalism still breathes. So perhaps here I can correct a few misconceptions. China is not the oldest still existing state in the world (that's either Ethiopia or Iran), although it is one of the few countries that still exist that was around in the time of Christ. Since that time China has disintegrated on many occasions. It was not a united state between 220AD and c.580AD, a 360 year period (longer than whole history of the USA up till now). Nor was it much united between 907AD and the Mongol Conquest, an almost equally long period of time. It was the Mongols that entered re-unifying China as a state. Among the literati Confucianism was a state ideology for over 2,000 years but it was frequently challenged in massive popular revolts like that of the
Yellow Turbans or the
Taipings, which contained elements of strong religious fanaticism. As for the Confucian revival today, it is hard to see it as anything other than a nominal attachment to series of ethics rather than anything really typifies the state or popular ideology (which was never that Confucian; let's not speak of 'Confucian values' plz). The Chinese government still pays homage to Marxism in its education system, this does not mean the state is full of Marxist values and is excellent example of how ideological education is overrated. The state did long have isolationist policies but that does not imply that China was some navel-gaving xenophobic monolith. The long presence of large Chinese minorities across South East Asia, mostly brought there by trade, is testament to this. In the 19th Century, while the country was going through some sort of Malthusian nightmare and the breakdown of authority, millions migrated. Manchuria and the north was sinicized by a migration demographically as large as the European migration to the Americas going on the same time. Only racist laws kept them out of the Antipodes and the West Coast of North America but were used as coolie labour across many European colonies even after the passing of acts like the Chinese Exclusion Act. There was plenty of them and they were cheap and willing to go.
China is an imperial state, always has been and still is. This is not a criticism just an observation. It houses under its territory several differing cultures, creeds and traditions and unifies them under one roof. But co-operation and assimilation point in only one direction, towards the Han Chinese majority (around 91%; the most numerous ethnic group on the planet). This has long been the case. Despite the efforts of the Qing Manchu emperors the Manchus eventually assimilated towards Han mores aided by the massive migration mentioned above. The entrance to the forbidden city still has signs and ensigna written in Manchu, put there in the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as Mandarin. But the former language is extinct (well, with a
somewhat bizarre afterlife) while the descendants of the Manchus all speak the latter. There never was a Manchu nationalist movement. This makes it more like Russia and the United States as a state (a dominant culture in which other groups, no matter their provenance, end up assimilating to in order to integrate with the whole... and in which other groups willingly do so for the most part with the occasional exception) than a classic Eurasian empire like the Ottomans, in which peoples belonged to assigned groups and not to assimilate to a dominant one but rather rule as perceived as negotiating between groups rather than holding one group as standard (the closest state to that today is India). Today the boundaries of the Han people are expanding further in Xinjiang/East Turkestan/Uyghuristan (Delete according to taste) and Tibet - where only 10% of the population are Han (I'm referring to here the Autonomous Region not 'Greater Tibet'). Chinese nationality policy is still based on Soviet practice, of recognizing different ethnic groups - 56 in total, the smallest of which only has
just over 2,000 people in China and giving them limited autonomy and benefits while keeping all control in the hands of the central authority. The Soviets gave a lot of lip service to minority autonomy while engaging in its own particular version of Russification, the Chinese are doing likewise. What the future holds for groups like the Tibetans or the Uyghurs is different to foretall, but resistance is likely. Massive violence breaks out in Xinjiang every year. Tibet, despite being better known outside of China, is more quiet, which isn't to say that it can't explode. These areas represent a tiny fraction of China's population but will be of most interest to see in what directions the Chinese state develops in regards to its minorities, especially those with separatist intentions.
All histories of China mention the division between north and south. The flatter, colder, more bureaucratic north versus the more mountainous, more mercantile, less uniform south. This shows up still today in the map below of Chinese dialects. Mandarin, the world's largest language by number of 1st language speakers, dominates the North, the South West and West where a type of Chinese is spoken. In the south though dialects, of various levels of mutual intelligibility, are more widespread. The most well known one is Cantonese (here represented as 'Yue'). As the figures to the left show these dialects (or rather dialect spectrums) have speakers which all together puts them in the hundreds of millions. The Chinese government of course promotes Mandarin as the national language and Mandarin only. There has caused some backlash to nothing to the extent that a 'Cantonese nationalism' has emerged defining Cantonese as a separate language (something which would be extremely controversial to do). Language based nationalism has not and never has threatened to tear China apart. On this point you might wish to compare to Europe which linguistic and religious differences have long been used to counter any attempt at greater Europeanization or to counter Europe's incredible fragmentedness (China is more than twice the size of Europe. One country twice the size of a union of 28). China's religious wars may have broken up the country in moments of its history but those rebels never tried to create their own separate states and destroy the concept of 'China'. In spite of my earlier scoffing, China's enduringness as a civilizational and cultural unity is certainly impressive and one of the key facts of East Asian if not world history. Why this is, I leave for now to the Sinologists.
