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Arguably a more Chinese-style philosophy is prudent now as the world becomes a smaller place. Chinese people have sustained for thousands of years on the same l

Arguably a more Chinese-style philosophy is prudent now as the world becomes a smaller place. Chinese people have sustained for thousands of years on the same land, without needing to rely on continuously invading new territory. Now the whole Earth is settled, we need to learn how to live together. Not that China is perfect, but we certainly have much to teach each other, and the Chinese have been the better listener so far.

albertopv 4y ago
I very much prefer living in a country where I can go where I want without asking to government or say almost what I want without risking to go an education camp. So no thank you, current chinese is not my way and never will.
- mrtnmcc 4y ago
  It's ironic to criticize the way the Chinese handled terrorism concerns against Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang, when the US War on Terror didn't just dehumanize and supress American Muslims-- it killed about 1 million people across the globe. This is a case of "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" We can all criticize Xinjiang, but not to justify cultural superiority, if anything it works the other way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_terror
  - albertopv 4y ago
    Where did I say my culture is superior? I'm talking about individual freedom and my preference about it, nothing else. I prefer to be a free individual. So please don't change topic.
notch656c 4y ago
Does Chinese history show they are any more immune than others to our weaknesses in living together?
- mrtnmcc 4y ago
  China is about 10x older than the US. We're like a six year old thinking they knowing better than grandpa.
  - notch656c 4y ago
    Oh I see you are comparing countries not cultures. In that case US is older.
    - mrtnmcc 4y ago
      The Europeans are not obsessed with taking down China, nor are Europeans ardent individualists as Americans are. Chinese and America have a bigger cultural gap than Europe and China in this respect.
      - yorwba 4y ago
        As a Chinese-speaking European, I'm getting the impression that you're using faraway places you know little about as convenient projection surfaces for an ideal contrast with the things you dislike about America. Dislike of America's recent history of conquest turns thousands of years of warfare on what is now Chinese territory into thousands of years of living on the same land without any invasions. Dislike of American individualism turns Europeans into... I'm actually not sure whether you associate any specific qualities with not being ardent individualists. Anyways, I'm quite annoyed by this, so consider yourself officially taken down.
        mrtnmcc 4y ago
        American Individualism is a well studied value w.r.t Europeans, https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2011/11/17/the-american-western-european-values-gap/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2011/11/17/the-american-w... Of course generalizing like this about groups is a cloudy lens at best but it's the premise of OP and may predict voted policy of respective countries. That said, it's been a number of years since I lived in Switzerland and I see things have changed measurably regarding official EU policy on Chinese trade, https://wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93European_Union_relations https://wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93European_Union_rela...
influx 4y ago
Which part of history does Genghis Khan fit into your narrative? He died in 1227, having killed between 4 million to 60 million people...
- mrtnmcc 4y ago
  Um... Ghenghis Khan was Mongolian. Mongolians are not in any way at all related to the Chinese people/Han people.
  - influx 4y ago
    "Genghis Khan himself was technically not ethnic Han, but he and mainly his successors saw themselves as legitimate Chinese emperors by establishing the Yuan Dynasty." I guess you can try to argue some kind of blood purity, but I suspect you'll find yourself in bad company rather quickly on that one...
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - woooooo 4y ago
      China is unique in that their biggest acquisitions of land came from being conquered and then assimilating their conquerors (Mongol and Manchu). It would be erroneous to say that later events retroactively made Genghis Khan Chinese.
- pphysch 4y ago
  The part where Chinese civilization built the largest wall in human history to defend from the civilization that produced Genghis. Defensive, not offensive!
alephnerd 4y ago
That ignores the massive expansion into Central Asia (Tibet, Turkestan, Badhkashan, Altai), Mongolia, Borneo, the Yenisei Basin, Yunnan, Kachin, the Miao/Viet/Tai/Hmong frontier, and Formosa/Taiwan that the Qing Dynasty (which itself is Manchu, not Han) lead. Modern China is very much a reflection of that mass expansion. Also, Chinese are not homogenous. Ignoring the 20th century Han social construct, there have always been distinct ethnic and cultural differences among differing "Chinese" ethnic groups like Cantonese, Teochew, Hokkien, Hakka, Guangzhong, etc that were erased during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
- mrtnmcc 4y ago
  Agreed there is nuance, but the Han dynasty had similar borders 2000 years ago. The Great Wall helped, it wasn't the easiest thing to move around.
  - alephnerd 4y ago
    Within "core" China yes, but that was questionable tbh. Most borders for nations before the 19th century are more hypothetical than reality. Without innovations like the telegraph, railroad, canned goods, etc, power projection outside of a core area was heavily hypothetical. Hell, at one point in the late 18th and early 19th century, the village my family is from would have technically been Qing AND Sikh AND Dogra. Borders are artificial constructs that have historically been more fantasy than reality (at least until the late 19th to mid 20th century)
- dirtyid 4y ago
  Except CCP/PRC resolved 12/14 land border disputes inherited from ROC, most of which involved ceding more territory during settlement. That's the opposite of expansion, and TBF hard to find another country that has voluntarily ceded more land under bilateral negotiations. PRC territory literally contracted under westphalian framework that these narratives are measured against.
  - alephnerd 4y ago
dilyevsky 4y ago
> Chinese culture has sustained for thousands of years on the same land, without needing to rely on invading new territory. You should probably brush up on your asian history - there was incredible amount of conquest wars in what became modern China with casualties rivaled only by ww1/2
beebmam 4y ago
This is plainly, a lie. Here's a list of Chinese territorial acquisitions since the communists rose to power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_changes_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_changes_of_the_Peo...
- georgeg23 4y ago
  Actually that link's numbers show that China's area hasn't changed by even 1%. In particular, the largest listed conflict: 1962, China won the military victory of Sino-Indian War but withdrew to the pre-war boundaries.
  - beebmam 4y ago
    Just to be clear, and correct me if I'm wrong: is your argument that because China's acquisition of territory amounts to a small percentage of their previous territory in quantity, that it is not something serious? Does that mean that the China's intended colonization of Taiwan (in China's constitution), of which its territory is approximately 0.4% the size of China's current territory, would not be something serious? I'd appreciate a bit of clarity on exactly what you're arguing here.
klipklop 4y ago
I don't really find their modern day philosophy (in terms of a society/country) all that enlightening. The earth is full so we should tolerate governments like the CCP/CPC? China's style of government is dysfunctional and dystopian, not prudent. From my viewpoint China never expanded not because they were chill people, they could not even repel foreign invaders, let alone expand an empire. Totally agree we should work together on this planet, but with a dictator like Xi in power that wont happen.
- wazer5 4y ago
  Hard to be enlightened based on a right-wing Western media lens of what China is.
  - whythre 4y ago
    You do not have to be right-wing to dislike the autocratic and brutal CCP.
- foverzar 4y ago
  > The earth is full so we should tolerate governments like the CCP/CPC? Careful with that kind of rhetorics. The world may start asking the same question regarding the 15% of world's population who act like they are the enlightened masters of the world questioning whether they should "tolerate" something on the other side of the globe. Even now there isn't much tolerance towards American or French governments, who actually do evil shit far from their national borders. > Totally agree we should work together on this planet, but with a dictator like Xi in power that wont happen. Meh, how about instead each of us minds our OWN business? There is no way one can be actually responsible about things one is not accountable for. Afghanistan is a perfect illustration of that - not just recent evacuation while leaving a shit ton of modern weapons, but all the way back to the days when the US had been nurturing mujahideen to create problems for the Soviet Union, which gave the rise of what we now know as islamic fundamentalist extremism (Taliban, Al-Qaeda, ISIS and such)

albertopv 4y ago

I very much prefer living in a country where I can go where I want without asking to government or say almost what I want without risking to go an education camp. So no thank you, current chinese is not my way and never will.

mrtnmcc 4y ago
It's ironic to criticize the way the Chinese handled terrorism concerns against Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang, when the US War on Terror didn't just dehumanize and supress American Muslims-- it killed about 1 million people across the globe. This is a case of "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" We can all criticize Xinjiang, but not to justify cultural superiority, if anything it works the other way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_terror
- albertopv 4y ago
  Where did I say my culture is superior? I'm talking about individual freedom and my preference about it, nothing else. I prefer to be a free individual. So please don't change topic.

notch656c 4y ago

Does Chinese history show they are any more immune than others to our weaknesses in living together?

mrtnmcc 4y ago
China is about 10x older than the US. We're like a six year old thinking they knowing better than grandpa.
- notch656c 4y ago
  Oh I see you are comparing countries not cultures. In that case US is older.
  - mrtnmcc 4y ago
    The Europeans are not obsessed with taking down China, nor are Europeans ardent individualists as Americans are. Chinese and America have a bigger cultural gap than Europe and China in this respect.
    - yorwba 4y ago
      As a Chinese-speaking European, I'm getting the impression that you're using faraway places you know little about as convenient projection surfaces for an ideal contrast with the things you dislike about America. Dislike of America's recent history of conquest turns thousands of years of warfare on what is now Chinese territory into thousands of years of living on the same land without any invasions. Dislike of American individualism turns Europeans into... I'm actually not sure whether you associate any specific qualities with not being ardent individualists. Anyways, I'm quite annoyed by this, so consider yourself officially taken down.
      - mrtnmcc 4y ago
        American Individualism is a well studied value w.r.t Europeans, https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2011/11/17/the-american-western-european-values-gap/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2011/11/17/the-american-w... Of course generalizing like this about groups is a cloudy lens at best but it's the premise of OP and may predict voted policy of respective countries. That said, it's been a number of years since I lived in Switzerland and I see things have changed measurably regarding official EU policy on Chinese trade, https://wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93European_Union_relations https://wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93European_Union_rela...

influx 4y ago

Which part of history does Genghis Khan fit into your narrative? He died in 1227, having killed between 4 million to 60 million people...

mrtnmcc 4y ago
Um... Ghenghis Khan was Mongolian. Mongolians are not in any way at all related to the Chinese people/Han people.
- influx 4y ago
  "Genghis Khan himself was technically not ethnic Han, but he and mainly his successors saw themselves as legitimate Chinese emperors by establishing the Yuan Dynasty." I guess you can try to argue some kind of blood purity, but I suspect you'll find yourself in bad company rather quickly on that one...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - woooooo 4y ago
    China is unique in that their biggest acquisitions of land came from being conquered and then assimilating their conquerors (Mongol and Manchu). It would be erroneous to say that later events retroactively made Genghis Khan Chinese.
pphysch 4y ago
The part where Chinese civilization built the largest wall in human history to defend from the civilization that produced Genghis. Defensive, not offensive!

alephnerd 4y ago

That ignores the massive expansion into Central Asia (Tibet, Turkestan, Badhkashan, Altai), Mongolia, Borneo, the Yenisei Basin, Yunnan, Kachin, the Miao/Viet/Tai/Hmong frontier, and Formosa/Taiwan that the Qing Dynasty (which itself is Manchu, not Han) lead. Modern China is very much a reflection of that mass expansion. Also, Chinese are not homogenous. Ignoring the 20th century Han social construct, there have always been distinct ethnic and cultural differences among differing "Chinese" ethnic groups like Cantonese, Teochew, Hokkien, Hakka, Guangzhong, etc that were erased during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

mrtnmcc 4y ago
Agreed there is nuance, but the Han dynasty had similar borders 2000 years ago. The Great Wall helped, it wasn't the easiest thing to move around.
- alephnerd 4y ago
  Within "core" China yes, but that was questionable tbh. Most borders for nations before the 19th century are more hypothetical than reality. Without innovations like the telegraph, railroad, canned goods, etc, power projection outside of a core area was heavily hypothetical. Hell, at one point in the late 18th and early 19th century, the village my family is from would have technically been Qing AND Sikh AND Dogra. Borders are artificial constructs that have historically been more fantasy than reality (at least until the late 19th to mid 20th century)
dirtyid 4y ago
Except CCP/PRC resolved 12/14 land border disputes inherited from ROC, most of which involved ceding more territory during settlement. That's the opposite of expansion, and TBF hard to find another country that has voluntarily ceded more land under bilateral negotiations. PRC territory literally contracted under westphalian framework that these narratives are measured against.
- alephnerd 4y ago

dilyevsky 4y ago

> Chinese culture has sustained for thousands of years on the same land, without needing to rely on invading new territory. You should probably brush up on your asian history - there was incredible amount of conquest wars in what became modern China with casualties rivaled only by ww1/2

beebmam 4y ago

This is plainly, a lie. Here's a list of Chinese territorial acquisitions since the communists rose to power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_changes_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_changes_of_the_Peo...

georgeg23 4y ago
Actually that link's numbers show that China's area hasn't changed by even 1%. In particular, the largest listed conflict: 1962, China won the military victory of Sino-Indian War but withdrew to the pre-war boundaries.
- beebmam 4y ago
  Just to be clear, and correct me if I'm wrong: is your argument that because China's acquisition of territory amounts to a small percentage of their previous territory in quantity, that it is not something serious? Does that mean that the China's intended colonization of Taiwan (in China's constitution), of which its territory is approximately 0.4% the size of China's current territory, would not be something serious? I'd appreciate a bit of clarity on exactly what you're arguing here.

klipklop 4y ago

I don't really find their modern day philosophy (in terms of a society/country) all that enlightening. The earth is full so we should tolerate governments like the CCP/CPC? China's style of government is dysfunctional and dystopian, not prudent. From my viewpoint China never expanded not because they were chill people, they could not even repel foreign invaders, let alone expand an empire. Totally agree we should work together on this planet, but with a dictator like Xi in power that wont happen.

wazer5 4y ago
Hard to be enlightened based on a right-wing Western media lens of what China is.
- whythre 4y ago
  You do not have to be right-wing to dislike the autocratic and brutal CCP.
foverzar 4y ago
> The earth is full so we should tolerate governments like the CCP/CPC? Careful with that kind of rhetorics. The world may start asking the same question regarding the 15% of world's population who act like they are the enlightened masters of the world questioning whether they should "tolerate" something on the other side of the globe. Even now there isn't much tolerance towards American or French governments, who actually do evil shit far from their national borders. > Totally agree we should work together on this planet, but with a dictator like Xi in power that wont happen. Meh, how about instead each of us minds our OWN business? There is no way one can be actually responsible about things one is not accountable for. Afghanistan is a perfect illustration of that - not just recent evacuation while leaving a shit ton of modern weapons, but all the way back to the days when the US had been nurturing mujahideen to create problems for the Soviet Union, which gave the rise of what we now know as islamic fundamentalist extremism (Taliban, Al-Qaeda, ISIS and such)