Why Didn't Rome Reunify, When China Did?

[@chillin5703]

I think the better question is, why didnt a successor state successfully conquer the former lands of the Roman empire? Because when "China" reunifies, its not like its the exact same state each time. It's different provinces and peoples claiming the legacy of China, its institutions, its legitimacy, and culture (however you define that). Europe, the Middle East, and even North Africa had plenty of states/peoples claiming to adhere to the Roman legacy. If one had managed to conquer its former territories, we might view it the same way we view China--the capital simply moving from Rome to somewhere else.

[@Tom_Quixote]

I think it calls into question if we can even define whether a successor state is a "real" successor or not. The modern EU doesn't claim to be the Roman Empire, and it functions differently, but it is a political entity that controls or at least has a large degree of control over much of the same territory. The USA uses much of the same symbolism of the Romans, and by some is considered an empire, but doesn't control European territory directly. If the Germans had conquered all of Europe, they could have claimed to be the new Rome, but could a Roman empire be based on Germanic cultural identity? It seems hard to pin down.

[@yaldabaoth2]

Many states tried. Many claimed to be successor to Rome. No one managed.

[@SiqueScarface]

@@Tom_Quixote The EU does not control the same area than Imperial Rome. It's contains only the Northern Coast of the Roman imperial territory, but it includes vast territories that never or only for short time periods were under Roman control, like Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia and the Baltics. Yes, there is some overlap. But that's all there is.

[@scoon2117]

Even America copied the Roman republic system. It lives on.

[@biocapsule7311]

It's both more complex and simple in it's sensibility. It's not so much the *'Legacy of China',* most Western cultures inherited some Roman Legacy. Rather identity of China, of Han Chinese is invested cultural traditions and people. Even the Mongols and Manchus end up integrating most of the cultural traditions into their own. Because you can't hope to effectively rule these many people without taking in them as a part of you. *Roman is the reverse.* The identity is tied to Rome, when in Rome as they say. Everything is about Rome, not the rest of the empire. Most of the empire wasn't even consider citizen, an 'exclusive' status. Most of the empire have no real attachment to Rome or the Empire.

[@howareyou4400]

One obvious reason: Classical China since 221BC uses a unified written system which records the meaning of the language rather than its pronunciations. Over time different parts in China may have their spoken language evolving independently but they all corresponds to the same writing symbols. Therefore in a sense they all use the same language and thus are the "same people". Roman uses multiple languages and these languages continue to evolve and split, hence different regions in Europe soon have "different people".

[@MrLantean]

That is regarded as one of the factors why the Chinese are able to rebuild their empires several times while Rome never do so. Chinese writing system is a logographic writing system which each character represents a word and the purpose is to convey the meanings instead of the pronunciations of the written words. Chinese people speak various related languages that are often mutual unintelligible but are able to communicate through the written language. One Chinese spoken word may have different pronunciation with another, but the written form uses the same character. As a result it bypasses linguistic barrier. It is analogous to modern numeral system where it is understood regardless of languages. Most written languages use alphabetical writing systems due to much easier usage and application. However alphabetical writing systems convey the pronunciation of written words instead of the meanings. The Roman Empire spoke many languages. The official language may be Latin but the common language is Koine Greek. Native languages are still spoken in local regions of the empire. When the Roman Empire fell, the regional dialects of Latin diverged further from each other and become separate languages. Because of the nature of Latin alphabets, communication is also impossible in the written form. As a result, the once unified Romans became separate linguistic based ethnic groups.

[@fancyfact1389]

@@howareyou4400 the romans had only two official languages Latin to the west and Greek in the east, Latin had barely even diverged at the time and was still mutually intelligible

[@jogana6909]

Because China has Qin Shihuang. He unified China's writing and weights and measures. The Roman Empire lacked such a king.

[@allentchang]

@@MrLantean Another side effect of a logographic writing system: your brain quickly knows if you should read right to left / left to right / up to down. (But no one has bothered writing down to up).

[@pipelee727]

Qin unified the written language, and Han dynasty created confucious religion to unify the lifestyle and the way of thinking of Chinese. finlally, "Chinese" or a runified race of Han was created.

[@speedwagon6-e1b]

Speaking of Chinese history, I recommend anyone seeing this comment to dive into Chinese history. Every dynasty has something interesting and unique aspects to offer. I love Roman history too, but I personally don’t think anything comes even close to Chinese history when it comes to how interesting it can be.

[@rob6927]

Both are great civilizations and it's fascinating how they are almost like the opposite of each other on many things.

[@vchanpe1]

​@rob6927 Roman empire was too dependent on slaves and taxes of conquered lands which wanted independence. Roman citizenship tends to be exclusive while Chinese citizenship tends to be inclusive. G7 is an exclusive and limited membership organization and will likely decline while the BRICS has an inclusive membership and welcome others to join and will likely rise. This difference explains why Roman fell and China survive.

[@samhwwg]

@@vchanpe1 Lol Chinese citizenship tends to be inclusive. Do u mean the numerous times their emperors became drunk on power or immortal elixirs, causing their empire to fall to the hands of nomads? The only time the Chinese were truly open towards the outside world was in Tang dynasty, but the Roman Empire (the west) has long fallen by then.

[@blahblahboii]

@@vchanpe1 The late roman empire was not the slave reliant empire that the early roman and middle empire was. The late roman empire moved towards colonus/coloni labour that laid the groundwork for medieval european serfdom. Rome was also not dependent on taxes of conquered lands (what gave you that idea? Rome specifically stopped imperial expansion under hadrian because it was a detriment to rome). Rome was dependent on trade- particularly of the Mediterranean trade that the roman empire managed to secure, and be rid of piracy until the late roman crises and the loss of egypt to the expanding islamic caliphate- which reintroduced piracy to the Mediterranean via islamic pirates and lost rome its nile bread basket. Trade via the silk road and the red sea was also extremely important for rome. Also, where are you getting the idea that rome's provinces were wanting independence more than anything else? That may have been true of the early republic/empire, but towards the late empire, everyone wanted to BE rome. When the empire fell, everyone was fighting to be the legitimate successor of rome for centuries. The Holy Roman empire was germanic. Odoacer, who deposed Romulus Augustulus titled himself "Rex" and paid lip service to Emperor Xenos. Charlemange, King of the Franks was anointed "Karolus Imperator Augustus". The Greeks claimed themselves to be Romans until the modern revival of greek nationalism. During the third century crisis, every breakaway empire was claiming to the the true legitimate Roman empire. Even the ottoman empire claimed to be successors of the Roman legacy. And what exactly do you even mean by "Roman citizenship tends to be exclusive". The principle that a person could become a citizen by law rather than birth was enshrined in Roman mythology; when Romulus defeated the Sabines in battle, he promised the war captives that were in Rome they could become citizens. After the Social war, all Socii were granted roman citizenship. During the imperial age, service to the Roman Auxilia would grant people citizenship at the end of their service. Famously, Arminius, chieftain of the Cherusci was a roman citizen. Considering your need to mention G7 and BRICS, your comment seems a lot more politically motivated than historical. Its crazy the amount of misinformation youre able to pack into a few sentences.

[@Flowers4Fischl]

Just the 3 kingdoms period alone is worth like 10 seasons of Game of Thrones plus House of Dragons 😂

[@biocapsule7311]

Simply put, Han Chinese identity is invested in the people and the cultural identity. Dynasties comes and goes, Chinese people have always understood that, even non-han rulers to integrate. Roman identity is invested in Rome, not the rest of the Empire, everything is about Rome. Most of the empire are not even citizens, and have no real attachment to Rome or the Empire. So when it falls apart, no one is really that attached. How can you be attached to a city you have never seen in your life. Take the Holy Roman Empire, they claim the inheritors of Roman but Rome isn't even in their Territory.

[@AngkatanNamwaran]

You are absolutely correct, the Han have such a strong identity that they could lose the ruler or even the government, but they are still able to come back together and become whole again. On the other hand, what held the Roman empire together was Rome's military might, all of the other regions think that they've been colonized, so when Rome declined and started losing its grip on power, they broke free.

[@haibo-xg2kd]

@@AngkatanNamwaran 因为我们汉族认同的并不是浅薄的血统和基因，而是几千年的文化认同！

[@hentype]

The Han have a strong tie to its culture that even non-Han ethnicities in China started to pretend they were Han Chinese. Now almost everyone identifies as Han when the truth is a whole chunk of Chinese are not. It's all about face culture, and the Chinese are notorious on this narcissistic fakery.

[@anjunadeep.8384]

@hentype Pop quiz for you, whats the percentage of minorities in china ?

[@hentype]

@@anjunadeep.8384 Why don't you answer your own question? You have an internet and google access. Pop quiz for you, what's the percentage of minorities in China? Please include specific ones like Qiang, Wu, Hui, Zhuang, Lhoba, Yi, Yao, Kam, Dai, Min, Teochew, Hakka, etc. You'd be surprised when you realize that a lot of these minorities are registered as "Han Chinese" when they don't belong in that group.

[@sanneoi6323]

As a Chinese person I would say it's because we have, at our core, a contiguous landmass of nearly culturally and ethnolinguistically identical peoples, the natural state of which is unification. Every time China was divided it was simply political, not along regional cultural or ethnolinguistic lines. The Mediterranean does not have same culture all over it, was only united cause conquest, and Rome lived on as some sort of cultural heritage for parts of Europe.

[@Kay2kGer]

yes

The warlord era in the 1920s was along ethnic and cultural lines

[@sanneoi6323]

No it was political as always

@ then why did sinkiang and the ma states even exist? They were literally Uyghur Muslim states which were very different than the han chinese kuomintang for example

[@Hhhh22222-w]

China has various ethnicities, OP isn't talking about Han Chinese, Han Chinese is like the default term i.e.Americans calling themselves Americans even though their ancestors are German, Irish, Swedish etc, meanwhile the Roman empire was mainly through conquest, the former empires really didn't wanna be part of Rome, while majority of China does, except for a few and that's been the norm for thousands of years, a more apt comparison would be to compare the Roman empire to the Majapahit empire (Javanese), Indonesia is home to the most ethnicity and languages in the world but are able to reunify.

[@dewinmoonl]

There are 3 kinds of civilizations. Sea merchants, farmers, and herdsman. If you look at Rome, it's sea merchants. Put it more harshly, pirates. You wage war and take loots as a mean to enrich the country. To keep the empire growing, it must expands outwards. China builds on farmers, you work the land and development infrastructures, dams, bridges, roads. It doesn't need to expand outwards, thus more stable to run for long time.

[@hocolin9601]

See how history repeats itself, from ancient times to this very day. Fascinating.

[@VashtheStampede007]

Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty did a lot of trading with other countries.

[@jeandelepiechat]

sure, rome totally DIDN'T build any roads, dams, bridges, aqueducts or any other infrastructure. they captured slaves totally NOT to make them work on fields but just cuz they can (sea merchant type civilization yk). they totally WERE the pirates instead of fighting them. and finally their golden age totally was NOT at the times when their expansion was near nonexistent. meanwhile china totally did NOT wage any wars against its neighbours in the south to take riches from them NEITHER did it trade with anyone NEITHER did it expand ever in its history.

[@laowantongchau]

​@@VashtheStampede007I think there is a big difference between traders and pirates.

[@Trgn]

@@laowantongchau Many ships just fly a different flag when it suits. It's still a thing today

[@lobstereleven4610]

I recently listened to a podcast called "China Talk" where they interviewed Yasheng Huang, an econ professor fro MIT regarding his book "The Rise and Fall of the East" where he made a point that the imperial exam system established during the Sui Dynasty contributed a lot to the unification of multiple Chinese Dynasties in funneling competent people into an intellegenica class that was directly under the imperial system. It was a really interesting listen. I would highly recommended it.

[@Squared_Table]

Smart fraction theory, which creates some big differences near the tail especially when your population has an average iq 4-5 points above the European average.

[@cabellones]

If you count the persians too, is not that much the exam system, but the effective bureaucracy, even before persia there always a strong state in that region coming from the sumerian times, and every conqueror simply conquer but maintain the bureacracy of the region, that happens to china and the sinicization of the foreign rulers, that happen to persia and the persification of the arab rulers on the rise of Islam. But rome was never know to have a effective bureacracy, and even as germanic rulers try to claim the legacy of rome they never try to become romans. Maybe because of the Church taking roles on part of bureacracy and imposing divine rule (so the leader already had the right to rule), maybe because of the system rome had never impose on the ruler the need to adapt to roman costumes.

[@Mullet-ZubazPants]

It may have had benefits, but it led to inflexible ossification of Chinese institutions. Take Zheng He's voyages during the Ming Dynasty. This was just prior to the age of European exploration. If the Mandarins hadn't been so against these voyages China might have discovered the America's

[@cabellones]

@@Mullet-ZubazPants if you got the time to read the supposed reason to the withdrawal of this policy, is much more related to fight for power in the court than being the ossification of institution, in fact, just the fact that they happened is a counter argument for that. in fact, their success (and the power that they gave to eunuchs) and the dead of the emperor was more the reason they stopped.

[@voidvector]

IMO, the non-military Chinese cultural elite has very much to do with it. When the nomads conquer China, the non-military elites are kept live and become servants or advisors of the nomad rulers. Due to culture influence (art and luxury), the nomads slowly become more Chinese.

[@LP18888]

I would give credit to Qin Shi Huang Di, the first emperor. He was the one that instilled the everlasting message of unification of China.

[@annamorning]

Qin Shi Huang proved to the people after him that unification and central government is possible, but if you look at only Qin, it's a badly failed example - see the consequence of trying the central government? Your ruling will crumble really fast! Thankfully the Han Dynasty also followed much of Qin's practices, with much relaxed standards. They together showed the successors the benefits and unification.

[@terry1708]

其实再这以前，就有春秋战国，周天子分封天下的历史，虽然规模不大，但是统一的思想已经铸就。 秦始皇统一中国后，书同文车同轨，统一度量衡，是中国未来统一的很重要基础。但是还有一个非常核心的就是中华文化，哪怕边陲少数民族统治中国，也垂暮中华文化，以中华文化正统自居。

[@Lee-sf1dv]

@@terry1708其实从周开始，已经是相对统一的邦联国家了，周天子是天下共主，所谓的国不过是诸侯。 秦把一个松散的邦联搞成了一个更为紧密的集权国家，奠定了法理上统一的基础。

[@SamBalino]

Roman Empire is an anomaly that shouldn’t have happened! It happened and it then it disappeared due to geographic barriers and blah blah! China too is an anomaly but one that persists.. a large stretch of land like shouldn’t have been unified under one empire for a long time like that, I mean in premodern time when states didn’t have better transportation and larger monopoly over deadly weapons!

[@haibo-xg2kd]

@@annamorning 商和周也是统一的国家，周的历史很清晰，诸国只不过是诸侯国而已，中国永远只有一个天子，其实亚洲也永远只有一个天子，倭国朝鲜越南也只不过是中国天子侧分的国王，

[@chaomingli6428]

I think one of the key factors is the Chinese writing system is not a spelling system, which made it possible to spread and maintain a similar culture and beliefs across time and space. That makes the Chinese civilisation unique.

[@hocolin9601]

That's what I think about too. Most westerners didn't realise this core uniqueness of Chinese language is essential to the unification of China.

[@-Shubo-]

我前阵子还在想为什么2024年了，我们还能看懂2000年前的文字。不是每个字都看得懂，但是很多字都能认出

[@dgvsscf]

可以从以下几个角度观察 1，地理，中国是一个的巨大半岛，天然拥有封闭性和统一性 2，制度，秦始皇后中国统一了语言和度量衡的统一。 3文化，汉朝使用儒家学说统一了思想（同时期罗马使用基督教，但是儒家学说更加世俗，更加符合帝国思想） 4科举，这个制度最大的作用就是告诉帝国的各族人民，不论你是什么种族什么地位，只要你学儒家学说，考试成功就能成为帝国统治者的一员，调动了底层积极性，这也是伊斯兰教在中国也儒家化的原因，你信仰什么宗教不重要，但是你想要权利与地位，那么就学习儒家就行了。 5就是中国是农业国，大型的水利设施建设离不开一个统一帝国的调度。

[@wenling3487]

很全面

[@directxxxx71]

還有紙的發明，因為中國在漢朝就發明了紙，漢字的傳播速度就提升了，進而達到思想，文化，科技，藝術的傳播與融合。西方是在一千年後才有了造紙術。

[@Nangong-Tianzhi]

有趣的是，秦朝不是用儒家，結果是底層暴動 漢朝改用儒家思想，安家定邦後才有了如此的基礎

[@maxmo885]

@@directxxxx71 古时候识字率非常低的。这个不是主要原因

[@TheIdiosyncraticMe-t3u]

@@maxmo885 In China, the lower rank of society could enter the top rank by studying and passing the imperial examination. So yeah, they push for the spread of literacy even if it's not as high as now. But compared with western empire it's still higher. There is a red skin people, black skin people, yellow skin, as long as you can pass the exam, you will enter the system.

[@zzhao2127]

This coming from the steppe argument is really absurd, as most of the Chinese dynasties did not emerge from the steppe... The only real exception is the mongols.

[@jwxujerry]

Agree. The podcaster and the author are completely wrong. Like many so called “historians”, they are ignorant of the Chinese history.

[@annamorning]

OMG! Finally know what the hell this video is talking about! Hearing whole video steps steps and steps. I was like what the hell does step have to do with this title!😂

[@RizM-oo1dg]

中国的民族现在三个称呼，“华人”，“汉人”，“唐人”，翻译软件可能会翻译的有问题，因为汉字是表意文字。分别就是三次民族大融合并且建立及其强盛文明的时代，所以中国的主体民族汉民族从始至终都不是一个单一的民族，现在也有了个新的称呼” 中国人“。

[@danielzhang1916]

yeah that makes no sense, China existed long before the Jurchens, Mongols, etc came, some of them only controlled the northern region at best, that had nothing to do with why China would always reunite every time

[@User-xpdgh1-yu_x]

Qing too.

[@onlyfacts4999]

After Franks conquered Gaul, the local Roman people quickly became assimilated as Franks. This pattern holds for the Arabs conquests in Middle East and North Africa, Slavic conquest of the Balkans, the Turkic conquest of Anatolia, the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain etc. Even in Italy, the Lombards created a lasting legacy in the form of Lombardy. Meanwhile the rulers of former Roman lands were eager to identify their legacies as Roman, such as the Holy Roman Empire and the Sultana of Rum. It seems that Rome did not leave behind strong cultural identity for common people to hold on to, so only the aristocracy and powerful are interested in a Roman revival.

[@derKrampus]

Anglo-Saxon is a bad example since it wasn't (just) elites germanizing romano-british people at all. Gritzi ger et al (2022) have shown that the inhabitants in most of England were driven out by the germanic newcomers so that up to the 10th century the English were of about 75-80% Germanic stock. The modern English, while the same people, are only about half Germanic. The Franks on the other hand became romanized if one wills while the Romano-Gauls became Germanized (mainly culturally). So here it actually was mainly an elite taking over and only in certain areas, mainly in the northwest of France, Franks formed the majority or the plurality of the people

[@hokton8555]

and even the aristocracy was mostly interested in the legitimation by it rather than roman culture & identity

[@highgrounder5238]

Less assimilation but more ethnic replacement. Balkans became slavic not because the people there started seeing themselves as slavs, but because slavs came in and killed or otherwise replaced 70 % of the population

[@maxstirner6143]

Laughs in Spanish and reconquista 😂

[@sadler3334]

except for Greek speakers which continued to call themselves Romans till the early 1900s, and in some places (mostly in arab states) still call themselves Romans.

[@jayreed9370]

The Chinese proverb goes 'The empire, once divided, must unite. The empire, once united, must divide.' Have you read your Romance of the Three Kingdoms?

[@sinoroman]

The quote held true for the Roman Empire too

[@fromfareast3070]

Romance of the Three Kingdoms was made during Ming dynasty. It's 1522 by then the concept of China was very matured.

[@lolasdm6959]

@@rabbit-munch-carrots "Tianxia" just means the "world", its similar to how Romans say they "conquered the world". So it should be translated as "the world long divided must unite".

[@lolasdm6959]

@@fromfareast3070 Tianxia was coined during the Zhou dynasty, over 1000 years before the Ming.

[@木子木子-h2j]

然而在汉朝灭亡之后，重新建立起一个国家可是他很快就灭亡了，并陷入了300年大混乱中。等他再次统一，这个国家会走向这文明的巅峰。然后再重复一下前面那过程。再次大规模分裂，最后再再次统一。😅

[@Leo_ofRedKeep]

Grain produced in North Africa used to be the reason for its being conquered by Rome. After that production stopped, it seems that half of the empire was no longer worth warring over.

[@runajain5773]

Yeh eastern roman conquer have northern part of africa until muslim rise and north africa fully islamice the region

[@recoil53]

By that point the Western half was largely lost, so you aren't even talking about half any more. There were big manpower issues at the time too, that is the biggest obstacle. Now having a front to the north of the Balkans, to the East with whoever is in Persia, plus a front to the South East in Arabia is just too much.

[@winstonzhou4595]

@@recoil53 And don't forget, every General was just proclaiming themselves emperor every chance they get.

[@recoil53]

@@winstonzhou4595 Yes, there was a lot of infighting. It wasn't just the open rebellions, but also local nobles trying to assert their own power to the detriment of the empire.

[@rodri1030]

Why did production stop?

[@hannibalyin8853]

Chinese don't differentiate people for its skin color and faces, if you speaks the same language, writes the same words as I am, you are my homies, it's that simple.

[@胡建凯-c1u]

是的

[@Lee-sf1dv]

华夷之辩，中国是以文化认同来确定身份的。

[@mimikolomamu]

im not sure you are familiar with the Chinese race

[@almightysauerkraut6165]

@@mimikolomamu you obviously aren't, Chinese is not the race to begin with

[@hannibalyin8853]

@@mimikolomamu I maybe not, but you are wrong from the very start already, because "Chinese" was not "a race", next.

[@daveweiss5647]

It crosses my mind that the city of Rome was always kind of "on the frontier" of classical age Mediterranean civilization... besides Carthage there was no other real large city until Rome created its colonies in the west... the core of Mediteranian Civilization was the east... so essentially when Rome and Carthage fell to the Barbarians the core of the civilization did survive until 1453...

[@sanneoi6323]

Here in China the core civilisation started in Zhongyuan (Central Plains) but it spread to the South so now both Zhongyuan and South China make up core civilisation. Although historically there's been plenty of divides between the two. Han lands do go quite a bit beyond those two but those are sort of the center. Xibei and Taiwan are kinda just the edge, and then you have Beijiang, Dongbei and the like which are not part of China Proper but still integral Han territory.

[@alconomic476]

@@sanneoi6323 Wait, am I as a westerner understanding you correctly? For the Chinese there is a difference in concept between "classical China's lands" and "lands that are integral Han territory"?

[@nicholasd5536]

​@@alconomic476 The East Coast is "classically American" but nobody disputes that Oregon is American

[@alconomic476]

@@nicholasd5536 Aaah, good comparison, thanks.

[@sanneoi6323]

@@alconomic476 well we have 汉地 for classical Han lands basically equivalent of the western concept for China Proper but I say integral Han lands to refer to literally what it sounds like lmao. Integral territories inseparable from the rest of the Han nationality's domain.

[@stephenkellett7836]

I think one of the main infouences would also be that Rome and China are only similar in the political sense that both are empires which dominated a large region for a long time, but the similarities breakdown after that. It's like the assumption that sweet potatoes must be related to potatoes, because both are high-calorie tubers. However, they're just superficially similar. The geography, culture, and historical context of Rome and the Han dynasty are just fundamentally different. It'd be easier to identify all of the similarities between the two than the differences.

[@SLBFWY]

In fact, Rome and China still have many similarities, such as land system, ancestor worship, polytheism belief, in the short and rare exchanges between China and Rome, both sides think that the other is similar to themselves

[@thomasantn]

Mongols, Xiongnu/Huns as well as three current China's northeastern provinces in ancient time (kingdom of Khitan, Jin and Manchu) were like European's Germanic tribes and Norwegians to Han Chineses living in the Central Plain (the Middle Kingdom). They were considered the barbarians from north. Several times they managed to break through the Great Wall and either occupied the northern portion of the Middle Kingdom (Khitan and Jin) or completely occupied the MK (Mongol's - 92 years, Manchu - 243 years). But in the end, Han Chinese always beat them back, overthrew them and kicked them out (Xiongnu and Mongols) or completely absorbed them (Khitan, Jin and Manchu).

[@foodparadise5792]

They didn't break through the great wall.The nomads were let in by the Eastern Jin dynasty to fight the rebels....of course it was a bad decision which lead to the later nightmare of sixteen kingdom period. Same for the entire Song dynasty. It lost control of the great wall and had no geographic defense on the entire north end at the beginning of the founding of Song dynasty.

[@korakys]

I'd say a full Mediterranean empire can only hold together when the capital is in the west, but that inevitably the capital will move to the east because that is where the wealth and greatest danger was. The geography of the huge internal sea made it very hard to unify all shores of it and it could only really be done if you started in the west. Once the North European Plain became civilised and wealthy it was even harder to unify the Med due to too many nearby competing powers.

[@Septimus_ii]

Maybe that internal sea is the big difference. In antiquity the Mediterranean was what allowed phoenician and greek settlers to rapidly spread while still retaining some cultural unity. For the Romans too it allowed armies and food shipments to move where they we needed and maintain some degree of cultural unity across the empire. But through the late Roman period into the early Medieval period land routes seem to have become more important and the Roman empire's georgraphy wasn't well set up for that.

[@prs_81]

Rome was in neither west nor east. It was in the centre, which allowed it to go either side at different times. A very important factor in their expansion is also the fact they could defeat big polities like Carthage and the Seleukid empire who already controlled vast Mediterranean territories and just gobble them up.

[@Bern_il_Cinq]

The Caliphates basically destroyed any hope for a Roman reunification and therefore hegemonic legitimacy was derived from being able to defeat them and hold back the tide of Islam (The Franks, The Byzantines). The non-Roman, and indeed anti-Roman, Caliphates fluctuated dynastically and fractured but Muslim powers still hold on to the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Coasts to this day. "Mare Nostrum" helped the Romans expand and maintain their power but Muslim piracy and near-annual caliphal naval sieges of Constantinople changed the name of the game.

[@recoil53]

Too many fronts and while a hollow core of a sea allows for fast transportation, it also doesn't provide a population base. So you have a large number of Germanic tribes in Western/Central Europe. Slavs to the north of the Balkans. The Persians to the east and the Arabs to the South East. There are long frontages on each side, large armies there, and the population of each has grown. When Rome expanded, they had more population density than most their neighbors. By 600 AD, that wasn't true. Entire tribes in the 100k's were moving. Then the Muslim expansion - it was just too many to fight against. Every time the Byzantines lost territory, they lost food production and a source of soldiers. Add to that the infighting and treachery and the ability to take territory to a defensible border is lost.

[@micha2909]

I don't know if i got you correctly, but the Umayyad Caliphate conquered most of the Med while being ruled from the East (Damascus), and 1000 years later, the Ottomans ruled from the East (Constantinople) over lands stretching from Algeria to Iran and from Yemen to Hungary.

[@zhanibek_kk]

It’s way simpler than that. The military power after Sui didn’t “come from the steppe”. Tang, Song and Ming were all Han. China just had ultra low taxes compared to every other country before 1911. Whenever the empire collapse life got much worse, and when it got back together, life got better. The opposite was true of Rome as taxes increased endlessly and ruined the people. Life got better everywhere but Britain when the empire collapsed, so there was no desire from the common people to see it reunify.

[@occadude2003]

Below is the answer from ChatGPT. The question of why Rome did not reunify after its fall, while China frequently did after periods of fragmentation, is complex and rooted in geography, culture, politics, and historical contingencies. Below are some key reasons: 1. Geography China's Centralized Geography: China's geography is conducive to political unity. The core of Chinese civilization developed along the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers, in a relatively contiguous and fertile area, allowing centralized control. Barriers like deserts (Gobi), mountains (Himalayas), and seas isolated China from significant external powers for much of its history, enabling internal consolidation. Rome's Fragmented Geography: The Roman Empire spanned Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, encompassing diverse landscapes and climates. The Mediterranean Sea, while unifying in trade, also allowed for separate power centers to arise, especially as regional economies and cultures developed after Rome's fall. 2. Cultural and Political Unity China's Cultural Homogeneity: A shared Confucian tradition, common written language, and emphasis on a centralized imperial system helped maintain cultural and political continuity in China. Even during periods of disunity (e.g., the Three Kingdoms, Six Dynasties), rulers often aspired to reestablish a unified empire, seeing it as a moral and political necessity. Rome's Diverse Identity: The Roman Empire incorporated a vast array of ethnicities, languages, and religions. Latin and Greek were lingua franca, but local identities remained strong. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, no unifying ideology or institution, comparable to Confucianism in China, persisted. The rise of Christianity led to unity in religion but fragmented political visions. 3. Institutional Differences China's Bureaucratic Tradition: The Chinese imperial system, starting with the Qin dynasty, established a centralized, meritocratic bureaucracy that could endure dynastic changes. Successor states inherited and sought to rebuild this system. Civil service exams and Confucian ideals emphasized governance as a professional duty, which encouraged administrative continuity. Rome's Dependency on Military Power: Roman governance relied heavily on the military and the patronage of powerful elites. When the Western Empire fell, the administrative and military structures collapsed. The Byzantine Empire, as Rome's eastern successor, retained some centralized control, but in the West, feudal systems emerged, fragmenting authority. 4. Role of External Threats China's Focus on Internal Challenges: While China faced external threats (e.g., Xiongnu, Mongols), these threats typically came from nomadic groups that eventually assimilated or were defeated by a reunified Chinese state. The cultural prestige of the "Middle Kingdom" (China) often encouraged invaders to adopt Chinese systems (e.g., the Yuan and Qing dynasties). Rome's Overwhelming External Pressures: Rome faced invasions from numerous groups, including Germanic tribes, Huns, and later Islamic empires. These invasions led to the disintegration of centralized power in the West. The Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire managed to persist for centuries, but the West fragmented into competing kingdoms. 5. Economic Factors China's Economic Integration: China's economy was highly integrated, with a focus on agricultural production and trade within a centralized system. Infrastructure like the Grand Canal and roads facilitated economic unity, making reunification economically advantageous. Rome's Economic Fragmentation: After the fall of the Western Empire, economic systems became localized. The collapse of trade networks and urban centers meant that regional economies (e.g., in Gaul, Britain, and Italy) operated independently. Reunification offered fewer immediate economic benefits, as local rulers controlled self-sufficient domains. 6. The Role of Religion China's Syncretic Religious Traditions: Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism coexisted without undermining the political system. Religious practices were often tied to state ideology. Christianity and Division in Rome: Christianity became a unifying factor in some ways but also a divisive one. Disputes over theological issues (e.g., Arianism vs. Nicene Christianity) and the split between the Roman Catholic Church in the West and the Orthodox Church in the East reflected and deepened political fragmentation. 7. Timing and Historical Contingency China's Dynastic Cycles: The Chinese concept of the "Mandate of Heaven" allowed for a new dynasty to justify its rule by claiming divine approval, creating a sense of continuity even during disunity. Periods of fragmentation were often seen as temporary aberrations, with reunification as the ultimate goal. Rome's Permanent Split: The division of the Roman Empire into East and West (e.g., under Diocletian and later Theodosius) set a precedent for lasting separation. The fall of the Western Roman Empire led to the rise of distinct European states, which saw no need to revive the Roman model. Conclusion While Rome and China both experienced periods of disunity, the conditions for reunification were more favorable in China due to its geography, cultural homogeneity, centralized bureaucracy, and strong ideological traditions. In contrast, Rome's diversity, external pressures, and lack of institutional continuity made reunification unlikely. The trajectories of these two civilizations illustrate how local factors profoundly shape historical outcomes.

[@西岚箱子]

Damm....ChatGPT does better than me this time😏

[@qianci]

true，欧洲中世纪长期存在的封建制度，在中国公元后就再也没出现过

[@JK-Buffalo]

There is a fascinating phenomenon: in ancient times, when neighboring ethnic minorities invaded China, they often claimed to represent the legitimate Chinese orthodoxy. Interestingly, many of these so-called minorities were actually Han Chinese who had assimilated into non-Han cultures. For example, recent genetic sequencing has revealed that several of Genghis Khan's sons had the bloodline of Liu Bang, the founding emperor of a Chinese dynasty. Chinese people have long considered their country to be a melting pot, similar to the United States. However, with the rise of molecular biology, it has been discovered that the bloodline of the Chinese population is remarkably pure. Even many ethnic minorities in China trace their origins back to ancient Chinese ancestry.

[@berendboer8459]

I've been thinking about this question from time to time ever since reading Viktor Lieberman's "Strange Parallels", and what I keep coming back to is the territorial aspect of the Mandate of Heaven. Since the mandate appointed control of the “Tianxia” to a single emperor, it was not only legitimate but also legitimizing to try and reconquer a broken apart empire. Simply put, if you manage to do it, that’s proof that you’ve got the right to rule. Since no radically different justification of rule was introduced until modern times (rulers from the steppe often found it more convenient to adopt the Chinese one), we keep seeing people trying to rebuild China. In contrast, the rulers of successor states of the Roman empire justified their rule mostly on the basis of being good Christians or Muslims, and were not bothered to specifically recreate the empire’s territory. Hence why the realm of Charlemagne, the HRE and later Russia are all claimed to be new Roman Empires despite being progressively further away from the territory of the original. The only ones who seem to place importance in the territorial aspect are the Byzantines, but after the Caliphate takes their lands in Africa they are never again able to even get close to reconquering the whole thing. Obviously we can’t point to a singular cause for such a broad question, but since I don’t see a very strong geographical reason why reconquering China should be easier than reconquering the Roman empire, I place a lot of importance on the ideologies of those doing the reconquering. And if in one region that ideology comes with a strong territorial aspect, while in the other that is lacking, it doesn’t surprise me that we see only one of those empires reconstituted time and again.

[@Tonyx.yt.]

I would say china was much more homogenous and easy to centraline than the Roman Empire, they spawn across 3 continets

[@userwsyz]

It was not lack of trying to reclaim Roman Empire, it was the lack of succeeding in doing in. HRE pretended that it did it. But it’s not Roman nor an empire.

[@fromfareast3070]

@@Tonyx.yt. homogeneous is the effect of constant centralization and rebuild of the Empire not the cause. It wasn't very homogeneous back then. Especially the before the Sui. The southern Region (today's Canton's and Yunnan) was always a frontier region and populated by other ethnicity. Yunnan wasn't considered "core" region until Yuan.

[@nsk370]

​​@@fromfareast3070you are very much correct in your overall assertion, but i would like to point out Yunnan was merely conquered by the Yuan dynasty, it didn't actually become majority Han and part of "core China" until the end of Ming. And a place like Machuria only attained its present Han Chinese demographic in 19th century and was considered separate from core China until 20th! Ancient China was definitely by no means homogenous!

[@finnie9210]

@@userwsyz Yesn't. As the oc said, most of the empires that did claim to be romes successor like the HRE, like Russia the Ottomans, Francia and for some time France simply claimed roman emperorship without really trying to conquer the whole thing. At most these states tried to conquer italy, or constantinople, but for the most part, they simply relied on the church for legitimizing their claim. As the other guy said, only byzantium and maybe the ottomans tried to conquer the whole thing

[@linshitaolst4936]

Qin Shi Huang unified China and established the first feudal monarchy in China. Although this dynasty only existed for 15 years before splitting, his greatest contribution was to create a concept for various ethnic groups and regions in later China that China must be unified and inherit the mandate of the previous dynasty

[@chase5177]

it's nothing feudal actually, it's a centralized provincial bureaucratic monarchy system. there's no vassal or fief, every inch of land is owned by the emperor.

[@WSOJ3]

Roman didn’t reunite because Latin didn’t work out, but Chinese characters did. Because everyone shared the same readable pictogram in an era without telecommunications, China was able to build a unified culture; Rome couldn’t. This was the unique advantage of a pictographic writing system vs a phonetic writing system in the era prior to telecommunications. With modern telecommunications, phonetic systems reigne supreme, and China modernized its language to adapt the telecommunication era via a combination of the Mandarin pronunciations, the Pinyin system, and the simplification of the pictographics.

[@thomasantn]

Qin Shihuang unified seven variations of Han Chinese written language after conquered the other six Han Chinese kingdoms. That's a big contribution besides other "standardization" he did.

[@WSOJ3]

@ you see, prior to mass telecommunications, people do not know what others in far places sounded like. So Chinese language always sounded very differently in various places. What Qin Shihuang did is he standardized the visuals of the pictograms (Chinese characters) so people can read the same writings despite sounding differently. Roman Empire tried the same with Latin, but Latin is a phonetic language (spelling based on sound, rather than visuals), so people in various parts of the Roman Empire could not adapt to the same pronunciations without mass telecommunication technology to let people know how Latin should sound. So Latin never became the common language in Roman Empire. Without a common language, people could not create a shared culture. So the Roman Empire tried a different route - to use a religion, aka Christianity to unite the people. For a while this concept worked, until wars and diseases broke it. As Christianity eventually broke into different factions, reuniting people back to Rome became impossible.

[@jyi9929]

You are right. I believe a country's border is as far as it can effectively communicates, that is why most countrie's capital is in the centre of the country, so policies could reach. Currently China is working on to unifying pronunciation of Chinese, as for your point, phonetic writing is advantageous in the modern era, that is why there will be pinyin and the Chinese government is pushing to have everyone speak Mandarin Chinese.

[@Vermilion2049]

Simple answer. The Roman’s did not assimilate the population under one culture with one language enough for the people to identify themselves as one people.

[@basileus_angelos_v]

"Because China still exists, and Rome does not" I cried hard

[@AngkatanNamwaran]

Rome built its empire through sheer military might, and Roman citizenship was very exclusivist, that's why the conquered people didn't feel complete loyalty towards Rome, they thought of themselves as a distinct people who got conquered and colonized, they basically saw themselves as hostages of Rome. That's why the moment they felt that Rome was losing its grip on power, they broke free and declared themselves independent. On the other hand, China and being Chinese is more of a cultural identity, that's why you could get rid of the emperor or even the entire government, the Chinese people would just rebuild and restore everything from the ground up... and even if China gets conquered, it's the conquerors who eventually becomes more and more Chinese through time, through the generations, due to their exposure, immersion and absorption of the Chinese culture.

[@yuugenr7549]

​@@AngkatanNamwaranPeople who came to conquer China became Chinese after a few generations. This is historically true lol. Chinese culture is so magnetic that foreign invaders assimilate and become Chinese 😂. Plus in ancient China becoming Chinese meant you're no longer a barbarian and now one of the educated people.

[@ophirbactrius8285]

But ironically in reality, Rome still exists today but in different brands. After the Great Schism, Rome officially already split by Western Rome which are centred in Vatican City, Italy while Eastern Rome centred in Constantinople (Today Istanbul). But the legacy of Eastern Roman still keep preserved in Russia as Moscow are the centre heart of Orthodox Christianity World.

[@AngkatanNamwaran]

@@ophirbactrius8285 Well of course Rome left its legacy in this world, but the Roman Empire itself as a political entity ceases to exist.

[@basileus_angelos_v]

@ophirbactrius8285 Well, it's not the same. One thing is to be part of the legacy of the Romans, another is to be Rome itself. As a latin american, my country couldn't be further from Rome in terms of time between the empire's collapse and the start of colonization, yet my grandmother tells me stories and customs of her time that are identical to what the Romans did in the times of Caesar. Classical Rome branches off its legacy to all Latin nations while Byzantine Rome does the same to Eastern nations, but none can actually claim to be the heir of Rome and it wasn't by lack of trying. China managed to keep its civilization to stand the test of time. It went through deep cultural changes, but it endures as the same nation it was since the first Emperor. Despite creating half a globe through legacy, Rome no longer has one defined successor entity. The Catholic Church is a Roman institution that outlived the Empire, but it isn't Rome itself, while the PRC and its regime replaced the dynastic system they still rule over the same China

[@卓-g6k]

As a Chinese i can tell you with confidence, china is a culture more than a country, we have the agreement that we were we are and we will always a unity, we are together, we share the same language same system and all the same.

[@AngkatanNamwaran]

This is true... Rome built its empire through sheer military might, and Roman citizenship was very exclusivist, that's why the conquered people didn't feel complete loyalty towards Rome, they thought of themselves as a distinct people who got conquered and colonized, they basically saw themselves as hostages of Rome. That's why the moment they felt that Rome was losing its grip on power, they broke free and declared themselves independent. On the other hand, China and being Chinese is more of a cultural identity, that's why you could get rid of the emperor or even the entire government, the Chinese people would just rebuild and restore everything from the ground up... and even if China gets conquered, it's the conquerors who eventually becomes more and more Chinese through time, through the generations, due to their exposure, immersion and absorption of the Chinese culture.

[@teddybear-g4k]

Don't be granted that everything remains the same.

[@haibo-xg2kd]

@@teddybear-g4k 中华民族将永远存在直到宇宙毁灭，并终将伟大！

[@卓-g6k]

@@AngkatanNamwaran very correct, like Turkish hadn't turned into romans after conquering byzantine, but Mongolians turned into Chinese after conquering Chinese land.

[@TempAcct-e6k]

I would argue against this viewpoint, pretty vehemently. China has a cultural unifying force, the Tang, Song, and Ming all followed the Sui and stand in very stark contrast to his argument.

[@pixelfiend7292]

Because China was mostly centralized around a flat land (north Chinese plain). This allowed it to easily unify, unlike Rome which had many mountains and rivers that divided its territory. Additionally Chinese people had a unified social structure, and related languages. The only “Latin” parts of the empire were France, Spain, and Italy, and these weren’t united because of mountain ranges. Most people in the Roman Empire had no desire to be a part it, a German living in Gaul and a Jew living in philistine had no cultural or historic connection to each other. Most people outside of Italy weren’t even citizens, one can make a good argument that Rome itself was really just Italy and a bunch of territory controlled by Italy. If you look at it through that lense, then Rome did unify, it just didn’t take back its controlled territory and client states.

[@rob6927]

Agree that it's about the geography, but the Chinese languages are not intelligible in spoken form. It's the characters that hold the language together. 6:18 situation in Chinese empire was the same as Roman empire - quite disparate peoples incorporated into the empire and gradually assimilated. The Vietnamese and the tribes of what is today Xinjiang may have even less in common than the Jews and Germanics... And what you say about most of the people not being citizens and not wanting to be part of the empire mostly applies to the times of the republic. Later, almost everyone became a citizen.

[@Horinius]

No, geography is not the main reason. Many comments are speaking about language, geography, etc. No need to blame geography. The flat land in China today was NOT part of it when Chinese civilization started 5000 years ago around the Yellow River valley. The flatland was included a lot later. But yet, the unification spirit has always been in Chinese culture. About unified language, that is not true either. Chinese have been speaking different accents (that Westerners have used the wrong word "dialect" to describe it. Indeed, that's accent, not dialect) over thousands of years. Chinese characters were different long before unification under the 1st Emperor. (Measurements were not unified either before, but that's another story). So, all in all, that means both are not the main factors explaining why China unifies but not Roma. Instead of blaming external factors, in my opinion, the reason might be cultural or even deeper -- in the genes. Maybe Chinese are born with more social bounding tendency while the Europeans are born to be more individualist.

[@明远坚]

China's terrain is not flat. From west to east, the altitude drops from 8000m to 2m. Plains account for only 12%, and more than half of the country is mountains and plateaus. China's terrain is fragmented, with plains separated by rolling mountains. To solve this problem, people had to build roads and dig canals to enhance communication. So before 2200, China built a total of 6,800 kilometers of national highways across the country, with uniform lane widths. 1,500 years ago, China mobilized millions of people to dig a 2,000-kilometer-long Grand Canal to connect the south and north of China. Today, China is very keen on building high-speed rail and highways for the same reason.

[@Horinius]

@@明远坚 Thanks for the detailed description of China's geography. Given that east of China is mostly coastal region, you can safely say that the altitude drops from 8000m to 0m 😄 It's 8000m to the west? And your comment added a counter example to the theory that Rome did not success to reunify because of geography.

[@rob6927]

@明远坚 Yeah sure, and which were the 8000m mountains of Han or Tang dynasties and which mountains were half of their territory? 🤣

[@1ycan-eu9ji]

Rome was an empire, constituting of many provinces which were just captured territories, while China was a civilization

[@parsanasehi1703]

Your argument would be right if the same pattern would happen in Persia, but the opposite has been happening there ever since, even when invaders conquer Persia, the administration stays and the language doesn’t change, all the while the foreign invaders start adopting Persian court customs and culture. And that is the foreign invaders, imagine the iranic peoples of aryan heritage conquering Persian territories.

[@TurkishDebater]

Short answer: because the Turks, Germans, the Slavs, and the Arabs didn't allow it to happen. Long Answer: Rome was destroyed by the Huns and conquered by the Germanic tribes. After this, the idea of unifying Rome became impossible because no one actually wanted to unify it, but they just used it as a justification for conquering former Roman territory.

[@hwasiaqhan8923]

Moreover, Roman was entirely a citizenry idea while China and Chinese is a cultural and ethnic one, unified China was also founded on the combination of many Chinese states, these people share similar culture and language. Rome is much more diverse demographically.

[@strangesignal9757]

That's not quite true. Charlemagne, a Frank, was crowned Holy Roman Emperor (Imperator Romanorum, "Charles, most serene Augustus, crowned by God, great peaceful emperor governing the Roman empire, and who is by the mercy of God king of the Franks and the Lombards") by the Pope on the 25th of December 800, which also had the consequence of souring relations with the Eastern Roman Empire and led to the schism between the catholic and orthodox chuches. The posterior dismemberment and then legacy of the Germanic Holy Roman Empire is a different debate, as its influence over Italy waned over the centuries with constant conflicts with the Pope. Part of it early on was of course the differences between the tribal duchies and the frankish inheritance laws that had resulted in the split of Charlemagne's realm into West Frankia (France) East Frankia (Germany) and Lotharingia (Low Countries, Burgundy, Italy).

[@TurkishDebater]

@strangesignal9757 you literally proved my point. Charlemagne used the title of Roman Emperor to justify his conquest of former Roman territory. If he truly wanted to form Rome, then why did he establish his empire as a monarchy and not as a republic, dictatorship, or as an empire? We both know that the Romans hated monarchy, so he isn't helping himself by establishing a monarchy.

[@elseggs6504]

​@@TurkishDebater Because Rome was a Republic in name alone. Even further east Rome still had a Senate and everything

[@TurkishDebater]

@elseggs6504 That's why we call it the Eastern Roman empire. The Frankish empire isn't called Roman for obvious reasons.

[@isimerias]

Any Mediterranean power always has to contend with proximity to Persia, which is much more similar to China in its enduring nature. The more fragmented geography, contrary to China, made it far more difficult for a Roman “core” to continuously exert dominance over the Mediterranean. I would even argue that if not for the continuous rivalry with Persia, Rome would have probably been able to handle barbarian incursions with ease and probably only have to deal with it’s own constant civil wars lol

[@shangrilainxanadu]

Eh, no identifiable Persian state existed from the fall of the Sassanians to the Ilkhanate which wasn't much of a Persian successor either. It wasn't until the Safavids, and their assertion of Shia Islam as something to distinguish their territory from other Islamic states that we see something like a Persian state separate from being just the dominant high culture of Islam again. That's well over 800 years where there was just a Persian cultural sphere no different than the post roman cultural sphere where all educated men communicated in Latin.

[@MethaneHorizon]

​@@shangrilainxanaduthis man read about the Intermezzo and went too far in his understandings.

[@anti-mate407]

china's geography is pretty diverse too tho, i think its more that roman successor states were simply unable to overpower one another to the point they could fully be seen as rome. The closest that came are HRE and ottomans imo

[@jaif7327]

@@MethaneHorizoneven during the iranian intermezzo it was still largely divided , the khwarezmians were probably not even persians too

[@kalenden]

​@@shangrilainxanadufor the purposes of "persians threatening Rome/the mediterranean" the Abbasids and the Turks work perfectly fine. The byzanines didn't care about the language of the eastern threat.

[@lianghao7128]

According to my humble point of view, I think the biggest reason is only one, because Emperor Qin Shihuang not only unified China, but more importantly, he unified language, currency, weights and measures, driveway, vehicle specifications and so on. This has created people's cultural and economic mutual recognition. Rome can't be unified because a Frenchman will never consider himself an Englishman, because their language, culture and economy are completely different.

[@lichiboy7695]

But China wasn't homogenous before. There has been a process of sinonization for thousands of years. If UK and France would be united into one country the ethnicities could absolutely merge if given time. No one called themselves 'a frenchmen' 200 years ago, that identity was created thanks to nationalism!

[@lichiboy7695]

China is said to be the first nation state, so maybe if the roman had put more effort in creating a unified idenity, maybe it could have been reunited?

[@lianghao7128]

@@lichiboy7695 It is OK, there are advantages of disunity. Every country competes with each other, which has created an emphasis on new technologies, lead to Colonial movement, slave trade and industrialization, because of long time external competition, I think.

[@hwasiaqhan8923]

Roman was entirely a citizenry idea while China and Chinese is a cultural and ethnic one, unified China was also founded on the combination of many Chinese states, these people share similar culture and language. Rome is much more diverse demographically.

[@lambdaq_5927]

china eliminated the idea of "state" for over 2000 years. Every provincial governor were appointed by one royal court

[@caughtinprovidence7197]

Before 😂 unified By Qin, different state spoke different language and different culture . You got do ur homework . I am Chinese from China . Roma is nothing diverse compare to the same period of China

[@hwasiaqhan8923]

@ You need to do your homework, I’m from China too, I never said they spoke the same language nor had the exact same culture, but they were similar and were related peoples, you clearly know nothing but ccp 56 ethnic bs

[@chenmacro]

It is because of the core Chinese culture - Confucianism. Confucianism is not only the ideology but also the main stream education system since Han dynasty. Successful Confucianism scholars then run the country government, especially after Sui Dynasty when the Imperial examination was introduced to select the scholars every year to be the officials. In the history, China falls few times due to the internal collapse and the invasion from northern nomadic groups, similar as Germanic barbarians invades the Roman empire. When the nomadic groups entered into China, they needed the Confucianism scholars to help manage the massive agriculture civilization. Sooner or later, they converted themselves to be Chinese or fully adapted the Chinese culture. Confucianism focus more on the collectivism vs. the western culture focus more on the individualism. Chinese knows how important it is to unite together to form the power. Some times China split into many pieces, but they always reunite again and rise up. The unity of the nation is hard-coded in Chinese mindset, that's the reason China can't let go Taiwan.

[@YunLuoShanZe]

Most of the northern nomadic peoples in Chinese history still considered themselves Chinese. In their minds, the difference between themselves and the Han people is similar to the difference between blacks and whites in the US today.

[@Ivan-pr7ku]

Geography plays a major role in retaining a succession chain of a civilization. The Mediterranean basin is far more complex and challenging than the conditions the various Chinese states and dynasties had to go through. Most of Europe is cross rigged with mountain ranges and protruding peninsulas, in fact the total shoreline of Europe is twice as long as that of Africa alone. All this doesn't make for an easy accommodation to any unifying force. The fact that Rome managed to hold the Mediterranean Sea as its own for so long is a historical aberration, worthy of respect. The first and the only state to achieve this so far.

[@rob6927]

That's probably it. It's the formidable Chinese rivers that require resources of a huge empire to mitigate their strength. That's why Chinese wars are about unifying the empire again. As you point out, Europe with its geography is more suited for smaller regional states to have defensible borders and manage themselves. That's why European wars are about resisting a potential hegemon and ganging up on him. Also worth noting that the Mediterranean wasn't Roman "Mare nostrum" for the whole duration of the empire...

[@Horinius]

No, geography only plays a minor role. I have read through many comments. People always try to find reason in exterior factors, but nobody tries to find the answer within oneself. What if the reason is mainly cultural? Or even deeper? Inside the genes? By that, I mean genetic. Maybe Chinese are born to prefer unification and more social life while others are born to prefer individualism? No need to blame Mediterranean geography. It is innocent. There are mountain chains in China as well. And many people are isolated in those area. But yet, that does not reduce their affinity to have a unified country and patriotism.

[@wildfire9280]

@@Horinius There are plentiful examples of mass migrations in Chinese history that make this an impossible argument.

[@carstengrooten3686]

I think an impirtant factor is that the Roman Empire was based around a giant sea. This means that any power that wants to reunite it must have naval superiority over the entire Mediterranean. And the Romans were the only ones to be so dominant over both land and sea at the same time. Furthermore, the invaders in China were a uniting force, whereas for Rome the Germanic invasions would only further disintegrate the Empire, but this could be considered an extension of the steppe conquerer hypothesis. But I think the possibility of reunification died after the muslim conquest of north Africa and the Middle-East. The Arabs were semi-nomadic, but in contrast with the Manchus ir Mongols, they would assimilate conquered territories into their culture instead of being assimilated themselves. But again, due to the geographical position of being centered on a sea, the Arabs could not easilly conquer north of the Pyrenees. Combined with their dominant culture this created a strong disparity between core territories of the former empire. They now had very different languages and conflicting religions that could not coexist within one empire. If these cores were to reunite, they would at least have had to be converted to the same religion. But as no power was able to reach naval dominance like the Romans had before 1000 AD, they grew culturally so far apart that they themselves probably lost interest in conquering they other cores. China on the other hand stayed much more linguistically, religiously and culturally similar after the cores broke up, which allowed for outside powers to unite them. The Roman territories lacked this presence of steppe neighbours of sufficient strength (although the Huns and Bulgars did attack the Byzantines), but even if they had such a neighbour, maybe if the Sahara was steppe instead of desert, the conquerers would struggle to cross the seas into the northern half and if they would eventually conquer all of the former Roman empire, they would not be able to hold it together for long due to the strong cultural and religious differences that had grown between the different places.

[@XGD5layer]

China wasn't and didn't stay linguistically similar, at least in any way that suggests it originated from one monolithic linguistic branch. The writing system is the only thing in common for many of the dialects, and that is how scholars of different regions could communicate.

[@userwsyz]

The thing about China is that even the non-Han Chinese rulers such as the Mongols and the Manchu, their goal was to unify China. And all of the nomadic rulers of China had had forced their people to assimilate into the Han-Chinese culture at the beginning of their rule. The Han Chinese rulers had never forced other ethnic groups to assimilate into Han Chinese culture, rather you believe whatever you want as long as you obey my rules. The Mongols adopted this philosophy.

[@userwsyz]

@@XGD5layerDude, having the same written language is having the same linguistics. The different dialects are different in phonetics.

[@XGD5layer]

@Haijwsyz51846 I can consider them related and (mutually) influenced, but it's not like everything written in the latin alphabet is the same language either. I'm sure you also don't consider languages like Vietnamese, Korean or Japanese as being in the same language family as Chinese, even though they have borrowed a lot through for example bureaucracy and scholars, and use traditional Chinese characters.

[@tranquoccuong890-its-orge]

@@XGD5layer thing is, cultures and laguages are only part of what composed China the way it is throughout history; the other were perhaps conquests, politics and cultural dominance/influence/assimilation no one can deny the regional cultural differences between Chinese provinces, but for certain *other* reasons they all became Chinese heartland, and for these exact *other* reasons it showed how past Chinese empires differed from the Roman empire

[@overworlder]

The difference between land and sea. Seas are not population or political units. One of the typical factors in periods of contraction of Roman and East Roman power was neglect of the fleets.

[@runajain5773]

Yeh they more enemy in land than sea

[@alexzero3736]

Majorian literally failed to reconquer Tunisia because of burned fleet.

[@overworlder]

@@alexzero3736 - i think the worst example is the end of the Macedonian rennaissance, when a long period of success gave a feeling of security and safety so the government scrapped the fleet as unnecessary with disastrous consequences not long after

[@tylerellis9097]

@@overworlderThe fleet wasn’t scrapped after the Macedonians we have sources confirming its use up to and during Alexios’s reign with success. The Byzantine fleet is why Byzantium was able to resist the Normans in Italy till 1071. No it was downsized by Alexios do to the cost in favor of an alliance with Venice. John kept it small but then Manuel Expanded it. It was downsized and damaged permanently during the reign of the Angeloi.

[@overworlder]

@@tylerellis9097 - sure, thanks for the detail. I only had a vague recollection . . .

[@deiansalazar140]

Honestly I just think it's because of the huge wide inland sea and vast outside areas where it's easy to invade with little strategic depth in land in comparison to tall China. China has layers of defenses, while Rome has sparse wide areas of defense with less depth that once one is broken, it's easy to conquer wide areas, but in China it's just a single valley like the Wei river valley that's easy to contain unlike in Europe. I recommend Gates of Kilikien for good videos on this.

[@lxdnd]

East of China, the largest ocean on earth. West of China, the biggest mountain range on earth. South of China, forests, mountains and jungle. North of China, dry steppes barely inhabited. China is like an inland island, hard to get there from the outside, so the people inside end up always reconquering it all.

[@deiansalazar140]

@lxdnd exactly.

[@ZxZ239]

are you serious? China had to delt with horse riders from Mongolia all the time, they were far greater than anything Rome had to face.

[@deiansalazar140]

@ZxZ239 The proximity was a double edged sword. It meant that very rarely did steppe hordes grow too huge without fighting China or come from the west. The Historian's Craft has great videos on the steppe for this topic that when combined with my points show how they were too fractured and weak when near China, yet when they did get strong enough they fought China who had those extra advantages and either eventually collapsed or did conquer China then assimilated. Nothing about that contradicts anything I said.

[@知-k3q]

​@@deiansalazar140This is also the geographical defect of China's expansionism. After China completely entered the Iron Age, the world is still in the transition period of bronze and iron, and the population is far less than that of China! The Han Empire almost destroyed all the countries around China! In Han Dynasty-Song Dynasty, China led the world in science, technology, economy and population.

[@bordaz1]

That the Roman Republic ever unified the Mediterranean was the anomaly, and it probably had to do with a period of tranquility throughout Eurasia. Because once the forces of migration pushed the Goths, Franks, and Vandals onto the Rhine-Danube frontier, then it became almost impossible for one emperor in Rome to defend that frontier, leading to the East-West split.

[@slizzysluzzer]

Maybe the real question we should be asking is, 'how did Rome manage to unify the Mediterranean basin at all?'

[@neurofiedyamato8763]

This is my take on the subject. Just a hobbyist. So take it with a grain of salt. As another commenter mentioned under this video, "Rome was always kind of on the frontier." Prior to Rome, the only great regional power that could project its socio-economic might was Greece and Rome defeated them. Greece still wasn't fully unified and prior to their final defeat, had also been fighting in the middle east. Macedon was the strongest of the Greek states and other Greek states helped Rome to fight them. Much of Western Europe and the northern Mediterranean was tribal or small city states which was easy for Rome to conquer. Carthage was another major power but they were separated by the Mediterranean so Rome could expand in the north more or less unimpeded until it could challenge Carthage. Carthage was pretty close at conquering Rome, so it is kinda a coin toss on who became the final unifier of the basin. Now compare this to medieval period. Italy was like classical Greece and divided into many smaller city states. The larger states like the France and the Holy Roman Empire were farther up north where they had to compete with each other before ever trying to reconquer the Mediterranean. And new powers like the Scandinavian states also pulled attention away from that region. Unlike Rome, there were half a dozen roughly equal powers competing in Europe. They were no longer fighting small tribes and city states. And even if Italy, Europe, and Greece was reconquered, in North Africa and the Middle East; there were bunch of different caliphates and empires to fight through. No single European country could do that when they were so fractured and concerned about wars at home. Lastly, Unlike Rome, basically all European states had lost significant state capacity to raise and support a large army. Armies shrunk and battles shrunk. Unlike Rome, the central government was weak. Feudal societies just cannot hold up against proper empires with centralized states. The resources the medieval kingdoms could draw upon paled in comparison to Rome and to the Islamic states that dominated much of the ex-Roman territories. Even when they all unified for the crusades, the European powers did pretty poorly. The hodge podge of otherwise hostile nations led to poor coordination, communication and cooperation. Everyone did whatever they wanted and without a unified central state; there was also no unity of effort. In fact the Crusaders doomed the one thing that was holding back the Islamic powers from Europe; Byzantine. Byzantine could do as well as it did because it was LESS FUEDAL than the Rest of Europe and had much greater state power funded by its strategic location earning it lots of trade revenue. But by the time Constantinople finally fell, most of Europe had started to centralize and regained a lot of its state capacity enough that Europe slowly became the dominate global power. But Europe being fractured means they could never unify the Mediterranean as they still competed with each other internally. This parallels with China as described in the video. For China, the "Rome" or unifying power was in the steppe region. Southern China are all the smaller states that gets too focused on internal(regional) competition. This stayed largely consistent for much of its history. Unlike Europe, there wasn't a Byzantine(or the fact there's a large body of water) holding back the flood gates.

[@limitlesssky3050]

​@@neurofiedyamato8763No, it is in Northern China and not part of the steppe.

[@hentype]

By having Naval and Land superiority at the same time. This is why Rome was never reunited again, no other successor kingdoms/empires could achieve both at the same time within the Mediterranean.

[@Horinius]

By brutality, instead of education and helping in order to solve local people problems. This is opposite to what the Chinese governments (dynasties if you like) have been doing. "If one is kind to others, others will be kind in return". So, when a Chinese government started to ignore people's problem, it would eventually dissolve. And a new one will take the place. That's as simple as that.

[@coolbanana165]

@@neurofiedyamato8763 By the steppe region of China, do you mean the more north half, like Beijing?

[@walking_luggage8105]

It's actually not about the geography and how easy it was to conquer the lands. The key factor behind China's re-unification - the culture and the "middle kindgom" identity. And because of the middle kingdom identity, a recurring theme in Chinese history is one where whenever the central government became weak and people were dissatisifed, someone would organize the people and overthrew the old dynasty. But in the process, during dynastic transitions China often ended up with multiple warlords and factions fighting to be the sole emperor of the middle kingdom. And this sort of dynastic transitions used to last for a few decades until one faction defeats all other factions and became the ruling family for China for the couple of hundred years. Then the cycle repeated. The Mongols and the Manchus realized this and this is why they adapted a policy where they self-assmilated into the mainstream middle kingdom culture. The Manchus was more sinosized than the Mongols and they were able to maintain governance over China much longer than the Mongols did.

[@thomasantn]

"The Manchus was more sinosized than the Mongols and they were able to maintain governance over China much longer than the Mongols did" True. But in the end, they still got overthrown by Han Chinese. The Han people are just too proud of their heritage.

[@walking_luggage8105]

@@thomasantn "Han Chinese pride" and ethnic difference is not the reason the Qing dynasty was overthrown. The reason the Qing dynasty was overthrown was because the Qing dynasty failed to protect China from the foreign colonial powers. Before the first Opium War, the living standard in China was higher than in Europe. After the first Opium War, it opened the pandora's Box for foreign colonials to all come and invade and took a slice of China which sent China into extreme poverty. The people blamed the Qing dynasty for being too weak to protect China from these foreign colonial powers. The Chinese Nationalist Party just used the "Han Chinese revivalism" as a flag to start the revolution but in reality ethnicity has very little to do with the real cause for the revolution. After the Qing dynasty collapsed, the Manchus weren't persecuted or anything and they became fully assimilated into the Chinese society. A lot of them changed their surnames to Han Chinese surnames. Today, there are very little "pure bloood" Manchurians in China. They became fully Chinese. In fact, the concept of the "Han Chinese' only appeared in the late 19th century, when the Chinese Nationalist Party began the underground movement to overthrow the Qing dynasty. Historically, the Chinese/Middle Kingdom identity was not known as "Han Chinese" but rather it is called "Hua Xia" or "Zhong Hua" and it is still in use today, and to be honest it is more common and better known in Chinese societies than the concept of "Han Chinese'.

[@thomasantn]

@@walking_luggage8105 ""The Manchus was more sinicized than the Mongols" - That's why "they were able to maintain governance over China much longer than the Mongols did." If they had done what Mongol did to Han people, they would had been overthrown long ago. "but in reality ethnicity has very little to do with the real cause for the revolution" - - Not really. Han Chinese always had the 反清复明 sentiment. It may not be the only reason. But it was one of main reasons. Otherwise Nationalist Party's 驱除鞑虏，恢复中华 wouldn't had that long lasting effect on Han Chineses. "After the Qing dynasty collapsed, the Manchus weren't persecuted or anything" Not really. You need to educate yourself more about that period of history - • "There were quite a bit of retribution against the Manchus in 1911-12. In particular, some Manchu-strongholds (满城) were targeted, their inhabitants massacred. The most atrocious event took place in Xi'an in October 1911." • "Subsequent to Qing's collapse, bloody massacres upon us occurred in most major southern cities ... conducted by mobs orchestrated by ROC. ... But this was almost nonexistent in the northern part of the country, where Manchu-Han relationship had been rather harmonious for generations." ..... You understand why "A lot of them changed their surnames to Han Chinese surnames" now? "the concept of the "Han Chinese' only appeared in the late 19th century" - Wrong again. The concept of "Han Chinese" to the surrounding ethnic people has been there for a long time since the establish of Han Dynasty.

[@walking_luggage8105]

@@thomasantn "Not really. Han Chinese always had the 反清复明 sentiment. It may not be the only reason. But it was one of main reasons. Otherwise Nationalist Party's 驱除鞑虏，恢复中华 wouldn't had that long lasting effect on Han Chineses. " No it wasn't the main reason. The Ming revivalist movement became very subdued after the Zheng family surrendered Taiwan to the Qing dynasty in 1683. NOt saying there was no Ming revivalist sentiment at all, but it was very small. But it was the first and the second Opium War that revived the anti-Qing and Han Chinese revivalist movement because the peopole were angry that the Qing dynasty couldn't protect China from the foreign colonial powers. Like I said, the Chinese Nationalist party used the "Zhong Hua" revivalist sentiment to mobilize the revolution but in reality the main reason was to repel the foreign colonial powers and take back China's soverinigty. "There were quite a bit of retribution against the Manchus in 1911-12. In particular, some Manchu-strongholds (满城) were targeted, their inhabitants massacred. The most atrocious event took place in Xi'an in October 1911." " "Subsequent to Qing's collapse, bloody massacres upon us occurred in most major southern cities ... conducted by mobs orchestrated by ROC. ... But this was almost nonexistent in the northern part of the country, where Manchu-Han relationship had been rather harmonious for generations."" - I think you need to stop saying to people that they need to go "educate themselves" while you are the one who copied some replies on Quora verbatim! Come on man, if you are going to copy a reply from unknown people on the internet while not having detailed knowledge about the subject yourself and pretending it is your own knowledge, then you should at least change the wordings so it is not as easy for people to search Google and discover that you copied direclty from other people's social media comments. Firstly 满城 is the name of a a Qing dynasty stronghold in Xi'An which literally translates to "The city of the Manchus". Xi'An it located in China's Shangxii province. "The City of Machus" was conquered by the Manchus in 1645. It has a population of 20,000. During the Boxer Rebellion, Empress Qixi bascially pillaged Shangxii to feed the imperial court. In 1911, after the revolution in Wuchang succeeded, the Qing dynasty increased the garrisons at the city to fight the revolutionaries. But the revolutionaries proved to be stronger than the Qing dynasty military defending the city. The Qing military wouldn't surrender and so they suffered a casualty of almost 5000. When the siege broke, the Manchus in the city was afraid that the Han Chinese would retaliate because Empress QiXi robbed the Shangxii province just a few years before during the Boxer Rebellion. ANd so a large number of Manchu residents committed sucide. So while yes some Manchus changed their surnames after 1911 and there were some intial dislike of the Manchus in the early days after Qing dynasty's collapse. But the sentiment didn't last. The census during the Republic era showed there were 80,000 Manchus in China. But a more recent census in 2010 shows there are 10 million people who self-identify as Manchus in CHina. "Wrong again. The concept of "Han Chinese" to the surrounding ethnic people has been there for a long time since the establish of Han Dynasty." - No mate, you are wrong on this one. The concept of "Han Chinese" didn't exist until the late 19th century, after colonialism entered China. Chinese". The people during the Han dynasty didn't call themselves "Han Chinese". Historically (and present day), the identity of the Middle Kingdom was and is "Hua Xia" and "Zhong Hua". In fact, even the use of the word "Tang Ren" (Tang people), which is named after the Tang dynasty is more common than "Han Chinese" even in the present day. The "China town" outside of China, like in the USA, Canada, Australia and so on, in Chinese they are called "Tang Ren Street" (or, Tang people street, it was even written on John Carptenter's movie poster for Big Trouble in Little China). But the most common and most used concept for the Middle Kingom identity is either "Hua Xia" or "Zhong Hua".

[@jamesmasters2386]

I really appreciate the nuanced caveats that front load this interesting topic and analysis. Very refreshing to hear that humility and makes the analysis very easy to take for what it is. Personally, I find the suppositions taken to be convincing and useful, as one lense to apply, to the comparison of the evolution of civilizations in the East and West. Not that it makes me an authority by any means, but, I was fortunate to have lived in China briefly in the early 2000s. I find the contrast and similarities both fascinating. The history that my contemporary experiences are built on, will always be both fascinating and informative in the present.

[@rainmcmey]

The geography of the Mediterranean basin doesn’t lend itself to political unity in the way the core of China does, is something that has to be taken into account. The North China Plain and Yangtze Delta are extremely flat, and MASSIVE. For one of the most habitable and populous regions on earth to have that much of pull towards unity, it’s difficult to see how it would not be a large, centralised power most of the time. It’s simultaneously flat, lush, and easily defined in its boundaries. There is no comparable feature in Europe. Perhaps if there were a significant north-south mountain range somewhere east of the Rhine, France could be a decent analogue, but as it is, France has always been squabbling over its eastern border with German states. Honestly the best IRL analogue to China’s situation might be Britain, especially the south-east (which has, incidentally, been fairly continuously unified), but Britain’s core does not logically lead to Mediterranean-centric expansion. The best comparatives on the Mediterranean are the Po Valley, the Nile Delta, Tunisia, the south-western valleys of the Iberian peninsula, and the Thracian plains - all of which have formed the core regions of separate powers, and none of which are more than a tenth the size of China’s core. Rome pulled off something semi-miraculous which, realistically, has probably been been unachievable since. Europe is a mess of peninsulas, mountains, and valleys that could only be conquered in totality through overwhelming advantages in numbers, sociocultural tech, and military/political organisation. It probably couldn’t have been done before Rome, and there’s probably never been a point since Rome when it could have been done again.

[@Bamboo-fk5dm]

Because it's extremely difficult to (re-)conquer some places across the sea... Even the existence of the Roman Empire was a miracle...

[@Beyonder1987]

It isn’t a miracle. Rome had a vast powerful military and logistics that was never been seen before. The empire was designed like a big corporate business of today. Roads were built across its empire hence the word “All roads leads to Rome”. Rome sent troops and equipments throughout its empire and collected tax efficiently to feed its vast empire

[@Daniel-jm7ts]

If you think about the Mediterranean is by nature a dividing factore, especially the north is divided between mountainous peninsulars (iberia, italy, balkans, anatolia) and historically only the roman empire was able to conqure them all despite numberous other attempts by others. So shouldnt the question be how rome, as a historically exception, was even able to unite this massive geographical region in the first place rather than why noone else was able to?

[@Tom_Quixote]

I found this video to be a bit unfinished. Shadow empires? And why exactly was the steppe so important for China's centre of power? It's like the video should have been 4 minutes longer where you wrapped up the loose ends.

[@ender7278]

That's a very long way of saying Europe has a less centralizing geography, which is bloody obvious to any historian.

[@WVin]

这就是唯一的真相。

[@pchaneyo]

The main point is not the political reunification or not. Main question is : why has roman civilization disappeared and why has Chinese civilization not disappeared after invasions by Mongols and Mandchous.

[@jingshen5679]

Language is likely a factor here, if not the most important one. The Chinese language, however the pronuonciation might change, remain the same written form and same characters. Whereas for Indo-european alphabetical language, the spelling changes alone with the pronuonciation shifts, and thereby quicklt splits into many languages in over a couple of generations, creating many "ethinc groups" out of natural evolution of language and regional dialogues. There are many many european languages whose difference is minor comparing with the differences between Cantonese and Mandrian, but the written form of the two is still the same. In fact, you can write chinese to communicate with a Japanese because of the partially shared written Kanji

[@0.0LEE-n8i]

In ancient China, the Roman Empire was called the Great Qin. In 97 AD, Ban Chao, the Protector General of the Western Regions of the Han Empire, sent Gan Ying to the Great Qin, hoping to establish direct contact with the Roman Empire. Gan Ying passed through Tiaozhi (the Mesopotamian Basin) and Parthia (Persia) along the way, and reached the "Western Sea". At that time, merchants from the Parthian Empire told Gan Ying: "The sea is vast, and those who travel back and forth can only cross it in three months if there is a good wind. If there is a slow wind, it may take two years, so those who go to the sea must carry three years of food. The sea makes people miss their homeland, and many people die." Hearing this, Gan Ying was frightened and chose to go back. In fact, Gan Ying was already very close to the Roman Empire. According to scholars' speculation, this "Western Sea" may be the Persian Gulf. If Gan Ying can get the right guidance, he can reach the Mediterranean by land, and then take a ship to Rome. However, Persian merchants did not want the Han Dynasty to establish contact with Rome, because that would not only make it unprofitable for them as middlemen, but also increase the danger of being attacked from both sides. Although Gan Ying did not reach Rome, Roman merchants sent envoys to Luoyang in 100 AD to meet the Han emperor. In 160 AD, King Anton (Roman Antonine Dynasty) sent envoys to visit Emperor Huan of Han. These contacts deepened the Chinese people's understanding of Rome, so Rome was first written in the "Book of the Later Han Dynasty", and several hundred words were written, ranking first in the "Biography of the Western Regions". The "Book of the Later Han Dynasty" records that "the great Qin State, also known as Liqian, is located in the west of the sea, and is also called the Sea West State. The area is thousands of miles, with more than 400 cities. There are dozens of small countries under its jurisdiction. The city walls are made of stone... The people work hard in the fields and plant many silkworms and mulberry trees. They all shave their heads and wear embroidered clothes, ride on small carts with white covers, beat drums when going out, and raise flags and banners." It can be seen here that the Roman Empire was large in area, with many cities and strong national strength. It is just more difficult to understand why "many silkworms and mulberry trees were planted"? It turned out that Rome had a great demand for silk, and over time it learned the technology of sericulture from China. The Book of the Later Han was written by Fan Ye (398-445 AD) during the Southern Dynasties. At that time, Rome was indeed planting mulberry trees. The History of the Northern Dynasties: The Western Regions also recorded that the soil of great Qin was "suitable for growing grains, mulberry and hemp, and people were engaged in silkworm farming."

[@baselius662]

The pattern of Chinese history is that of a abroudly Chinese heartland with shifting borderlands. The Roman heartland, the Mediterranean, became divided primarily after the muslim conquest. Without the Mare nostrum, the centre of power collapsed and remained divided between local power centres. The Byzantine Empire shifted to the mountains of Anatolia, the muslims kept Egypt and Syria, while power in Europe shifted from Italy to the north of the alps.

[@maxis2k]

What I was taught in the past is that various groups would rise to conquer China. But once they did, they saw there were systems in place that were so good at controlling the population and government, and for generating wealth, that they would adopt these systems. And effectively become "Chinese" in culture and language, even if they weren't ethnically. Rome did the same thing for a long time. They just did it in reverse, conquering the territory themselves and then instituting Roman systems in that conquered territory. If this is correct, it would explain why reunification and adoption stopped in the late Empire period. Because the empire itself was contracting. So the lands they lost or never conquered didn't have Roman political or cultural systems. And a lot of the states that rose up in this way didn't want to emulate the empire that was either their brutal oppressors of the past and/or seen as a dying empire. But most everyone in East Asia seemed to want a connection to Chinese culture in some way. Even if they didn't want to be a part of them politically (Korea, Japan, Khmer, Siam, etc).

[@Septimus_ii]

I'm struggling to think of many institutions that an external conqueror would want to adopt in Roman lands. There's the law code, and maybe the church?

[@maxis2k]

@@Septimus_ii Early on they might have wanted to emulate their systems of law, military, architecture and senate which seemed to be making them quite efficient and strong. But after the Republic era? Yeah, I can't think of anything either. Even the church was adopted from outside Rome.

[@thepedrothethethe6151]

​@@maxis2kThe visigoths adopted many Roman institutions.

[@sinoroman]

Taking bits of Chinese culture

[@carlosaugustodinizgarcia3526]

It was the same in Mesopotamia before the Persians.Nomadic tribes settled,assumed the core population religion,culture and government. Sumerians>Akkadians>Amorites (Assyrians and Babylobians)>Arameans>Chaldeans

[@alexcheng1560]

the empire, long divided, must unite

[@joshuag.a287]

Long united, must divide

[@jermasus]

thus it has ever been

[@markus-ks9sf]

Is this a moth☆fucking romance of the three kingdoms reference?

[@alexcheng1560]

@@markus-ks9sfhell yeah😂

[@frustis]

Cao Mengde best 3K general

[@wyattw9727]

I feel like the simplest explanation is just ethnic groups and the power they wielded, along with the disunity of the core ethnic groups as well. Italians are, demonstrably from history at least, a bag of cats that only seem to get along when somebody is threatening them, or one of the cats is big enough to krump the others in line. Virtually as soon as Roman domination collapsed in the West, the Italic mountain tribes just buzz off to be independents paying lip service as most to lowlander power. The North, center, and south relatively split into their own areas, and some fragment even further into fiercely sovereign republics/petty kingdoms. It takes nearly a thousand years to cobble Italy back into a somewhat integral border, and further time than that to wholly reunify it. And this is without the further issues of Germans being incredibly distinct from Italic peoples, Germans internally being incredibly independent, France being a demographic mess for centuries and taking forever to restore its OWN integrity after the collapse of the Merovingian and Carolingian state (which possibly in a sense is a new 'roman dynasty' in the sense of being another large geographic area unifying lots of territory under the same faith no less while comparing things to ancient and medieval China). Meanwhile, from at least my more limited comprehension of Chinese history, every Chinese dynasty is either the Yellow River using its immense agricultural, and thus industrial output to suppress and rule everything in its surroundings - or a steppe group which manages to usurp this power in addition to northernly domination by their respective host. Also also more musing, but Europe has huge population clusters around rivers or coasts scattered all over the place, along with the 'center' of the Roman Empire truly being an ocean which acted as a highway. Meanwhile the Chinese are locked in place by mountains and deserts which are semi impassable by large forces. It's a continental empire with continuous land borders rather than an oceanic empire with discontinuous borders.

[@知-k3q]

The official country names, languages, scripts and systems of all dynasties in China belong to the Han people!😏There is no empire ruled by nomadic tribes!It can only be said that two emperors were foreigners, but China had already skipped slavery and feudalism! There is no government that does not accept foreigners, and there is no government that bypasses the system to promote foreigners!😏

[@知-k3q]

There are also nomadic tribes that have Terror rule the 1000-year reign of the Han people (the main sacrifice of the Shang-Zhou human sacrifice system)And 1000 years of high-pressure colonization (Han-Tang Dynasty)There is also a 1000-year period of mutual rule (Song-Qing Dynasty).

[@PrimeChaosVC]

European tends to lean towards this, "disunity equates to development of individual states and competition advance them faster one way or the other". This statement is made because for the past 200 years, European colonial powers dominated the rest of the world, but ignored the fact that China was ahead in technology, economy and social develop for most part of the past 2000 years. European raise to colonization and eventual dominance was an exception, just like the Mongol's conquest. I am glad I live to see the west crumbling in almost breakneck speed today. Reverting back to their original state of condition. While the rest of the world, especially East Asia and Southeast Asia, rises in overall GDP, Trade value and development. We have to thank the European/West for their ability to create 2 devasting wars, WWI and WWII to "compete" against themself, and the current rapid decline of US hegemony for ignoring internal issues while profiting from wars like the true colonial powers of the Traditional West.

[@CaocaoXI]

Yes. This is one of the best questions. One of the biggest differences is in China, the is a very obvious division between the agricultural land and nomadic land, about where the Great Wall is built. So Chinese empires were all based on agriculture. It’s always inherited the agricultural civilization. No matter where the rulers were from or what they did for living, once they conquered China, they would become Chinese and followed the same system. In the west, The Roman empire was based on trading power around the Mediterranean Sea. So was the Arabic empire trading between the west and the east. So with in the territory, ways of living was a lot more diverse . So when the central power is weaker, it is harder to reunite.

[@alicelund147]

It is something about the Northern invaders of China getting assimilated in to China. They took over and ruled instead of creating new political and cultural entities. Yes in West Rome the Germanic Kingdoms adopted local dialects of Latin and part of their culture but it was completely new nations with different economies, military organization, way of rule and administration etc. Rome was replaced by something new. Germanic peoples, Slavic Peoples, Arabs and Turkic Peoples didn't just take over the rule of Rome, they created new nations with new cultures. Rome was gone for good, there was no Rome left to reunite.

[@Hoo88846]

it’s because China was unified to start with and every now and then fragmented, such as during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (into many fiefdoms in the Spring-Autumn Period and 7 states during the Warring States Period), while Roman Empire was fragmented to start with trying to grab as many territories as possible, and thus eventually split up again. China was unified to start with and their culture is solid to start with, so their culture always brings them back after brief fragmentation.

[@anotherelvis]

Charlemagne did his best.

[@Septimus_ii]

Not really. He controlled Gaul, Germania and most of Italy. I would say that for an empire to be a reunification of Rome it would need to control most of the Mediterranean coast

[@hokton8555]

@@Septimus_ii "did his best"=/=succeed

[@stevencooper4422]

WHY DID HE DIVIDE HIS EMPIRE EVENLY AMONG HIS SONS REEEEEEEEEE

[@noobymooby-ty8gh]

Arbitrary dividing of the empire 🫠

[@sinoroman]

Charlemagne rather split the empire into three for his sons, than to let his sons fight a civil war to control the empire

[@Anhilare]

there's also the importance of written language. in china, there was only ever one written language, chinese, which everyone used: to be literate meant to write in classical chinese. meanwhile, over in rome, there was latin, greek, egyptian, and aramaic in use in writing for centuries already, with latin just being the newest of many. this allowed everyone to keep their ethnic identity intact, and their descendants have preserved it to this day. after the collapse of rome, this didn't end, with armenian, german, arabic, and more arising as additional widely-used identity-preserving literary languages. contrast this with china, where every conquered ethnicity, lacking a written language (until MUCH later), was basically doomed to have their language (and therefore their identity) erased, with this process ongoing today (take the hmong peoples as an example). the hieroglyphic system chinese uses also prevents the literary language from splitting into many pieces, unlike what ultimately happened to latin after rome failed to reunite after 1000 years (and what's currently happening to arabic).

[@moorsoldaten4174]

What is important is that the demise of Rome did not happen suddenly, but was a long and slow process. After 476, the rulers of Goths and Germans still regard themselves as Roman governors or generals. When the feudal system was completely established, classical Rome was finally really ended.

[@douglasgabriel5228]

But what about the Ming? The Ming is one of the few southern chinese dynasties, and expell the Yuan, a mongol central asian dynasty, this doesnt debunk this theory?

[@TempAcct-e6k]

The Tang dynasty stands in complete and utter contrast to this theory as well

[@lolasdm6959]

No, the Yuan's Han troops simply joined the rebellion, including those in the north.

[@lolasdm6959]

@@TempAcct-e6k Tang imperial family were descended from Xianbei military class.

[@TempAcct-e6k]

@@lolasdm6959 The Tang imperial family were descended from the Li family, a Han Chinese family from the Longxi Commandery.

[@lolasdm6959]

@@TempAcct-e6k Yeah and who is Taizong's mother? Have you check that out too?

[@chumleyk]

Simply put, there was just too much equal competition in Europe for it to reunify.

[@thomasantn]

There were also that in China 2,300 years ago. But Kingdom of Qin beat them all up by breaking their alliance and defeating them one by one through various shrewd strategies that you can find in the "Art of War" as well as its pure strength. Americans watch out. Chinese has lots of experience in these.

[@polofar99]

我读了这里的很多评论，虽然是通过翻译器 但我发现很多人特别强调种族和血统，这也许就是西方人和中国人的不同 如果你特别注重种族血统，那么不同的地区就很难统一 即使暂时的合并也会出现各种等级差别和种族歧视，最终导致分崩离析 中国能够合久必分，分久必合，更多原因是有一种强大的文化凝聚力 相同的文化认同让人们趋向统一，而不是单纯的种族和血统继承 现在的中国，仍然有56个民族和平共处，所有的民族都认同自己是中国人 人们认同相同的中华文化，同时每个民族的优秀传统得以保留 例如父亲是汉族，母亲是满族，孩子可以自由登记为满族或汉族 在中国很少出现因为肤色不同而导致的种族歧视，因为中国人更在意的是文化认同而不是肤色

[@louisliu459]

西方人永远也不会明白这些的，让他们继续沉睡吧

[@JoySeekingDisciple]

China is not yet unified without Taiwan.

[@summerli2010]

Taiwan is part of China.

[@YeOldeBoBSMITH]

I think the geography is crucial here. Northern China is much flatter and easier to unify than the rugged south. This is especially true for mobile cavalry based armies. Any force that is able to control the North China plain (The traditional center of power in china) has the resources and centralization of power to conquer the rest of china, even if it takes decades. Before the Southern Song, the north had all the economic advantages (Silk Road, Grand Canal, The Yellow River, Population, Production, etc.). The periods of division can be seen as result of the mountainous and jungle terrain of the south delaying full unification even against overwhelming odds.

[@燕北山前萬梅山莊主人]

The reason is that there is the concept of Celestial Dynasty fulfilling the ultimate goal of Celestial Harmony.

[@fobusas]

I think it's more complicated than it's mostly down to proximity to Eurasian steppe. First, Europe was kind of united many times. Besides the examples already mentioned, Holy Roman Empire, Habsburg dynasty, Napoleon, Hitler, Soviet Union, they all had sizes similar to Rome. And currently, European Union. But most importantly, geography. Europe as way too many defensible places: lots of large islands, peninsulas, continental seas, mountains and big rivers. Its why Europe had so many small but powerful nations, because worst come pass, they can barricade behind.

[@pineapplesareyummy6352]

The Holy Roman Empire, Napoleon and Hitler all saw themselves as restoring the Roman Empire in some ways. But it's a bit of a stretch to include Soviet Union in this equation. There is basically zero overlap between Soviet and Roman territory. Nor did the Soviet Union ever seriously tried to take back core Roman territory - it was just too far, and the USSR wasn't interested in such a reunification project.

[@yjiang750]

60% of Europe is plain, and most areas are below 200 meters above sea level. China's terrain is actually more rugged and has more mountains. The water flow of the Yangtze River is also much greater than that of all the top ten rivers in Europe combined. If you've heard of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, China was also divided into several geographical blocks. Europe's difficulty in unifying may be due to its lack of barriers rather than too many

[@fobusas]

@@pineapplesareyummy6352 After the fall of Byzantines, Russia saw itself as the rightful inheritor. And I didn't say same territory, I said similar size to Roman Empire. Which Soviet Union certainly did have. At it's peak, USSR controlled 2/3 of Europe. Western Europe is the smaller half.

[@fobusas]

@@yjiang750 Core Chinese lands dont have anything similar to the Alps. And Baltic, Medditarian and other seas divide Europe far more than Yangtze. If Europe has lack of barriers, how come it's home of most of the smallest countries on earth? Europe is a very divided continent.

[@pineapplesareyummy6352]

​@@fobusas Yes, it is true that the RUSSIAN EMPIRE saw itself as the "Third Rome". But I don't think you can extend that argument to the Soviet Union, which was an atheist state and no longer saw itself as the guardian of Christianity.

[@another505]

Feel like it is a weak argument that it is because of the steppe people being on the outside will be able to force a unification to the inside. The Mongols conquered china and became china instead of being a bigger mongol is the more important question. And China reunified itself a few times despite no steppe nomad intervention. Jin, and Sui comes to mind, and I don't know why you missed out Song dynasty. So why didn't the lombards, gauls, or huns become roman after sacking rome?

[@safi164]

Mediterranean if we look at it was never unified.. Even during the hey day of the Roman Empire it was basically Latin speaking west mean while Greek speaking East.. Later on by medieval era it got divided into three parts with Latin Speaking West, Greek Speaking East and Arabic speaking South and South East.. Compared to that Ancient China was always culturally and linguistically united in some way...

[@sentryion3106]

I disagree. The linguistic and cultural difference existed in China too. Even during the beginning of the Han dynasty parts of the country still stick with their warring state culture and languages. I mean just look at how many dialects the Chinese have. If we were to really point at one thing that glued China together so many time, Confucianism is probably up there.

[@ariacure9978]

Many people attribute the foundation of China's repeated reunification to Qin Shihuang, but I think the Zhou Dynasty's contribution is fundamental. For more than 400 years, its ritual and music system laid a cultural identity that is different from ethnic bloodline identity. Of course, it does not mean that China does not care about bloodline or ethnicity at all, but it has provided an answer that allows multiple ethnic groups to coexist and integrate, and even became an important cornerstone for the later generations to pass down Han culture as the mainstream even when China was ruled by foreigners.

[@mrpocock]

The Europe and North Africa empires seem to flip between empires of roads and empires of boats. You can't hold the shores of the med if you don't control the sea. And you can't trade efficiently if you can't secure the shipping. You can have a road empire of Northern Europe or Eurasia, but not of the Mediterranean.

[@JackyLiu-8210]

周朝延续八百年，有共同意识形态：周礼，后来发展成儒家，成为中国的主流意识形态直到今天。马克思主义给儒家提供了一种现代化方式，但作为政治哲学的民本主义，天命论，正统性，这些核心没有变。周朝从商朝继承了语言文字，但抛弃了商朝的原始宗教。到了汉朝的时候，华夏的族群认同已经非常牢固，经过第一个黄金时代的淬炼，形成了汉族。当政权覆灭，国家陷入分裂的时候，共同的民族认同会成为重新统一的原动力 罗马缺少共同历史文化和意识形态，没有构建起足够强的罗马认同。政治上罗马是少数统治，核心的罗马人不占多数，文化上罗马神话只是种创世神话，缺少对国家机构和人民行为的规范，没能发展成意识形态。后期它必须向宗教妥协，把基督教定为国教，这成了罗马疆域内最大的共性。罗马灭亡后，蛮族国王们必须向基督教求取合法性，其根源仍然来自罗马。在意识形态塑造方面，罗马错失了机会，只能让位给宗教，社会出现政治和宗教两个权力中心，为分裂埋下种子。罗马灭亡后，国民满足于基督徒身份，不再尝试恢复罗马。

[@LittleMushroomGuy]

Completely misses Translatio Imperii. The Goths started seeing themselves as Romans, The Franks and Germans saw themselves as the successors to Rome, Germans and Austrians saw themselves as the successors to the Holy Roman Empire etc. And now with the EU we have another "Rome"

[@jesse89625]

good joke, Africans are also Roman

[@Bamboo-fk5dm]

Translatio Imperii was how non-Romans claiming the Roman Empire without the approval of the real-existing Romans.

[@tranquoccuong890-its-orge]

it was more of an institutional legitimacy claiming, without much territory overlap with the actual Mediterranean-spreading Roman empire that centralized its power in Rome (& later Constantinople, to a degree)

[@LittleMushroomGuy]

@@Bamboo-fk5dm Are these "Real-Existing Romans" with us in this room right now?

[@Bamboo-fk5dm]

@@LittleMushroomGuy Who are Romans is hardly a question for Romans.

[@ckwongau2008]

There are many factors , i like to discuss the language Romance Language as the Language originated from Latin (the language of Rome) : like French , Italian,Spanish , Portuguese and Romanian . 5 language of 5 nations , the people of each nation see the people other 4 Nation as foreigner . The Chinese language is still one language ( some may disagree) with many dialect . Cantonese , Mandarin , Native Taiwanese ( or Taiwanese Hokkien) and many other dialect , they are still belongs to one language . For political reason some people may argue Native Taiwanese dialect is another language , but let's not get too political or starts a fight over politic . When i was a kid in 1980's Hong Kong, the school subject that teach Chinese language call "国语" which also mean "Mandarin" . But we were learning how to read and write Mandarin grammar and pronounce the word in Cantonese . The point is the Chinese language has evolved to many different dialect that has difference pronunciation of the same word , even the "Written Chinese " (like new paper , musical opera or song ) " had different local writing style and local style grammar . But the Chinese people who speak different dialect still work very hard to learn the traditional Mandarin writing and reading style which allow Chinese people who speak different dialect to be able to communicate and understand each other in writing . Official document , Novel are still written using traditional Mandarin style grammar . Respectable Newspaper still use traditional Mandarin style grammar , but more and more Hong Kong tabloid newspaper and magazine use localize speaking style in their writing without traditional Mandarin style grammar. But still billion of Chinese still wants preserved the Chinese language as one language ( with many different dialect )

[@alexzero3736]

What the main difference between Europe and China? Why Empire was holding together under Odoacer and Theodoric? And Justinian reconqured it. Because there was local support for empire, for Rome. Belisarius told his troops that locals are citizens of Rome just like them. And local people helped to reconquer Northern Africa and Italy, they rised against Goths and participate in repairs of Rome walls. But after that, European mentality chaged to seeking self-determination and individual liberties. Italy became land of city-states and republics. They resisted French and Spanish (Aragon) influence... ( see Italian wars). Republic of Venice or the Pope alwas stepped in if someone breaked balance in Italy, to put that country down.

[@batliff]

One is governed by fear the other governed by hope.

[@NineNoRouge]

This is a question i have never thought of but need answered now. I suppose part of the answer will be geography.

[@winglaileung]

Turkey is trying to reunite its present territories with the previous lands of the Ottoman Empire.

[@notoriousbigmoai1125]

Why did Zoroastrianism decline to the point of near extinction, but Hinduism is still one of the largest religions today despite both Persia and India being conquered by Islam?

[@jaif7327]

zoroastrianism was already declining heavily by the time of mohammed’s death , there’s a book called “last empire of iran” by micheal bonner that goes into it

[@ksanbahlyngwa1998]

I guess Hinduism is a more resilient religion with a larger population.

[@neroatlas9121]

​@@ksanbahlyngwa1998 I think it had to do more with the decentralized nature of India and the more centralized nature of Iran. In iran, it was the conquest of one state while in india it was a bunch of kingdoms which ironically made it harder to conquer. +hinduism was highly entrenched and the whole of indian society was centered around hinduism, so even when the muslim states DID invade, they NEEDED to govern through concession or risk large-scale revolts and unrest.

[@DarDarBinks1986]

Zoroastrians sure played the long game, though. They gave us Freddie Mercury.

[@neroatlas9121]

@DarDarBinks1986 really sweet from their part.

[@weiwang4439]

As a chinese i may say that the culture in fact remained the same, the core identity felt by every dynasty was “Chinese”. A mayor fact in ancient era was the sharing of the myths. People believed the myths , and in the myths the identity of “Chinese” was always a core. Meanwhile in the Roman Empire, they simply believed in the same higher entity but never on the identity of people.

[@cljesseng1716]

China had the top 1 or 2 GDP as always. But Roman was not .....

[@beardeodorant7682]

Do you have sources or suggestions for further reading?

[@r0ky_M]

As Prof. Mary Beard of Cambridge said citing another scholar: "We should be amazed that Rome held it together for so long in the first place"

[@SkyFly19853]

Did the Barbarian Horde give Romans a chance to unify or re unify ?

[@neimenovani7256]

4:26 Macedonia during Alexander the great? Edit: oh... well now i feel dumb for writing this

[@tarunhari1144]

China was a civilisation first and then an empire. This common culture united the Chinese despite nomadic invasions and political fragmentation. All the invaders adopted the superior culture of the Han Chinese.

[@Ktotwf]

Mountains, Rivers, Jesus

[@fengzheng888-l6m]

How was Ming associated with the steppe?

[@andresmaynez3060]

At 3:00 you forgot the Song Dynasty

[@hokton8555]

there were nomand anti-emperors

[@sumi2973]

​@@hokton8555 what's nomand? If you mean nomad, Song was definitely not a nomad power

[@hokton8555]

@@sumi2973 the juchen dynasty & qara qitai

[@arnoldussineamico498]

technically speaking, china was not unified under one emperor Unlike other dynasties before and after Song, Khitan Liao and Song were "more or less" equal diplomatically. There were now two suns in the sky😂

[@施宇洋-m4c]

The population of Han Chinese is far more massive even at ancient time. And Xiang Yu also wanted to restore the order before the unitification of Qin but he failed, so the Chinese culture admitted the concept that unity is the "normal" situation of nation.

[@No_Relation_666]

China was based around two rivers and could be controlled relatively easily, Rome was based around a sea

[@Horinius]

The image @3:04 is, unfortunately, *very misleading*. By that, I mean the image shows the territories of China over the millennia as more or less the same size, but in reality, the size has *tremendously* increased over the history. In order to let people appreciate the change, the author should have shown the territory inside a *full geographic map*, exactly like the one @2:12. In this way, people could see the change over time and appreciate it.

[@esti-od1mz]

But Rome reunified many times. China was reunified multiple times by different people groups, with different languages and traditions. The same could be applied for Rome: the HRE and Costantinople both considered themselves Rome. A better question would be why no successor of Rome successfully conquered all the former territiories. P.S. other honorable mentions, all the kingdoms of Italy ( the one of the ostrogoths, the one of the lombards, and so on) all claimed to be Rome. The Holy roman emperor was "roman" because he took also the crown of Italy.

[@杜子垩]

The Han Chinese had far more time to develope its population than the Romans did, before they encounter the first major collapse each of their own. Vast majority of China's people share common ancestors, therefore common culture, language, identity and so on. While Rome is basically a city state that conquered a lot of "other people". They lost this "reuniting" game 2000 years before it even had started. We cannot really blame them for that.

[@MattTheGatt]

Rome didn't invest enough in Horse Archers. Case closed. JK.

[@stevenfeng2909]

There is one glaring mistake in this video, the Ming dynasty came from southern China; first unified southern China, and then fought north and pushed the Mongolians out; so the step theory doesn’t work here

[@stevens1041]

I have mixed feelings about this topic. The Qing, which ruled China from the 1600s to 1911, were not Han people. So that's quite a long amount of time where China isn't quite you know, the China of the Tang or the Ming. When China threw off the Qing in 1911, the country still was not reunited at all, but continued as a concept, and the country was stuck in the War Lords era and Civil War Era. Always left out of the conversation for some reason, is that the Americans and the Soviets saved China and helped bring it into being in modern times. A unified China wouldn't exist without America and the Soviet Union, despite the differences each of those sides had about what the future of China should look like, politically. In summary: China isn't an inevitable concept. There are a lot of times in the modern period (1600-onwards) where it looked like China might have disappeared.

[@aii_penguin]

The Qing were sinicized just like the Mongols became with the Yuan, there’s still a sense of continuity. Think of a stronger HRE that stayed more true to Roman traditions and political frameworks. China was disunited for centuries after the Jin Dynasty until the Sui, the argument here isn’t whether China inevitably unifies, it’s why it does at the end. You can also argue China isn’t unified today with the ROC and Taiwan away from the Mainland which is comparable to the Qing conquering the Mainland and Ming loyalists setting up a rump state in Taiwan, in a strikingly similar fashion to the todays situation with Taiwan todayz

[@martytu20]

@@stevens1041 to quote Deng Xiaoping “a black cat or a white cat, as long as it catches mice, it is a good cat”. Jin Yong used that quote to point out that a Manchu like Kangxi is an all time great emperor. He initiated the High Qing era with stability, general prosperity for the common people. Good rulers don’t need to be Han. Even the ethnicity of Han is problematic due to millennia of intermixing with various ethnic groups. DNA tests show divergence between northern Han and southern Han. Northern Han typically have nomadic steppe people mixed in their DNA, while the southern Han can carry Thai, Vietnamese or austronesian DNA.

[@Nom_AnorVSJedi]

That’s like saying England is not English because it’s been ruled by Normans since AD 1066. At least the Han overthrew Mongols and Manchus eventually who even adopted Chinese dynastic names. England is stuck with Norman rule even today with the English class system, the Chinese don’t suffer from that.

[@Nom_AnorVSJedi]

And why is China unified because of Americans and Soviets? Have you never heard of a dude named Mao Zedong, the Communist Party of China and the People’s Liberation Army???

[@stevens1041]

@@martytu20 Well, my point was that I don't think China is an inevitable concept. But, of course, China is a concept that exists today. Is this good or is this bad? That is the real good question. Large, diverse empires (am I allowed to call China that?), are difficult to manage. Some people lament the collapse of the Soviet Union, for example, although most places that lived under such a system did not enjoy it much. I strongly believe, long before I saw this video, that the Western Roman Empire going away was probably a good thing, in the long run. Smaller polities are more responsive to their constituents, generally speaking. Having different kingdoms gives people nearby alternatives to flee too, if one ruler gets too many stupid ideas. China, for all its growth the last 40 years, still ranks very low on the income/person list. The reasons for this are probably extremely difficult to get at, but look--China spends more than its entire defense budget on internal security and policing. Same as all Empires in the past had to do. Is this a benefit to the average person or a drain on the living standards of Chinese? These are open ended questions.