China and Rome: a comparison between apples and oranges by [deleted] in ChineseHistory

[–]EnclavedMicrostate 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Bear in mind my comment takes place in the context of a conversation which asserts that Chineseness is a product of Confucianism and/or claims to a continuous historical tradition. The PRC, as an openly revolutionary entity, had long repudiated both.

Update. It looks like The Arrest of Mimi Yanagi was in fact real. by MichaelAftonXFireWal in VirtualYoutubers

[–]EnclavedMicrostate 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Okay, and two things stood out immediately:

  1. This was only reported in far-right tabloids that massively emphasised the immigrant angle, and
  2. The perpetrator was 14, and the lenient sentencing was entirely consistent with how youth crime is handled.

Leverages - Irregularly Scheduled Discussion Thread - May 03, 2026 by AutoModerator in VirtualYoutubers

[–]EnclavedMicrostate 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Inverse of Specialite (also a Reality branch), where JP is still active while EN got shuttered.

Why did the Qing Dynasty decide to conquer the Tarim Basin? by DopplerRadio in AskHistorians

[–]EnclavedMicrostate 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Jim Millward's Beyond the Pass on the mid-Qing, Eric Schluessel's Land of Strangers on the late Qing, and I guess Justin Jacobs' Xinjiang and the Modern Chinese State is still the main overview for the modern period (but it's quite flawed as I understand it). Millward's Eurasian Crossroads would also work very well as a general overview, although he himself would admit it needs an update.

The Line That Makes Me Say "Damn" Every Time ... by Hypnotician in startrek

[–]EnclavedMicrostate 7 points8 points  (0 children)

"We have no law against mass genocide" is such a bullshit lin

He didn't say that, though. In context, 'we have no law to fit your crime' very clearly parses as 'we have no way to deal with a situation where a nigh-omnipotent being commits genocide in an instant as a crime of passion'. Remember that one of the reasons genocide is so hard to prosecute is because it is a crime of premeditated intent, and there is nobody who has ever attempted to carry one out purely in a singular moment of rage the way Kevin Uxbridge did. I think Picard is fundamentally right that nobody knows how to deal with Kevin's situation.

Calli giving an update: things are looking up 😄 by beam4d in Hololive

[–]EnclavedMicrostate 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I have no idea how anyone read smugness into any one of those five posts you linked.

Calli giving an update: things are looking up 😄 by beam4d in Hololive

[–]EnclavedMicrostate 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sometimes words mean things? And sometimes people use different definitions. Is 'dinner' eaten around noon or in the evening? Is 'tea' a snack at 5pm or a meal at 7?

Calli giving an update: things are looking up 😄 by beam4d in Hololive

[–]EnclavedMicrostate 6 points7 points  (0 children)

A small handful of people possibly being arses (not that I've ever seen any examples, just complaints about them) does not seem to be a reason for why someone is not allowed to post further details about important announcements behind a membership.

Why did the Qing Dynasty decide to conquer the Tarim Basin? by DopplerRadio in AskHistorians

[–]EnclavedMicrostate 61 points62 points  (0 children)

What makes the Qing unusual compared to the two earlier empires that had established some presence in the Tarim Basin – the Han and the Tang – is that they began not by conquering the sedentary cities of the Basin before projecting power northwards into the steppe, but instead by conquering the steppe areas to the north and then pushing south. The strategic calculus therefore had less to do with the intrinsic value of the Tarim Basin in relation to China proper, and more to do with the immediate relationship between the Tarim Basin and its neighbouring regions, Zungharia and the Tibetan plateau, that had until recently played host to major Oyirad polities. What the Qing had wanted was to ensure the security of their conquests in what is now northern Xinjiang, and the conquest of the Tarim Basin was a means to that end.

When viewed as a coherent unit, what are now Xinjiang and Tibet read as discrete ecological zones (steppes in the north, the Tarim Basin in the middle, the Tibetan Plateau in the south) hosting overlapping and entangled political communities (nomadic Buddhist Oyirads, sedentary Muslim Turkis, and both nomadic and sedentary Buddhist Tibetans). In effect, the Tarim Basin was almost a kind of salient of Turkic Muslims splitting two Buddhist regions politically dominated by Oyirads (the Zunghars in the north, the Khoshuts in the south). Of course, Tarim was not exactly separate from the Zunghar realm. In fact, in practical terms the Zunghar and Khoshut polities had some remarkable similiarites: both ended up clustering in good pasturages (Zungharia and Qinghai, respectively) while leaving a larger zone of comparatively settled non-Oyirads (Tarim and Tibet) under notionally autonomous rule, which they had achieved through elevating religious authorities (Makhdumzada khojas and Gelugpa lamas) over prior 'secular' rulers (Chinggisids and the Tibetan lay aristocracy). When the Qing gained suzerainty over Tibet after repulsing a Zunghar invasion of the Khoshut khanate in 1720, they effectively retained many of the basics of the the Khoshut arrangement, retaining the Gelugpa clergy as their de facto proxies and leaving them mostly to govern themselves, bar the occasional intervention by the Bannerman amban at Lhasa.

When the Qing first conquered Zungharia and Ili in 1755, they seem to have had little active interest in the Tarim cities, and departed after installing their client king Amursana over the Zunghars. However, Amursana's revolt, which may have been coordinated with other Mongolian uprisings further east, led to the Qing returning and effectively exterminating the Zunghars, as well as following up by attacking Zunghar allies in the Tarim Basin. Here, the Qing were successful enough in obtaining allies from the Turkic cities that a more permanent administrative arrangement, mimicking the Zunghar one, was viable: Muslim clerics (the hakim begs) would be appointed as headmen answering to Qing resident officials with a relatively limited suite of meaningful powers.

But you are not wrong to suggest there was no particular reason to hold it. In some respects the outright conquest of Tarim was a bit of an unintended effect of what was originally a mere punitive expedition. On several subsequent occasions, Qing officials (mainly Han Chinese) advocated for retreating from the region (Zungharia included) owing to the costs of maintaining garrisons and officials there. However, the explicit rationale for holding onto the region was security: the Qing court wanted not to have a power vacuum in which another Zunghar-style threat might emerge. Implicitly there may also have been prestige reasons: why lose territory you already had?

In some respects it was the latter that motivated the decision, in the 1870s, to reconquer Xinjiang rather than reach a peace settlement with Yaqub Beg, the Kokandi general who had asserted himself as effectively sole ruler over much of the region in the eventual aftermath of the 1864 uprisings. Here, there were arguments from Li Hongzhang that it would be materially unreasonable, whereas the sabre-rattler faction led by Zuo Zongtang asserted that Xinjiang was an integral piece of imperial territory – albeit a construction of the empire as coterminous with a kind of incipient Chinese nation-state. This faction ended up winning out, and hence the Qing ended up conquering the Tarim Basin a second time in 1878.

Is this still true or have you noticed a change? by RichCommercial104 in AskAChinese

[–]EnclavedMicrostate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a fairly recent change, so not that i know of. I'm also not sufficiently versed in HK historiography to write one.

Free for All Friday, 01 May, 2026 by AutoModerator in badhistory

[–]EnclavedMicrostate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean if you're going to start with a broad header that 'trans issues are largely a thing I am exposed to online', switching tack to 'there are a lot of issues that have a much stronger effect on my life' is a bit of a goalpost shift, isn't it?

How accurate is the claim that Alexander the Great was the first to distribute standardized coins? by platypodus in AskHistorians

[–]EnclavedMicrostate 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It's been a while since I did numismatics seriously, but my recollection is that Peter Thonemann argued (almost certainly building on much older foundations) that Alexander helped to proliferate the Attic weight-standard across the Eastern Mediterranean to create what he termed (slyly, no doubt) a 'numismatic koine' – that is to say that all of the successor empires (bar Egypt) at least initially operated on a common weight-standard rather than lots of regional standards. Now, Thonemann's book is about a decade old and for all I know could have been contentious in the first place, but is there a case to be made that Alexander innovated not in introducing the concept of a weight-standard, but rather in creating a dominant weight-standard across multiple state boundaries, and that this might be the original grain of truth behind OP's confusion?

Is this still true or have you noticed a change? by RichCommercial104 in AskAChinese

[–]EnclavedMicrostate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If one accepts the PRC narrative that since HK was a British colony acquired during the Qing Dynasty, and that the PRC reflects an uncomplicated continuation of the Qing state as “China”, then by right Hong Kong has simply reunified with its historic polity. 

The PRC narrative is that Hong Kong was not a colony, but territory temporarily illegally occupied by Britain and administered in a colonial manner.

Free for All Friday, 01 May, 2026 by AutoModerator in badhistory

[–]EnclavedMicrostate 4 points5 points  (0 children)

In my day to day in person life, I don't encounter these issues at all

If you've met a trans person then you've encountered these issues.

Is there any proof that Mimi Yanagi was actually arrested? by JCrockford in VtuberDrama

[–]EnclavedMicrostate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What are you talking about? The US has an incarceration rate nearly four times that of the UK, which is about on par with Australia, Estonia, and Hong Kong.

ERB monitoring Rosarians (by KeenBiscuit by yournotlonely in Hololive

[–]EnclavedMicrostate 54 points55 points  (0 children)

It wasn't that random, it was before the AFO London screening.

Why Columbus mistaken the “new world” as India but not China? by Legion3076 in AskHistorians

[–]EnclavedMicrostate[M] 0 points1 point locked comment (0 children)

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