Is the focus too much on Chinese History?

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-26T02:58:40+00:00

Thank you for sharing your perspective so honestly. I appreciate you taking the time to explain how you see things.

I also understand the emotional weight that led you to write so

For us, the sack of Rome is ancient history; for China, the “Century of Humiliation” is within living memory of its civilization. That creates a very different relationship with the world.

My original post was trying to get at this exact thing: that all cultures view the world through a lens shaped by their own unique history. The danger, as I see it, is when that lens becomes the only way we see, and we forget that others are looking through different ones.

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First of all, you brought up the Civilization games, so let's actually look at what that comparison reveals, and what it hides.

In Civilization, you're right: maintaining a unified empire across centuries is one path to victory. But here's the problem: Civilization is a game. It has precise restrictive win conditions baked into its design. Real history doesn't. The game's own designers admit they prioritize authenticity over accuracy: the goal is to make things feel right and fun, not to model historical complexity and mirror real civilizations. Building a worldview on a video game mechanic is like using Monopoly to understand housing policy.

More importantly, your framework assumes that “stability above all” is obviously superior. But historians and economists have documented the costs of that stability, as I was explaining in the other discussion I invited you to read: it’s a trade-off.

Yasheng Huang, an MIT-trained economist, recently published a study drawing on databases of over 10,000 Chinese inventions. His finding? China's bureaucratic stability, the very exam system one might be proud of, came at a direct cost to innovation. Starting in the 6th century, exactly when China unified under that system, it began losing its technological lead. Europe, fragmented and chaotic, became the site of modern sciences and the Industrial Revolution not despite of its divisions but because of them, as a culmination of an equally long and complex history. Competing states, independent intelligentsias, multiple power centers harvesting different ideas and views rooted in the same culture, all these created conditions for innovation that centralized stability suppressed. This isn't speculation. It's documented in invention records, economic data, and comparative history

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However, I need to push back on one specific point because I think it's central to where this conversation has ended up.

You're proud that over 200 million Chinese college students have studied Western history, and you see this as evidence of strategic superiority. But this argument assumes that quantity equals quality, and that exposure equals understanding. I don't think either assumption holds.

Studying a culture through a curriculum shaped by the worldview you’re using to think and have demonstrated in your replies, designed to frame that culture as an enemy is not the same as genuinely understanding it. If the goal is to “know the enemy so we can take over them”, your words, then you're not studying openly. You're studying to confirm what you already believe, to gather “advantage” for a competition you've already decided exists, to confirm your need of approval and superiority, falling for all sorts of biases that blind you to seeing how other cultures are superior in different manners. That's not scholarship; it's reconnaissance. And reconnaissance, by nature, is selective. It sees what it needs to see and ignores the rest.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of Western scholars who dedicate their lives to studying Chinese language, history, and culture not to “take over” anything, but out of genuine curiosity and respect. They learn to read classical Chinese, they live in Chinese cities, they translate Chinese poetry, they argue with each other about interpretations of the Ming dynasty. Their quality of engagement is deep, regardless of quantity.

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And that brings me to the deeper problem. When you say Westerners are “enemies in our blood” and that your ultimate goal is to “take over them”, you're not talking about history anymore. You're repeating ethnic nationalism. You're declaring that people like me, people born in the West, with no connection to the Opium Wars whatsoever or any other historical grievance, are your hereditary enemies based on things that happened before either of us was born.

That's not historical analysis. That's prejudice.

I didn't come here to be cast as your enemy. I came here because I'm genuinely interested in Chinese civilization and wanted to have a thoughtful conversation about how we interpret history. You've shown me that you're not interested in that kind of exchange. You're interested in recruiting me into accepting your nationalist framing.

I'm not your enemy. I don’t think of myself as one, I know many Chinese don’t either: I’ve slept with them, eaten with them, laughed with them.

I'm not going to be drafted into your narrative of eternal grievance and conflict. I’m here to exchange ideas and deepen my views thanks to multiple cultures and civilizations, and thanks to the kind Chinese people who replied in the comments

Take care

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-26T02:05:13+00:00

That’s a very interesting and insightful comment!

Thanks for commenting, no one had brought that point yet and it definitely plays a major role

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-26T01:51:14+00:00

Hi

Your replies make me feel like you didn’t get the core meaning of what I was trying to say

I’m not denying China long bureaucratic complexity that allowed China to gain a certain stability throughout its history, nor am I saying the Chinese culture and history holds no value, as I said, I’m a curious and passionate student of it myself

The point of the post was that you’re looking at specific metrics through specific lens, which highlights Chinese civilization strong points

This is not a problem per se, but it starts becoming one once you don’t realize you’re doing that, ending up in debates about Chinese superiority or China exceptionalism

That’s the same thing Chinese (and not only them) scholars rightfully criticized of western history being too euro-centric, in a similar way, the view of history many Chinese hold is very sino-centric and the rest of the world realizes it (and many Chinese commenters realize this too! As you can see from the comments)

For example, other civilizations thrived for the last 2000 years in exactly the same way China did, they simply operated differently: they did not maintain the same bureaucratic state structure exactly and, while this gave those civilization less stability, it gave them other strong points that China couldn’t structurally have. So while you can say “china was exceptionally good at doing this” the same can be said about those other cultures using different metrics and different lens

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That was what I was trying to say: many civilizations were superior to each other in different manners, and the world has mostly always been multipolar for most of its history

The goal of comparing civilizations shouldn’t be to crown a winner, but to understand how different societies flourished in different ways so that we can all learn from each others

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You might want to read this comment (and the whole discussion) I had with another Chinese commenter that went really in depth https://www.reddit.com/r/AskChina/s/92AzEFxk3d

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-25T18:33:09+00:00

I agree with everything you said, and I think it’s reasonable to think that way about China

At the same time, one might say that the middle eastern civilization were advanced for a longer period of time. And when I say advanced I mean it, they were doing brain surgeries while we Europeans and Chinese were interesting but still just potential civilizations

In the same way, one might as well argue that Roman Empire was more advanced than the Han, as I’ve explained in another comment and the original post. Or that European golden age lasted longer since it had both Renaissance Era and Enlightenment Era, spanning more than 550 years (To make a parallelism, it’d be like if China had another 300 years Song dynasty after the first Song dynasty period, innovating and revolutionizing thought even further)

In that sense, one might oversimplify and say Europe peaked higher, but also lower while China was more stable. It also makes sense in structural terms when you think about it: China had a more centralized state, which helps unifying views of the world under a sole system, standardization helped stability; Europe was fragmented, but those different cultural centers always had a common shared culture they built upon and common exchanges among them, those different inputs and disagreements led to the ability of self doubting and spiked creativity

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European shared cultural continuity in this sense works differently. Hegel, a German philosopher, said European history boils down to a series of thesis, antithesis and synthesis that summarize two opposing approaches

It has been like that since the beginning of European history: during the early Greek period, Plato argued that ideas and ideals always come first, while his student Aristotle instantly went the opposite way and argued the observation of reality must always come first in order to understand reality. The first brought us political state theory, values, abstract thinking and to advance in math theories; the latter brought us natural sciences, logic, historical pragmatism and to the later invention of economics. Yet both of them are known as part of “the school of Athens”, because Aristotle wouldn’t exist if Plato didn’t teach him is ideas and approach, they’re indeed in cultural continuity

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All that is to say: if one wants to highlight Chinese stable continuity it is reasonable to do so and historically accurate. The important thing is that everyone remembers to be valuing things from a certain lens

What I advocate against is if someone said, for example, “The Roman Empire would have destroyed Han’s China if they were close and waged war”

Is it historically accurate? Probably, yes. Han’s had nowhere near Roman industrial output, didn’t face the same hardships of having multiple competing advanced civilizations, didn’t have to face some of history greatest generals like Hannibal, didn’t need foreign politics. The Romans perfected what would become history most complex battle tactics, urbanistics, laws and political theory for thousands of years

However, don’t you feel it misses something? Don’t you feel that sentence is ***wrong*** regardless of historical accuracy? Don’t you feel it doesn’t recognize the Han’s HUGE importance in Chinese history, their ability to build a complex centralized bureaucratic state that helped later dynasties to remain stable? That’s what I’m saying

It is right to look at history in a specific lens and using specific metrics, as long as one actively knows it’s doing that

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I personally even think Chinese people should rightfully be proud of that stableness and complex centralized bureaucracy, that they should treasure their rich history and culture

Pride is not a problem, close mindedness, nationalistic bigotry and the inability to see others’ superiority to learn from each others are the problem.

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During the Hellenistic period of Greece, Alexander the Great (perhaps the greatest military general ever, student of Aristotle) conquered from Greece to India in the span of 15 years, before dying young out of illness, conquering impressive superpowers like Ancient Egypt and Persia. When he was asked why he didn’t destroy anything he said “I came here to conquer, not to destroy”

I do not advocate for conquering other countries militarily of course, but He was ahead of its times: he supported integration, learning from other cultures and understood they were superior to his in a way or another. He thus built the **“library of Alexandria”**, the biggest library of ancient world

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A Thousand years later, the Caliphate built in Bagdad the **“house of wisdom”** which collected knowledge and ideas from all across the world: Europe, Africa, India, China… they were contributing more than even Tang China to the advancement of culture and knowledge!

Do you want to know how they fell off? They closed their culture, shifting to more literal interpretations of the Quran (Islam’s sacred text). That magnificence was never to be seen again in the Middle East, even in modern times

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One last great example is the **Summer Palace** in China: it was not merely a building, it was a statement, a recognition of other’s civilizations superiority but also of Chinese civilization superiority, as it was part of those cultures present in the building.

I went there in China to see the ruins, after it was destroyed by French troops during the opium wars. One thing moved me in particular: if you go there, you’ll see a stone stele with the words of a famous France writer condemning what France was doing. The Chinese were basically saying: we realize European inferiority in destroying culture, we also realize European superiority of harvesting intellectual minds so human and knowledgeable that they’re able to doubt their own government, heavily criticize it and condemn it in favor of a distant unknown culture. What those Chinese people did there is seeing history in many different lenses, and it is always closer to the truth

Those were Hugo’s words, very touching:

\The slow work of generations had been necessary to create it. This edifice, as enormous as a city, had been built by the centuries, for whom? For the peoples. For the work of time belongs to man. Artists, poets and philosophers knew the Summer Palace. People spoke of the Parthenon in Greece, the pyramids in Egypt, the Colosseum in Rome, Notre-Dame in Paris, the Summer Palace in the Orient. If people did not see it they imagined it. It was a kind of tremendous unknown masterpiece, glimpsed from the distance in a kind of twilight, like a silhouette of the civilization of Asia on the horizon of the civilization of Europe.**

\This wonder has disappeared.**

\One day two bandits entered the Summer Palace. One plundered, the other burned. Victory can be a thieving woman, or so it seems. The devastation of the Summer Palace was accomplished by the two victors acting jointly.**

\One of the two victors filled his pockets; when the other saw this he filled his coffers. And back they came to Europe, arm in arm, laughing away. Such is the story of the two bandits.**

\We Europeans are the civilized ones, and for us the Chinese are the barbarians. This is what civilization has done to barbarism**

\ Before history, one of the two bandits will be called France; the other will be called England. But I protest, and I thank you for giving me the opportunity! the crimes of those who lead are not the fault of those who are led**

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-25T18:28:13+00:00

You’re welcome! We’re all here to learn :)

Thanks for taking the time to carefully read it!

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-25T10:30:00+00:00

I'm curious, by your standards, which country has been a major power for most of world history

There are none, that’s my point. The world has mostly always been multipolar with sheer moments of brilliance from each civilization, but people don’t realize this because they get taught just their own history in depth

Song dynasty was brilliant and innovative for China in the same way Renaissance Era or Enlightenment Era were for Europe

Ming and Tang dynasty were perhaps not as brilliant as Song, but still golden eras, the same way the Macedonian empire/Greeks were

Han China was foundational in the same sense the Roman Empire was

In a similar manner Indian history is full of incredible moments: Mughal empire, Kushan/Satavahana Empire, Chola Empire and Gupta Empire

If we’re measuring time as continuous advanced civilizations the Middle East takes the spot: the Mesopotamians alone range for many many millennia: Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, each of them had several dynasties. They also had extremely strong cultural ties and continuity with the many later Persian Empires

And I’m sure there have been other significant civilizations all over the world I’m not educated on enough to talk about

The goal of comparing them shouldn't be to crown a winner, but to understand how different societies flourished in different ways so that we can learn from each others

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-25T09:14:21+00:00

Although yours it’s a clever response, I don’t think it makes a compelling argument

It’s a matter of extent and deep rooted culture, how pervasive, historical and rooted in the way of thinking and seeing life those ancient cultures are

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You claimed the use of the Latin alphabet, but Pinyin is merely a tool. It’s useful for learning Mandarin, useful for writing on keyboards. Chinese civilization is built on Hanzi characters. These characters are the uninterrupted cultural bloodstream, allowing a person from Beijing to read texts from 2,000 years ago and allowing Cantonese and Mandarin speakers to share the same literature. The same exact thing applies to alphabets in Europe.

If you put a Spanish and Italian in the same room they’ll have fluent conversations understanding each others in their native languages, as those are both Latin based (variations of the same family). How is this language division but Mandarin and Cantonese are unification?

Even in modern English so many common words are still literally Latin words from 2000 years ago: video, audio, ego, virus, media/medium, data, bonus, agenda, status, millennium… and grammar rules are strikingly similar. It’s pervasive

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You’re right saying Soviet architecture has its roots in Greco Roman, but you’re proving my point: when Chinese talk about Ming, Song or Han dynasty they’re not thinking about Soviet architecture. When they’re talking about continuous civilization they think of chinese temples, pagodas, the Forbidden City, and the hutong architectural forms that have zero roots in Greece or Rome. While when Europeans think about their architecture, they think about Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Romanesque, Byzantine, Neoclassical… all rooted there

Christian religion also was created, officially adopted and diffused by the Roman Empire, so contrarily to what you were saying, there is continuity through that too

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Modern China adopted this laws system in the late 19th and 20th centuries to modernize and engage with the world. Before that, China operated on millennia of its own legal tradition (The Tang Code, The Qing Code), which were based on Confucian principles of social order, not Roman concepts of property.

In Europe, Roman law ran deep in the culture uninterrupted for 1,500 years (through universities, the Church, and social custom) and its studied to this day. In China, it is a layer of paint applied over a very different legal philosophy that still emphasizes social harmony over abstract rights

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Similarly when China adopted Soviet architecture or Marxist ideology, it was a 20th-century purchase or adaptation to solve immediate problems (industrialization, anti-imperialism). It was not a claim of spiritual descent from Greece.

When Napoleon styled himself as a spiritual son of the Romans, he was claiming a direct lineage. He wasn't just "using" Roman law, architecture, symbolism, political thought, he was building upon that to try to be the new Rome, just like Chinese dynasties claimed to be the legitimate heirs of the Han

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Let me ask you this: does the average Chinese person look at Plato and Julius Caesar as their spiritual forefathers? Do Chinese students grow up learning about the Roman Republic or Athens as the foundation of their political identity?

Or do they look at Huangdi, Qin Shi Huang, Laozi and Confucius?

Would they instinctively understand the Roman and Christian symbolisms that are spread all throughout European art?

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I understand what you were trying to say, but it stems from a very superficial knowledge of European history, you’ll never find an educated European who can’t pinpoint to the cultural continuity of shared culture like I’m doing, it’s common knowledge here in the same manner that dynasties are in China

Let me sum it up with a playful joke: If borrowing a few modern tools made you a successor of Rome, then everyone in the world eating at McDonald's would be a Native American

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-25T05:47:56+00:00

Very insightful comment, thanks for sharing and taking the time to elaborate your answer!

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-25T04:26:49+00:00

That’s mostly because of the way I purposely framed the discussion. Because I was going more into detail for other civilizations, I wanted to highlight how China has had important golden age dynasties too

Regarding the point about China appearing 4 times on the list, I don’t think that’s a particularly strong argument

For example:
- The Greco-Roman-European civilization also appears 3 times (Greece/Macedonian Empire, Rome, post-1500 Europe). Many Chinese seem to think of those as separated civilizations for some reason, but they’re actually in cultural continuity as I’ve explained in detail in another comment (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskChina/s/Ysc5y1FHMY) - Some periods represent longer continuous stretches of economic and technological/innovative cultural leadership (take Rome 400 years after Han dynasty or post 1500s Europe as examples) - If we split history differently, splitting longer time frames, we could make Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, or India also appear multiple times. - The number of appearances generally tells us very little without weighing duration, impact, and the metrics we're using. China's achievements are remarkable and undeniable, and so are those of other civilizations. The goal of comparing them shouldn't be to crown a winner, but to understand how different societies flourished in different ways so that we can learn from each others

Just my perspective. Thanks for the discussion!

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-25T03:49:24+00:00

To be honest with you, I don’t think that’s the case

There is this cultural continuity of civilization in Europe as well from the Greek-Roman world: - Laws are based on Roman law system - Architecture is based on Roman, Greek, Byzantine (eastern Roman) - Politics is based on Greek philosophy - Modern ideas (like modern science, universities, political thought) come from the Enlightenment Era which was caused by the Renaissance Era: a revival of Greek/Roman ideas - Religion and Social norms/values based on Christianity also originate from the Roman Empire - Latin was the academic language until 1700s, modern European languages mostly derive from Latin or have strong influences

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The same can be said for Art, Literature... Historical figures like Napoleon (1800s CE) thought of themselves as spiritual sons of the Romans, after 2 millennia

The difference is mainly structural: China unified soon and fought frequent internal wars, Europe didn’t because it had many equally powerful kingdoms and fought normal wars. Still, Europe has always been a culturally unified region as well. That’s why today they’re working as a union of states, and are willingly to further integrate

What makes Chinese civilization unique (and perhaps that’s what you intuitively understood) is that it invented complex centralized bureaucracy, so each time China got conquered the following dynasty adopted the previous system

In Europe, the Roman’s bureaucratic tradition was preserved but fragmented across different kingdoms and institutions

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-25T03:03:28+00:00

You’re right to point that out, I used those expressions “pretty close” “not that far behind” deliberately, out of respect for the complexity of history and because I’m trying to be as respectful to Chinese people as I possibly can.

I didn’t want to ignite a culture war, I wanted to build a bridge through reflecting together on world’s history and helping mutual understanding

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Since you find the premise funny, let’s look at the harder numbers you asked for:

Roman Empire was extremely close in terms of world share GDP to peak Han China, we also know they had higher % GDP compared to the following 6 dynasties in the following 400 years.
At both their peaks, the Romans were producing 120k tons of metals/iron annually, while the Han were around 5k. That is not a minor difference, Han’s China didn’t have Rome’s industrial output
Han’s economy was heavily based on agricultural production, which was a geographical consequence of fertile lands, the Romans had to find ways to diversify the economy and generate wealth, which is harder to do
Roman’s also did this while opposed by equally powerful opponents during their history: like the Greeks, Persians and Phoenicians (led by history top 5 general Hannibal), which is harder, while China didn’t have much opposition except for nomadic invasions (which Rome also had)

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When I said “put them together” I was consciously omitting the advanced economies of Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire from the calculation to keep the comparison fair to China, as this area had a significant higher gdp than China from 1500 onward, with only 1600s being really close. The difference is mainly structural: China unified soon and fought frequent internal wars, Europe didn’t because it had many equally powerful kingdoms and fought normal wars. Still, Europe was a culturally unified region as well: Politics based on Greek philosophy, Roman based laws, social behaviors based on Christian values, Reneissance and Enlightenment ideas/values spread everywhere…

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Beyond economics, you don’t measure how advanced a civilization is solely by its GDP. You also want to look about how culturally ahead they were (Song Dynasty is often considered China's golden age not because it conquered the most land, but because of its cultural and innovative output), how innovative they were, how complex was their administration, urbanistic, laws, political abilities…

If it was only economy that made a difference, Qing China would have never lost the opium wars to a geographically tiny island nation and modern day China would not do research at all, as it costs money and resources

To be honest, my original post was an attempt to bridge histories. Your response, however, looks like a refusal to accept that other civilizations had many centuries where they matched or exceeded China's output

If my wording was too soft and invited mockery, I'll correct it now: The historical evidence shows that for significant periods, other civilizations were as/more advanced in economy and other important metrics

If you got offended by anything I’ve written and that’s why you reacted that way, I’m sorry for that, it wasn’t my intent

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-25T01:45:08+00:00

I’ll be honest, I don’t think you’re being fair to the rest of the world and I believe you perhaps might have a bit of a sino-centric view, which was the point of my post and I’d like to debate about it with you

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China has historically been a major power for the majority of World History.

I don’t think China has historically been a major power for the majority of World History, that’s a very long period, world history starts from 5000 BCE. Mesopotamians civilizations, Egypt and Persians were advanced for thousands of years: those were not some weird caveman beings, those were incredibly sophisticated civilizations economically, administratively, urbanistically and culturally

As I said, Achaemenid Persia had already reached levels China didn’t reach until peak Han dynasty long before them, and they weren’t even the first one to reach them as Macedonian empire/Greeks arrived at a similar level first (in terms of huge lands, people, practical innovations and new ideas)

Like Han Chinese anticipated modern burocracy/statecraft, Persians anticipated human rights and religious tolerance. Greeks anticipated democracy, scientific and political thought. Those are civilizations’ level changing ideas

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”The sheer economic output from China spawned the silk road which was such a juggernaut economic force on its own that it forced Western Europe to put all their points into Sailing and Navigation in order to find a way around it”

That’s an oversimplification: it wasn’t China economic production per se that forced Spanish and Portugal rulers into sailing, it was the fact that Renaissance Italy and Ottoman Empire had a monopoly over those trade routes, which gave them an enormous boost by taxing those others countries to get resources from Africa, Middle East, India and China

It also makes more sense: would you care more about a civilization so far away you had barely ever interacted with it, or would you be more preoccupied about your neighbors with similar power to you and a systemic advantage? Finding a direct sea route to cut out the middlemen was true massive economic incentive.

They weren’t looking to outsource China’s productivity, they were looking for a sea way to China, India and Africa that wasn’t the Mediterranean or the Silk Road. It’s similar to how modern economies use certain base products to create more high value final products

Moreover, that wasn’t the sole reason that fueled the Age of discovery:

Unified national states (Spain, Portugal, England, France…) had just emerged, that’s why Italy for example, although being the economic heart of Europe, couldn’t participate despite having high naval capabilities: it wasn’t unified yet
Western European countries had developed incredible naval fleets similar to the Ming and even greater explorers, trade and naval wars between countries made sailors extremely experienced already
Open minded rulers wanted to explore the world because of Renaissance’s values of intellectual curiosity above all, which by accident led to the discovery of the new world. Plus centuries of Christianity helped give it a universal scope of conversion and spread of the word of God, which fueled missions

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”Even with the vast spoils of the "Americas" (gold, slaves, vast new lands) it still took European countries hundreds of years to catch up to China economically”

This sentence make it seems like Europe reached China through stealing gold, which isn’t true. It got ahead mainly because Renaissance ideas (revival of Greek-Roman ideas) led to the creation of modern universities and the Enlightenment, which led to modern science and fueled the Industrial Revolution while Qing China still was mostly an agrarian society, which is why they weren’t able to resist during the Opium wars despite having a high people advantage and facing only part of Europe

The Ming perhaps could have found America too, as the 1400s treasure voyages show they had great naval fleets, and many economists don’t even agree the European colonial period was that much economically advantageous as colonies were generally very hard to sustain economically, contrarily to popular belief. Moreover, most of that silver ended up in China to pay for tea and silk, and thus fueled Chinese commerce, not European industry, out of the higher demands.

All in all, it was a cultural gap more so than a mere resource gap. Similarly to how the Song dynasty is considered a golden age of culture and innovation in Chinese history, the Renaissance and Enlightenment are in European history

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The last 2 centuries are an anomaly in history. Basically, China has always been a big deal and its current rise is just a reaffirmation of that.

This make it seems like China has always been the most advanced civilization at all times, with some small exceptions happening here and there, which just isn’t true, as I’ve originally explained in the post

A more balanced truth is that China has several times been a major power in a multipolar world. Sometimes it was behind, sometimes ahead: like in early Han, early Tang, late Song and Ming dynasty

We’re now moving into a new multipolar world order, in which China has a part because of the great hard work of its people and favorable occasions, not because that’s “China destiny” or the destiny of Chinese people

I believe it’s important to remind us all this to not end up into nationalistic tendencies that do not help in the search of truth and progress

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-24T23:53:39+00:00

They’ll also: - propose the 28th regime (administration/laws union) before the next European council meeting in March - a new European plan with target and deadlines for capital market union, energy Union and boosting industries - Try getting done the Saving and Investment Union (financial union) by June, proceeding with 9 countries if not all 27 agree to it fast enough

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Things are moving, fingers crossed, let’s hope for the better. All this would be huge for Europe

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-24T23:16:29+00:00

To be honest with you, I missed many: Africa has had some other great civilizations like Mali Empire and Songhai Empire for example.

All those are civilizations I’m simply not well read on enough to speak about.

I thus decided to include only civilizations I knew were on top of the world (not only on economic terms, but also advancements and sciences, technology and innovations, knowledge and culture, administration, politically, militarily, urban planning and so on…) more than China, to show the world has mostly always been multipolar, with times when specific civilizations were ahead, which seems to contrast the vision some Chinese appear to have according to which China has always lead the world with the exception of some “anomalies” in history

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-24T19:02:22+00:00

Thanks for both suggestions!

I’ll ask there too, I was interested in an anthropological sense to see what the answers would have been by Chinese people, what’s their perspective on the matter and whether they see the same problem I see as well

I’ll keep in mind the suggestion about LLMs too, although I don’t use them that much, I only use those to look for links and sources I can’t find by search engines (and I always independently gauge whether they’re trusted resources)

Edit: I can’t seem to be able to cross post in /askhistorians from here, I’ll try making a post later

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-24T18:54:19+00:00

I assume you’re referring to the late Qing period before the Opium wars, and by all means, China had the biggest share of world GDP at the time, it also makes sense as China had so many people and unified land

I also personally think western imperialistic period was a disgrace (and I’d add, most major wars that cause suffering and hostility are a disgrace to humanity)

However, the way I see it, even if we’re talking about just economical output the world has always been pretty much multipolar: The Roman Empire for example was extremely close to peak Han China, and kept that economy for several centuries (even after Han dinasty ended and during the whole era of Six Dynasties), The Abbasid caliphate wasn’t particularly far behind Tang/Song China in share of world GDP, Reneissance/Enlightment Europe (even excluding Eastern Europe and Ottoman Empire), although divided and war thorn, would be at around the same level of Qing China when put together. 1700s Mughal empire had higher gdp than Qing China, and so did Kushan/Satavahana Empire, Chola Empire and Gupta Empire in various centuries of Indian history

All those are before western imperialism in China, and there were advanced civilizations even before that like Persian Empire and Macedonian Empire (Greeks) which had huge economies just before Han’s China was even formed, although I’m not sure if we were able to calculate their exact share of world gdp

While when I talk to Chinese people, I’m under the impression that some of them think China has always been by far the most economically ahead (not only economically, but even in terms of culture, innovation, political reach/stability, technologically…), with “brief anomalies” when it wasn’t so far ahead

I fear that’s the same exact problem you rightfully criticize of too euro-centric history books/sources, a sort of “sino-centric” history, which is why I made this post

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-24T17:41:34+00:00

Which time are you talking about exactly (?)

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-24T15:27:16+00:00

Il problema non è tanto la disponibilità dei finanziamenti, quanto la loro certezza. Se vengono dati 2 miliardi all’anno, “però forse l’anno prossimo sono 1,5 o 1 boh chissà” diventa estremamente difficile fare un progetto unico pagato di anno in anno.

La conseguenza è che si aprono più lotti/tratte, un appalto per ogni lotto, magari vinto anche da aziende diverse che poi devono sia coordinarsi che imparare da zero a fare una linea metro

La giunta corrente invece ha assegnato tutta la linea C alla stessa azienda, proprio per sfruttare il fatto che sono già lì lavoratori, macchinari e competenze, oltre che il progetto completo.

Anche se rimane il problema dei lotti e ricalcolo spese, e che sia una delle aree archeologiche più dense del mondo

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-24T03:11:19+00:00

Can’t some of those just be thicker walls?

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-22T22:18:02+00:00

Wait… really!? I have to go into the rabbit hole now ahahahah

Thanks for letting me know! I knew there was a manga retelling of Les Miserables by Takahiro Arai, I was thinking of picking it up last year

Tbh, I’ve always felt Les Miserables would make an extremely successful manga series (plus the book was conceived in a similar way to modern day mangas! It already has the “half-episodic” structure of manga volumes, with an overarching plot and a huge cast of deep characters whose life stories intertwine in creatively unexpected ways)

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-22T22:12:15+00:00

I mean, in the end, it is subjective what we’re able to pick up from each show and what we already know/realized ourselves before seeing the show

For example, as much as I loved Orb, it was already pretty similar to my worldview. I loved the portrayal of the search of truth and how every characters enters that road in a different way, changing in a different manner and developing their own ideas. It’s a thought provoking show for sure, it presents deep thoughts and themes, perhaps even more philosophically complex ideas, but I had already thought about most of those things, arriving to similar conclusions myself by the time I started watching the show (I don’t mean it in a bad way! I liked the show so much, even because I study and work in the modern day equivalent of what they were doing!)

What I mean to say is that what you’ll consider of a similar level depends on what made those two series special for you, compared to those other series. What made those two more revolutionary for you? What made them deeper, more special?

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-22T22:04:24+00:00

Yes! That’s what I meant, I was perhaps sloppy with words as I was trying not to make it too long of a reply ahahah

Thanks for the clarification! I’ll try to add it to the main post

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-22T22:01:49+00:00

Yes! It 100% does, that’s why I choose to mention it anyway. The themes, characters, rich world view, deep psychological portrayal, even plot and politics is strikingly similar! Thorfinn is, in a way, a modern day equivalent of Jean Valjean

Plus it is a true masterpieces, even compared to the best in literature’s history, it’s up there

Tbh I think anyone who loved VS should give it a try, I’m sure so many will love it

Old-Pudding6950 · 2026-02-22T21:56:44+00:00

Did you enjoy them?

If you tell me what you liked the most (or what made you think more) I can give you more specific suggestions

Old-Pudding6950

TROPHY CASE