Just a reminder to all that the Qing Dynasty, which many view as so very long ago, only ended 100 years ago this month (on 12 Feb 1912). Aside from a brief (12 day) attempt at restoration in 1917, Imperial China changed into a republic one century ago. Despite the hiccups (Mao) look how far we've come in just the blink of an eye.
^lol, the fuck? It started "a million" years ago..but it ended just over 100 years ago like Mr. R said...
the most controversial dynasty to me. many Chinese i ask are all over the place when i ask them if they view Qing positively or negatively. usually when they like Qing its because of the territory gains. the dislike because of century of humiliation and unequal treaties. Qing did not actually do that bad comparatively. look at India. a very small pocket of Han nationalist i ask dont like Qing simply because they were Manchu. to be honest the only real historical threat to Han Chinese. every one thinks it was Mongols. between Qing and Jin, it was the Manchu that were always more successful. both in conquering AND maintaining an empire. Mongols had 1 short time in the sun with Genghis Khan and Yuan. not much before or after.
The problem with the Qing in the long run was that they became Sinocized. The lost their ability to make war and became soft; Han culture eventually subsumed them. Thus, their legitimacy to rule over Han evaporated. The one thing that Chinese and Chinese history likes more than anything else is strong ruthless rule. The humiliation over the unequal treaties was nothing compared to the humiliation of centuries of the Tonsure. Yet Chinese lived with and accepted it, that is, until the strength of the Qing faded. Then everything the Qing did (including acceptance of the "unequal" treaties) was wrong. BTW, unequal treaties includes things like the historic Qing demands on vassal states. But the equality of a treaty really depends upon which end of history one sits don't it? As for the Mongol versus Manchu, I too, think that Mongols were more of a direct military threat to the Han. However, the Manchu were simply more cunning at the beginning, IMHO.
the Qing Emperors spent great effort to preserve their culture and language, but ultimately failed. though it happened both ways. the main noticeable culture assimilation for Han was being forced to use their queue hairstyle. to Manchu credit, they managed to preserve the very core of the Manchu identity and even military at the time, the banner system, which is still kept intact by Manchu today. Han and Manchu were also prohibited to intermarry in that period (bannerman were the exception). they did better than Yuan, where other Mongol Khans outside China didnt even recognize Yuan Emperors as Mongol anymore because they were so sinocized. as for Mongol military threat, most of their time was spent raiding outskirts then running away. in full combat, the Mongols were nothing special in China theatre of war. they couldnt beat Jin without Song and they couldnt beat Song without Han generals commanding their navy. actually Manchu were nothing special either. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_Chonghuan only when a dynasty was weakened, corrupt and killing their own generals were invaders successful.
IMHO, the "threat" whether Mongol, Manchu or whoever, has to be looked at within their cultural height, or their best and most productive period. Thus, in the course of history, that the Mongols were able to extend their conquests as far as Europe, they were certainly a force to be reckoned with. It was only after they later became fractured into competing factions, along with their inability to absorb the Han, rather than be absorbed by Han was what led to their demise. Another example of this type of assimilation from history would be to recall the powerful and well feared Vikings, who pillaged their way throughout the European coast, until they finally settled within conquered lands and became farmers. Thereafter, they dissipated as an effective force of conquest, having been culturally subsumed by their beaten hosts. In view of that, this is something that isn't lost on historians and even to the party in the PRC, the fact that a people's culture must remain powerfully extant as it is the most important weapon that one has. For this reason alone, the PRC has funneled thousands of Han into places like Tibet and Xinjiang, and refused citizenship for babies born of relations between Han men and Korean women. The party, which is undeniably Han, seeks to dilute the culture of other competing interests while strengthening its own. Despite their claim of inclusiveness of 'minorities' and allowing for colorful costumes at festivals, China is, in terms of politics, brutally Han. Hence IMHO, it isn't the tactics or relative prowess of generals or their military, but the continued existence of a people along with their cultural distinctiveness, as the final arbiter of longevity in history. IMHO, this is why China has lasted for as long as it has, even as it had been successfully conquered and balkanized several times over the course of its long existence. If Asian history is say, told through a contemporary Star Trek prism, China would undoubtedly be the Borg.
i agree with your points. Han culture is definitely very potent. some of the best examples i can think of is the Vietnamese and Korean reaction to Qing when they tried to replace Ming. Korean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Manchu_invasion_of_Korea Viet http://211.250.146.104/files/pdf/jn/jn_009_0030.pdf at the time, Manchu Qing was really seen as barbaric and 小中華 did not accept them easily. it was such an affront to their worldview that they even went as far as viewing themselves as the real successors as opposed to the Manchu. the assimilation is very borg like. in fact ancestors of Cantonese no doubt include some sinocized Yue tribes under Zhao Tuo.
Yes indeed, vassal requirements under the Qing was onerous, quite excessive and rebellion was always barely under the surface even as society and social intercourse remained outwardly peaceful. Thank you for a good discussion. Sidebar: You're probably aware of this already, but I'll mention it briefly for the simple benefit of other readers of this thread; namely, that one has to be really careful about taking quotes of Chinese history from Wiki. Many of these documents that can be publicly self edited have all been taken over by Chinese political editors. I suspect that this is a Chinese government method to sell the party's point of view. One of the best clues to this is that the English used, that while correct, linguistically falls into a construct pattern that is clearly by someone who is not writing in English as a first language. As a matter of fact, it is almost borderline Chinglish. An example of this is taken from the Second Manchu Invasion Of Korean (link above). In the Aftermath section, this text appeared: Many of these notations also are poorly sourced. They either have none or link to partisan sources. Additionally, the same may be said about pictures on the web of maps of Qing China; quite a few of these have been edited to support the contemporary claims of a PRC political point of view. Historically, one needs to rely on hard documents, or on electronically scanned copies (such as the books that appear on Google) as those are a lot harder to partisan edit.
