Only after they realised (after the opium wars) just how hilariously outclassed and behind the curve they were. The only reason China wasn't colonised is that by that period in European colonialism everyone was stretched about as far as they could reasonably administer, and nobody wanted to break their empire to try and civilise the Changs.
>nobody wanted to break their empire to try and civilise the Changs
Hilarious how apologists for colonialism constantly contradict themselves:
Why did you colonize them? >we colonized them to civilize them!
But they're shitholes >no we found them like that!
So you didn't civilize them? >they're all sub-human that can't be civilized!
Then why did you colonize them?
>Civilizing them was done to appease the moralgays.
These people didn't exist. Anti-colonial Westerners were against colonialism altogether, not "civilizing" anyone.
Honestly that was the logic Europeans used when they did colonize, though. Only the few at the top knew the real reasons for it, so the average citizen had to justify in their heads why their governments were committing atrocities.
China/Liberaks have tried to make "colonization" a bad word on the internet. They have no understanding of American- UK relationships, morality, and how to function as a civilized humane people. They are simply jealous and evil and wish to have power through accusation.
The Chinese have been colonizing their western territories and Canada/Australia, and the """liberals""" have been enabling thug hordes to colonize the Western first world. Colonialism is not "when white people do stuff".
china was too peaceful and their hearts too pure, whites are evil and thrust the world into a permanent state of competition where the only option is enslave the masses and develop your country so it doesn't come under threat from whites again
In the Middle Ages it was actually quite the opposite. china was the most advanced civilization on the planet, while the West was a backwater shithole constantly fought over by a hundred interwarring lords
>it simply was poor and irrelevant comapred to the chinks and poos
Nope
2 years ago
Anonymous
>chart
So until the 1500s?
They may not have been poor, but they weren't as relevant because European GDP per capita and populations took a longer time to offset much larger populations in Asia like China which had 1/3 of humanity.
2 years ago
Anonymous
That is only in modern times. Remember, Rome had the same population of China around 100 AD before constant plagues and wars changed that, so around 1000 - 1500 AD the population gap was smaller than you think. Probably only after the devastation of the Napoleonic wars did the population gap become similar to today.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Rome was the exception and half of it was non-European territories.
Meanwhile chinks constantly had frick huge numbers of people, and if 2/3 of those died they recovered as quickly. Mostly due to rice farming.
See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_in_1000
France and the HRE together had 1/4 of China's population.
Or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_in_1500, same story. So a slightly larger GDP per capita wouldn't have made a lot of difference at first.
>To readers brought up to respect "western" science, the most striking feature of Chinese civilization must be its technological precocity. Huge libraries existed from early on. Printing by movable type had already appeared in eleventh-century China, and soon large numbers of books were in existence. Trade and industry, stimulated by the canal-building and population pressures, were equally sophisticated. Chinese cities were much larger than their equivalents in medieval Europe, and Chinese trade routes as extensive. Paper money had earlier expedited the flow of commerce and the growth of markets. By the later decades of the eleventh century there existed an enormous iron industry in north China, producing around 125,000 tons per annum, chiefly for military and governmental use-the army of over a million men was, for example, an enormous market for iron goods. It is worth remarking that this production figure was far larger than the British iron output in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, seven centuries later! The Chinese were also probably the first to invent true gunpowder; and cannons were used by the Ming to overthrow their Mongol rulers in the late fourteenth century.
The difference between the Europeans and Chinese is that while both thought the world was flat, when the Chinese had people suggest the world was round, they set their opinions aside as an interesting sidenote but altogether unimportant to the business of running the state. When the Euros had someone suggest the world was round, they declared him a heretic and put him under house arrest.
The East never discovered the world was round while the West did so, and promptly forgot, abandoning their wisdom because it contradicted with the words of a semitic holy book.
The West was fiercely dogmatic while in China, learning of the two competing schools of thought, an Emperor challenged his court astronomer and European astronomer to a contest of predicting eclipses to judge the strength of each school of thought. And when the European won, he acknowledged it. The difference between the East and West is that the West is dogmatic while the East is practical.
>The East never discovered the world was round while the West did so, and promptly forgot, abandoning their wisdom because it contradicted with the words of a semitic holy book.
Never happened.
What you always have to remember about China, and most East Asian nations, is that their official attitude towards basically everything is determined according to to what will best serve the authority of the government.
So when the Ch'ing authorities were taking desperate pains to deny reality and pretend that the British weren't a formidable opponent and potentially lethal enemy but rather just some typical brigands or pirates, this was mostly not out of blind pride or arrogance, exactly. It was above all to avoid any hint or suggestion that the current dynasty was any weaker or lacking in authority and force than China's previous rulers.
To be clear, I don't think Chinese officials had any sympathy for, or understanding of, the desire on the part of British officials to be treated with dignity and respect: the worldview of the former was simply too myoptic and self-centred to really understand let alone accept anything like that. But it's still true, I think, that in Chinese political thinking the perceived need to humiliate the barbarian was less for the sake of the barbarian being humiliated, but rather for the watchful peasants of China to see that his imperial government was still capable of doing the humiliating.
>in Chinese political thinking the perceived need to humiliate the barbarian was less for the sake of the barbarian being humiliated, but rather for the watchful peasants of China to see that his imperial government was still capable of doing the humiliating.
Would they really need to do that for the peasants? Surely they'd do that more to show other elites, or would-be elites that they were still capable?
Only after they realised (after the opium wars) just how hilariously outclassed and behind the curve they were. The only reason China wasn't colonised is that by that period in European colonialism everyone was stretched about as far as they could reasonably administer, and nobody wanted to break their empire to try and civilise the Changs.
>nobody wanted to break their empire to try and civilise the Changs
Hilarious how apologists for colonialism constantly contradict themselves:
Why did you colonize them?
>we colonized them to civilize them!
But they're shitholes
>no we found them like that!
So you didn't civilize them?
>they're all sub-human that can't be civilized!
Then why did you colonize them?
The post that buck breaks colonialism apologists
>Why did you colonize them?
Because it was in our interests to do so.
Civilizing them was done to appease the moralgays.
>But they're shitholes
>we found them like that!
Yes to both.
>So you didn't civilize them?
We tried and sometimes failed.
>they're all sub-human that can't be civilized!
Some of them are.
>Civilizing them was done to appease the moralgays.
These people didn't exist. Anti-colonial Westerners were against colonialism altogether, not "civilizing" anyone.
Baizuo
Honestly that was the logic Europeans used when they did colonize, though. Only the few at the top knew the real reasons for it, so the average citizen had to justify in their heads why their governments were committing atrocities.
ColonialBlack folk absolutely buckbroken.
>my moronic self-contradictions are correct because....china leftist?
China/Liberaks have tried to make "colonization" a bad word on the internet. They have no understanding of American- UK relationships, morality, and how to function as a civilized humane people. They are simply jealous and evil and wish to have power through accusation.
The Chinese have been colonizing their western territories and Canada/Australia, and the """liberals""" have been enabling thug hordes to colonize the Western first world. Colonialism is not "when white people do stuff".
Thats not colonization.
china was too peaceful and their hearts too pure, whites are evil and thrust the world into a permanent state of competition where the only option is enslave the masses and develop your country so it doesn't come under threat from whites again
They mostly just dismissed them as barbarians until the last possible moment.
they gave no fricks about the West until 1830s
more like petty traders but sure you're right in the roman sense of barbarian= person from outside our greatest civilization
In the Middle Ages it was actually quite the opposite. china was the most advanced civilization on the planet, while the West was a backwater shithole constantly fought over by a hundred interwarring lords
>In the Middle Ages the West was a backwater shithole
Imagine thinking this.
it has nothing to do with QOL or tech in europe, it simply was poor and irrelevant comapred to the chinks and poos
>it simply was poor and irrelevant comapred to the chinks and poos
Nope
>chart
So until the 1500s?
They may not have been poor, but they weren't as relevant because European GDP per capita and populations took a longer time to offset much larger populations in Asia like China which had 1/3 of humanity.
That is only in modern times. Remember, Rome had the same population of China around 100 AD before constant plagues and wars changed that, so around 1000 - 1500 AD the population gap was smaller than you think. Probably only after the devastation of the Napoleonic wars did the population gap become similar to today.
Rome was the exception and half of it was non-European territories.
Meanwhile chinks constantly had frick huge numbers of people, and if 2/3 of those died they recovered as quickly. Mostly due to rice farming.
See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_in_1000
France and the HRE together had 1/4 of China's population.
Or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_in_1500, same story. So a slightly larger GDP per capita wouldn't have made a lot of difference at first.
>To readers brought up to respect "western" science, the most striking feature of Chinese civilization must be its technological precocity. Huge libraries existed from early on. Printing by movable type had already appeared in eleventh-century China, and soon large numbers of books were in existence. Trade and industry, stimulated by the canal-building and population pressures, were equally sophisticated. Chinese cities were much larger than their equivalents in medieval Europe, and Chinese trade routes as extensive. Paper money had earlier expedited the flow of commerce and the growth of markets. By the later decades of the eleventh century there existed an enormous iron industry in north China, producing around 125,000 tons per annum, chiefly for military and governmental use-the army of over a million men was, for example, an enormous market for iron goods. It is worth remarking that this production figure was far larger than the British iron output in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, seven centuries later! The Chinese were also probably the first to invent true gunpowder; and cannons were used by the Ming to overthrow their Mongol rulers in the late fourteenth century.
>think the earth is flat
The difference between the Europeans and Chinese is that while both thought the world was flat, when the Chinese had people suggest the world was round, they set their opinions aside as an interesting sidenote but altogether unimportant to the business of running the state. When the Euros had someone suggest the world was round, they declared him a heretic and put him under house arrest.
The East never discovered the world was round while the West did so, and promptly forgot, abandoning their wisdom because it contradicted with the words of a semitic holy book.
The West was fiercely dogmatic while in China, learning of the two competing schools of thought, an Emperor challenged his court astronomer and European astronomer to a contest of predicting eclipses to judge the strength of each school of thought. And when the European won, he acknowledged it. The difference between the East and West is that the West is dogmatic while the East is practical.
>When the Euros had someone suggest the world was round, they declared him a heretic and put him under house arrest.
"The earth is round" is a common knowledge in the middle ages
>The East never discovered the world was round while the West did so, and promptly forgot, abandoning their wisdom because it contradicted with the words of a semitic holy book.
Never happened.
It was whether Earth was at the center of the universe or the Sun that made the Church freak out.
this never happened, you are literally talking fiction
>while the West was a backwater shithole
Debunked
What you always have to remember about China, and most East Asian nations, is that their official attitude towards basically everything is determined according to to what will best serve the authority of the government.
So when the Ch'ing authorities were taking desperate pains to deny reality and pretend that the British weren't a formidable opponent and potentially lethal enemy but rather just some typical brigands or pirates, this was mostly not out of blind pride or arrogance, exactly. It was above all to avoid any hint or suggestion that the current dynasty was any weaker or lacking in authority and force than China's previous rulers.
To be clear, I don't think Chinese officials had any sympathy for, or understanding of, the desire on the part of British officials to be treated with dignity and respect: the worldview of the former was simply too myoptic and self-centred to really understand let alone accept anything like that. But it's still true, I think, that in Chinese political thinking the perceived need to humiliate the barbarian was less for the sake of the barbarian being humiliated, but rather for the watchful peasants of China to see that his imperial government was still capable of doing the humiliating.
>in Chinese political thinking the perceived need to humiliate the barbarian was less for the sake of the barbarian being humiliated, but rather for the watchful peasants of China to see that his imperial government was still capable of doing the humiliating.
Would they really need to do that for the peasants? Surely they'd do that more to show other elites, or would-be elites that they were still capable?
Chinese civilization historically gave more political power to peasants than Europeans, which is just one of the practicalities of rice farming.