China's strategic vulnerabilities

gadgetcool5 said:

Much older? I don't know. The written tradition of Chinese civilization comes back to the Shang oracle bones, the oldest of which is from about 1100 BC. On the other hand the Greek alphabet is identified from about 800 BC.

Therefore, there is not much difference: Western civilization is also quite old.

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Nope Xia is much older.Western historian are blinded by the need for the exisitence of writing to proof dynasty existence But language didn't show up until Shang dynasty So the proof is in the archeological digging and they find plenty of proof in Erlitou site and relic As well as recent finding that collaborate the story of the great flood China did form a multi discipline team to verify the flood story. I did post it somewhere in the history thread
The Xia Dynasty (2070–1600 BC) - China's First Dynasty

Archaeological Evidence? - Xia Era Relics Found

A site (called Erlitou) was discovered in the central Yellow River basin where the Xia Dynasty is said to have ruled. It is between Luoyang and Zhengzhou, in western Henan Province.

Radiocarbon dating places these discoveries between 2000 and 1500 BC. But it is unknown whether the Erlitou people were the people who were called the Xia.
Bronze tools and artifacts were dug out. But no written records have been found except for some markings on pottery and shells.

Erlitou Artifacts

Many stone tools, pottery, jade ware, bronze ware, horn implements, and mussels were unearthed. A Chinese dragon-shaped object decorated with beautiful turquoise was believed to be the original image of a Chinese dragon.
As more Erlitou culture evidence is unearthed, we will see what evidence there is to prove that the Xia Dynasty existed.

Historical Records of the Xia Dynasty

[IMG alt="Records
of the Grand Historian"] of the Grand Historian.

Some ancient accounts tell about the rise and fall of a small kingdom along the Yellow River in the northern part of the country over a 500-year period. But the accounts were all written later than the Xia Dynasty.

The main ancient accounts are in the Records of the Grand Historian (written between about 109 and 91 BC by Sima Qian), and the Bamboo Annals. The Bamboo Annals was written by official historians of Jin and Wei during the Spring and Autumn period (770–476 BC).

Xia Dynasty Origin Stories in Detail
The Origins of Xia - Descendants of a Great Emperor

Recorded in the Records of the Grand Historian, there were battles between clans before Xia was established. Xia was one of Zhuanxu's descendant clans. Zhuanxu was one of the five great emperors in ancient times.

Yu the Great Established the Xia Dynasty (Reign: 2029–1978 BC)

Yu the Great was appreciated by Shun, the Xia clan's king at that time. Because the Xia tribe grew stronger, they were able to defeat a rival tribe. Shun sent Yu to suppress the Sanmiao tribe and he succeeded, which helped to make the Xia clan a strong one. Shun passed his throne to Yu the Great, and the Xia Dynasty began.

Before the Xia Dynasty, the clans passed their kingship to a reputable person. But Yu the Great passed his kingship to his son, Qi. Then the dynastic system began.

There was another story that Yu the Great planned to pass the throne to Gaotao, but Gaotao died before Yu the Great. And then he planned to pass it to Boyi, but his son Qi gained a higher reputation than Boyi. So Qi killed Boyi and succeeded the throne.

Stories of Yu the Great Taming Yellow River Floods

In the written stories, there was once a great flood that lasted many years, in about 2215 BC. A man named Yu the Great was given the task to control the flooding on the Yellow River by a sagely king named Yao (2358–2258 BC).

As you can see, the dates of these supposed events don't even match. It is said that Yao told Gun, who was Yu's father, to control the flood.

But the dikes that he built against the flooding didn't work. They collapsed, and the area was flooded. So Yao executed Gun and recruited Yu. Instead of relying on dikes, Yu had canals dug to divert the water. Digging the canals meant removing a mountain. The place where the mountain was removed was called Yu's Doorway (禹门口).

The flood works united the people along the Yellow River together. Yu the Great tamed the flood with other clans, gaining him a good reputation. Because of greater harvests, the Xia tribe grew stronger. People respected Yu highly for successfully controlling the flood, and he later became the ruler of the Xia clan.

gadgetcool5 said:

Much older? I don't know. The written tradition of Chinese civilization comes back to the Shang oracle bones, the oldest of which is from about 1100 BC. On the other hand the Greek alphabet is identified from about 800 BC.

Therefore, there is not much difference: Western civilization is also quite old.

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Yeah it is about the same age. Even if you start claiming from the Xia as ancestors, the Egyptian civilization had a marked influence on Western European civilization and is as old as the Xia if not even older. They are contemporary with Minoans. If you consider the Mediterranean basin as the foundation of European civilization you can't forget either of those two cultures. The Egyptians invented glassmaking and Europe brought that to China centuries later. A lot of European mathematics also came from Egypt via Greece. The Egyptians knew several answers to what later became known as Pythagoras' theorem. Euclid's Elements also written in Egypt but part of Hellenic culture. The Greek alphabet influenced the Roman alphabet and itself came from Ancient Phoenician. Another culture contemporary to the Ancient Egyptians and Minoans.

After the Dark Ages, aka Bronze Age Collapse, all of the Mediterranean civilizations except for Egypt collapsed. That's why there is an historical discontinuity. No one knows exactly what caused the collapse but it might have been earthquakes in Anatolia followed by civil war as empires collapsed. This is portrayed in the Ramses III stelle which mentions his war against the Sea Peoples. Which are likely ancient Macedonians and the like. Another of the Ancient civilizations which left little records.

The Bible, another foundational text for Western Civilization besides Euclid's Elements, also comes to us by a written Greek translation of the possibly Aramaic original (written or oral it is unknown) of the Ancient Testament which we name the "Septuagint". It was also written in Ptolemaic Egypt. It is the most ancient complete edition that still exists today. Other versions like the Dead Sea Scrolls only being fragments at best. I think not including Egypt is ignoring a lot of what makes supposed "Western Civilization" what it is.

gelgoog said:

The Bible, another foundational text for Western Civilization besides Euclid's Elements, also comes to us by a written Greek translation of the possibly Aramaic original (written or oral it is unknown) of the Ancient Testament which we name the "Septuagint". It was also written in Ptolemaic Egypt. It is the most ancient complete edition that still exists today. Other versions like the Dead Sea Scrolls only being fragments at best. I think not including Egypt is ignoring a lot of what makes supposed "Western Civilization" what it is.

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But Egypt is not European They are Semite and has nothing to do with the western civilization. It is just hype to show that the western civilization is older than Chinese one which is a big bs!
Western civilization can trace their lineage to Greek civilization period!. anyway those egypt,greek, roman THEY ALL DEAD NOW!

Egypt is definitely not Western civilization. They contributed to it - yeah, so did China. So did India. So did the Islamic world. At various times in history. And vice versa. What is distinctly Western begins with the classical period of Greece, "ancient Greece."

gadgetcool5 said:

Egypt is definitely not Western civilization. They contributed to it - yeah, so did China. So did India. So did the Islamic world. At various times in history. And vice versa. What is distinctly Western begins with the classical period of Greece, "ancient Greece."

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Not really. By doing that you are discarding all the before Bronze Age Collapse civilizations like the Minoans and the Mycenaean Greeks. I am talking about oral history which you find written in later Classical Greek epics like Iliad by Homer (Trojan War) or the works of Sophocles (Theban plays). By Classical Greece times it was more myth than historical fact. Much like the Xia are more myth than historical fact as well.
I can understand you not considering Egypt as not part of Western Civilization. But I do. Not just Ptolemaic Egypt either. There was a triangular trade in the Eastern Mediterranean as part of a tributary system where the palaces of each of the major civilizations conducted barter sea trade with each other. So it was a sort of loose trade confederacy. The Minoans (later Mycenaean Greeks also), Phoenicians (later Carthage also), and Egyptians were involved in the trade network. It got expanded with time.

Under the Roman Empire all those civilizations got unified. It is from Rome and not from Greece most of the modern so called Western Civilization comes. The Imperial System of measures, the Latin alphabet, even the US' Republican system of government. But Rome basically melded together all those traditions. It copied a lot of Greek culture. It was in Roman times that the Chinese and Europe first had trade relations. We call Chinese that way because their ambassadors to Rome self identified themselves as being from 'Qin' which got written down as 'Chin' and then Chinese.

Today we no longer consider North Africa as part of Western Civilization and it is considered as part of the Middle East because they are Muslim and there is a tradition of written Arabic being common. But this was not always the case.

Anyway, China itself today has little chance of suffering a similar fate to the Bronze Age Collapse where an earthquake storm and ensuring strife wipe out most of organized civilization. It would take a global extinction level event for something like that, civilization collapse, to happen. This is one reason why a lot of scientists warn of a possible meteor strike and how we lack the observation resources to watch out for that.

gelgoog said:

Not really. By doing that you are discarding all the before Bronze Age Collapse civilizations like the Minoans and the Mycenaean Greeks. I am talking about oral history which you find written in later Classical Greek epics like Iliad by Homer (Trojan War) or the works of Sophocles (Theban plays). By Classical Greece times it was more myth than historical fact. Much like the Xia are more myth than historical fact as well.
I can understand you not considering Egypt as not part of Western Civilization. But I do. Not just Ptolemaic Egypt either. There was a triangular trade in the Eastern Mediterranean as part of a tributary system where the palaces of each of the major civilizations conducted barter sea trade with each other. So it was a sort of loose trade confederacy. The Minoans (later Mycenaean Greeks also), Phoenicians (later Carthage also), and Egyptians were involved in the trade network. It got expanded with time.

Under the Roman Empire all those civilizations got unified. It is from Rome and not from Greece most of the modern so called Western Civilization comes. The Imperial System of measures, the Latin alphabet, even the US' Republican system of government. But Rome basically melded together all those traditions. It copied a lot of Greek culture. It was in Roman times that the Chinese and Europe first had trade relations. We call Chinese that way because their ambassadors to Rome self identified themselves as being from 'Qin' which got written down as 'Chin' and then Chinese.

Today we no longer consider North Africa as part of Western Civilization and it is considered as part of the Middle East because they are Muslim and there is a tradition of written Arabic being common. But this was not always the case.

Anyway, China itself today has little chance of suffering a similar fate to the Bronze Age Collapse where an earthquake storm and ensuring strife wipe out most of organized civilization. It would take a global extinction level event for something like that, civilization collapse, to happen. This is one reason why a lot of scientists warn of a possible meteor strike and how we lack the observation resources to watch out for that.

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Myth does not count as a part of the civilization. The Trojan War is myth and so is the Xia. Neither count as part of the same civilization. It can be conjectured but not proven. Anything beyond that is boasting and chest beating without proof.

The Minoans and Mycenaean Greeks are not a part of Western civilization because their civilization collapsed during the Bronze Age Collapse. Civilization can only be measured by written language. Archealogical finds without written records cannot be grafted for certain onto particular stories that were written at a later time.

gadgetcool5 said:

Myth does not count as a part of the civilization. The Trojan War is myth and so is the Xia. Neither count as part of the same civilization. It can be conjectured but not proven. Anything beyond that is boasting and chest beating without proof.

The Minoans and Mycenaean Greeks are not a part of Western civilization because their civilization collapsed during the Bronze Age Collapse. Civilization can only be measured by written language. Archealogical finds without written records cannot be grafted for certain onto particular stories that were written at a later time.

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The 'Chinese classics' aren't particularly old either. Certainly not 1000 BC. 'The Art of War' is one of the older books extant today and it is late Zhou at best. Mycenaean Greece had 'Linear B' writing but it was only used to do inventory work. 'Ancient Greece' written work i.e. post collapse is about the same time as late Zhou period. Han period more or less overlaps Roman period. Personally I think the idea the Chinese civilization is more ancient is overblown. If anything the Egyptian and Summerian civilizations are the real antiques. Egyptian is particularly noteworthy.

siegecrossbow said:

Just dug up this article while researching 90s era PLAAF assessment.

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Twenty years flew by and it is amazing how fast China progressed in two decades.

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Gatekeeper said:

Around twenty years ago.

China suffered humiliation with the bombing of Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

Have it's merchant ship hijacked, not by pirates, but a "law abiding" nation.

China was still flying around with J7s J5s.
Vintage Destroyers with no more than 2,000 tonnage.
No aircraft carrier.

My, through the hardwork of its people (arms embargo by the west). Tremendous achievement that brought us to this day. And with more to come in the next twenty years.

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The tone of Bates Gill's article might be uncomfortable to many, but it wasn't far from truth.

The '90 was a decade when the US-China relationship was quite tense; for many Chinese it was filled with constant humiliation and even, desperation. The decade started with arm embargo against China by all the western countries due to the 1989 incident, then came the 1993 YinHe Incident, followed by the '95-'96 Taiwan Strait crisis, culminated at the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999. If you stretch the decade a little bit, you can also count the 2001 Hainan Island Incident.

The US and the West probably cared about China as a large developing country politically and diplomatically, and certainly economically for its market potential, but did not consider it a security threat or competitor. It was treated probably something like today's India, with more ideological hostility and condescension. In short, China was not a great power.

This 1999 Foreign Affairs article by , a renowned British strategic thinker, captured the mood of the time regarding China. Unfortunately, Segal died shortly after this article was published at the tender age of 46. It would be interesting to seek his opinion about this article if he were still alive today.

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MIDDLE KINGDOM, MIDDLE POWER

Does China matter? No, it is not a silly question -- merely one that is not asked often enough. Odd as it may seem, the country that is home to a fifth of humankind is overrated as a market, a power, and a source of ideas. At best, China is a second-rank middle power that has mastered the art of diplomatic theater: it has us willingly suspending our disbelief in its strength. In fact, China is better understood as a theoretical power -- a country that has promised to deliver for much of the last 150 years but has consistently disappointed. After 50 years of Mao's revolution and 20 years of reform, it is time to leave the theater and see China for what it is. Only when we finally understand how little China matters will we be able to craft a sensible policy toward it.

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Yes it is amazing what two decades can do. Just look at a timeline of the Beijing subway.



The initial stages of the subway were conceived to serve the secondary purpose of a bomb shelter in Mao's time and construction stagnated for decades afterwards.