they've been a unified entity for over 3 thousand years, of course culture has a big part in it.
Besides, I'm not sure US (specifically) democracy is much better than Chinese system.
It's simply a different way of exercising power.
The average Chinese citizen is probably as content as the average American citizen.
If you look at China's history a little bit deeply, you will notice a rhythmic pattern of unification and fragmentation.
I know this because I was told a by friend who is a History PhD, and gave me several resources to read.
China has not been politically unified, or even culturally similar for the past three thousand years.
There is a homogenous "Chinese culture" to westerners, because, honestly, westerners do not know much about China.
For example USA are much less homogeneous than China.
And they actually do not exist outside of the political entity we call the United States of America.
But let's be clear, the fact that Italy - my country - has been fragmented more than it was unified doesn't justify the argument that Italians haven't existed for more than 2 thousand years.
Totally agree with that.
My focus is on the earlier part of your comment. People from the West see China, a single color, India, a single color, Vietnam, a single color- and think all the thoughts of the people (not even on a micro scale), all the philosophies and ways of life, are similar.
That is very very far from the truth.
One of the most popular Chinese movies is “San Guo” or “3 Kingdoms”. This is historical fiction. There was a battle then just as there is still a battle now…in Taiwan.
From 1920 or so, a few groups, but mainly the CCP and the KMT (KuoMingTan) were battling for control of the mainland. The KMT lost, and so they fled to Taiwan. This battle is alive and well today.
In fact, rumor has it that Xi Jingping’s father whom served as the head of Canton wanted to secede in disagreement with Beijing and because there is still a history of Canton standing on its own.
China is fragmented still today.
Yeah but 92% of Chinese are Han.
Saying that a country of 1.5 billion people has inner conflicts is like saying that water is wet.
It doesn't mean anything actually other than they have a lot of history means a lot of conflicts. It happened everywhere.
Also if they can disagree, it means that there is some space for disagreement.
In Catalunya some believe they should be independent from Spain, in Italy some people in Sicily and other northern regions say they should be independent from Italy.
That doesn't make them any less culturally similar to the people around them.
See also:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#By_country
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_in_the_World#Country_r...
> The average Chinese citizen is probably as content as the average American citizen.
Ask the minorities how they're treated in each (or in any country really).
> Freedom in the World is a yearly survey and report by the U.S.-based[2] non-governmental organization Freedom House
I'm not saying their data is wrong, but as always when it comes to data, it'd be great to have resources/data to read/interpret coming from "the other side" as well.
What do Asia-based/China-based organizations say about "democracy" and "freedom" in the US and Europe? Would they agree with the assessment from their US/Europe-based equivalents?
Of course the score depends on the what is measured and the metrics.
But an interesting yet simple 'practical metric' is/could be: from which countries are people emigrating from, and to which are they immigrating to (or wish to immigrate to, if there were fewer restrictions).
Where do people see that they can 'have a future' for themselves and possibly for their children?
not the best of sources.
Anyway the minority issues aren't worse in China than on US in my opinion.
If we think of women rights and children rights, they are worse in US than China, kids get shot in school over the right to own arms, women are stripped of the right to control their bodies over political vengeance from a former, bitter, undemocratic president.
Which seems to be why the US ranks so low in the 'Freedom Index': if you look at the "Safety and Security" metric is is ridiculously bad.
Unified for three thousand years is a ridiculous claim. I find it amazing that this Communist Party propaganda idea (they claim 5000 years actually) of a millennia old continuous "Chinese" state gets repeated by so many people abroad as well. Just spending a few minutes on Wikipedia reading up on East Asian history would would help.
Btw something that few people know even among those who read before commenting and among Chinese themselves: The idea of a Han people didn't exist before Qing Dynasty, not to speak of thousands of years earlier. It's a modern invention by Qing intellectuals, mirroring similar developments in Western countries. There was no concept of nation states prior to our modern times, there were many large states covering similar territories in the past of course, but they weren't necessarily "Chinese". The same way English people aren't Romans and just because Vietnam uses the Latin alphabet, it doesn't make them Latin.