Originally posted by Knight-Dragon
Compared with the Egyptians, the Indians and the Mesopotamians, the Chinese got started somewhat later... The earliest verifiable state was that of the Shang (about 16th to 11th century BC).
But when we finally got started... 
You didn't stop going along the way.
Japan is hardly a derivative of China; sure there was a strong Chinese influence on Heian Japan via Korea, but there was nothing in Chinese culture to account for the militaristic tendencies of Japan (think samurai, bushido and hara-kiri here).
Seppuku actually, hara-kiri is, IIRC, a chinesse reading of the kanji, but the actual japanesse reading is seppuku. ;-)
Then again, given that one of the primordial book among those japan militarist was a certain "Art of War" written in China, I don't know just how much the Chinesse can claim to have *not* influenced the militaristic bend in Japan.
And for that matter, the Chinesse were hardly pacifistic...we'Re still talking the nation that conquered Vietnam circa 100 BC and Korea at roughly the same period...;-)
Much of Japan's culture is unique and home-grown, or grown out of foreign imports.
Indeed, though IIRC the primary origin is altaic, much as with Korea (but no, it is *NOT* of primary Korean origin. To say that the two share a common primary origin is exact, but to say that one find its origin in the other is nationalist drivel).
It was the Mongols under Khubilai; the Chinese never once bothered with Japan, except when the Japanese tried to invade Korea three times in history.
Try 1, China wins. Try 2, Hideyoshi dies and the troop get told to withdraw (after beign defeated by the famous Turtle Ships). Try 3, Japan beat the stuffing out of China (1895 war).
You have to admire those Japanesse for their persistance, if nothing else.
And when waku pirates based in Japan threatened the Chinese coastline.
Though the "bothering" at that point was more in the nature of "No more trade for you, Japan!", until you do as we say!
IIRC, early on China actually had Japan as one of its major tributary state. They weren't too happy with the fact that the Japanesse leader wasn't properly meek and insisted on considering himself an emperor and THE Son of Heaven.
Of course, when Japan stopped paying, China didn't exactly bother to go oversea to exact vengeance.
The Brits wanted tea fr China, not India. And they had nothing to sell to the Chinese, except Indian opium.
And even if they had had something, they couldn't exactly make decent trade through the Canton system. China, though it was its right to refuse to trade, wasn't exactly open to any trade-related notion.
The Chinese tried to put an end to the drugs being imported into China and created a class of addicts. The Brits, in the name of free trade, responded with landing an army, along with the French...
Technically, they responded to the destruction of british property by burning and dumping in the harbor.
Of course, said property was opium...;-)
Trying to sell to the customers at gunpoint...
It wasn't so much an European victory, as a breakdown of Manchu control over its territories within its Chinese domains, and also the loss of effectiveness of the once much-vaunted Banners... Most of the local Chinese just let the Europeans passed unmolested thru its areas...
Most Chinesse probably saw it as "These strangers, or the strangers in the imperial palace? Who cares..."
Try doing that today, with a China briddled with nationalism and patriotism...
And say hello to Armageddon.
The Manchus under the Dowager Empress collaborated with the Boxers... Imperial troops worked in hand with the Boxers.
True. Initialy, the boxers had been anti-Manchus, but the DE and her loyal cohorts (who had already ruined an attempt at Japanesse-style modernization in 98) manipulated them into turning their hatred on the evil Westerners.
Not WW1; the Europeans hanged on until the Japanese began kicking them out...
Yes, but they sort of lost much of their hold with the war. They just didn't have the force or political clout to both occupy germany and keep a strong check on China and their colony...
Which opened the door wide for Japan to move in and garner power and influence.
Chiang Kaishek only controlled the KMT in the mid 20s. Yuan Shikai and the warlords were still calling the shots in 1911...
Yuan Shikai specificaly, as he was chief of state circa then. Then he died and came the warlord era, and then came Chiang on the one hand with his white terror, and Mao on the other with his communist guerilla.
Simplified, of course.
