I've been pondering the question: what makes chinese civlization unique and why was it the longest suriving ancient civilization in the world ?
According to most chinese history texts, there are 4 great ancient civilization:
1. Egyptian (based on niles river civilization)
2. Mesopotamia (based on Tigris and Euphrates civilization)
3. Indian (based on Indus Valley civilization)
4. China (based on Yellow River civilization)
However, Egyptian, Mesopotamia and Indian have all disappeared.
The egyptians had been conquered by Greeks, Persians, Arabs and its language and culture had all been destroyed by these invaders such that today's egyptian culture is not egyptian but arab. Mesopotamia (Sumerians, Babylons, Assyrians etc) are the same, they were conquered by Persians and later the Arabs and today's "Mesopotamian" had been displaced by Arabs. The Indians (Indus) were also conquered by Aryans from Caucasia who settled in north and the culture owas Indus was lost.
Only chinese civilization is the longest continuous surviving civilization dating from ancient times, despite the fact that China had been conquered by northern nomads as well as other 'foreign' invaders such as Mongols and Manchus.
After attending a course on chinese history, I've learnt a number of factors that make chinese civilization unique, contributing to its continuity:
1. Geographical Factor
China has great territorial land for developing its own culture and civilization. It was considered 'isolated' from the rest of other civilization b'cos in the west, you have gobi desert in the western region, which prevented other civilization to easily invade China. Also you have tibetan plateau and himalaya which formed the best wall of defence from Indian's or Alexander's invasion. In the east, there is the pacific ocean. Under such geographical conditions and being 'isolated', it was able to develop its own civilization
2. Chinese are agriculture and farming-based
Unlike nomads, chinese are farmers who usually settled down permanently in a land and develop its own production for food or artisan. Because of settlement, an advanced social and political system was necessary to help govern. This accelerated chinese civilization. Because of productivity, the population of chinese also increased rapidly making the civilization strong. They also do not, unlike nomads, who roam about hunting for food or be 'disappeared' in other civilization.
Chinese, unlike the nomads, were not warriors-based, but were farmers-based.
3. Chinese learnt cavalry warfare from nomads to fight against nomads
It has been described that while the chinese were civilized with the nomads being barbarians, the chinese were also like sheep as compared to nomads who are the wolves. Chinese army, being recruited from peasants and farmers, used to be infantry based. This has a clear disadvantage when fighting against mounted warriors of the steppe. To counter this, chinese learnt cavalry from the nomads and used it to fight against nomads.
4. Acculturation and Sinification nature of chinese culture
When nomads such as Xianbei, Mongols, Manchus conquered China, instead of them using the nomads way to rule China, they were forced to use the han-chinese way to rule China. This makes them gradually become sinificized (esp. the Xianbei, Manchus). Remember, the chinese were farmers and to rule China, you cannot use 'warrior' and nomadic way to rule China. Otherwise, the regime will have problems. This accounted for why chinese culture and civilization was not destroyed.
Does anyone have other reasons to explain why China is longest surviving civilization? What accounts for its continuity?
(Any comments and contribution are appreciated)
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