120
votes
Did China ever consider a phonetic writing system?
No, there is no known record of that kind of native linguistic script analysis in pre-modern China, although its quite possible it came up and was rejected, for reasons I'll outline below.
The main ...
- 114k
80
votes
Accepted
How do ancient Chinese "mirrors" such as these in the National Museum function?
They’re displaying the back of the mirrors. Here are a couple of images I found via Google that shows both sides:
Chinese Museums typically exhibit the back of these mirrors, because doing so ...
- 96.6k
76
votes
Accepted
Why aren't there any Chinese colonies?
They did. Depending on the preferred definition of "colonies", Chinese states in fact established innumerable colonies throughout history. Certainly the most common form was overland colonies created ...
- 96.6k
60
votes
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Given their reputation for fighting to the last man in the Pacific, why did 700,000 Japanese troops surrender in Manchuria?
Because the Japanese Government surrendered on 15 August. Naturally, the Japanese military was ordered to lay down their arms. For Manchuria this meant the much-reduced Kwantung Army, which ...
- 96.6k
59
votes
Did China ever consider a phonetic writing system?
Yes, but neither by the Chinese nor only for Chinese.
Kublai Khan ordered the Tibetan Sakya trizin Phagpa to create a universal alphabet to be used by the languages of his empire. It's usually known ...
- 1,955
54
votes
Accepted
Did Chinese emperors wear a rectangular hat with suspended gems?
You're describing the mian (冕), a style of classical Chinese head dress that was indeed worn by successive Emperors of China. The basic design consisted of a hat secured to the head with a red string (...
- 96.6k
53
votes
If the Ch’in dynasty was so short-lived, why was China named for it?
The original question is a bit vague as to who exactly is calling China, well, "China." This also means that it's a bit tricky to pin down what exactly the word "China" refers to (e.g. is it the same ...
- 621
51
votes
Accepted
Why could China keep most of the lands it conquered after 17th century but European powers could not?
The Chinese situation was fundamentally different from the Western European colonial empires. In fact it's rather more like Russia, who also managed to keep her Eurasian empire, or the United States, ...
- 96.6k
49
votes
Why was the US so pro-China and so anti-Japan before WW2?
Japan was a threat to the US's Pacific territories, and those of other European powers. China was not.
Unlike China, and every other Asian nation at the time, Japan had defeated and humiliated a ...
- 54.4k
45
votes
Why did Sun Tzu believe you shouldn't wait beside a river when eager to fight?
Verse 3. After crossing a river, you should get far away from it.
If the river is a barrier, you can be hemmed in against it. If your enemy is the one hemmed in, they also have a defense on at ...
- 3,596
44
votes
Accepted
Why did the Republic of China retract its simplified Chinese characters?
Victor Henry Mair is an American Sinologist and professor of Chinese at the University of Pennsylvania, and this is what he wrote (emphasis mine):
An English language report in The Quarterly ...
- 6,275
43
votes
Why did the Chinese Nationalist party members go to the island of Taiwan and not to any other island?
Taiwan was basically a part of China, and under Nationalist control at the time. (The Philippines were a foreign country.) Also,the Nationalist army, while weaker than the Communists, was far stronger ...
- 104k
41
votes
Accepted
Did people in China resort to cannibalism during the reign of Mao?
Yes we have at least one account of cannibalism.
First source:
A teenage orphan kills and eats her four-year-old brother. Guardian
Second source:
I didn't know that there were thousands of cases of ...
MCW♦
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40
votes
Accepted
Why didn't China assist in the Vietnam War like they did in Korea?
Everyone learnt from the Korean War and wished to avoid a repeat of a bloody direct Chinese-American fighting. At the onset of the escalated American involvement in 1965, Beijing made it clear where ...
- 96.6k
39
votes
Accepted
Were Russians in the cold war era USA discriminated against for their ethnicity?
Because of emigration restrictions from the Soviet Union imposed from at least the 1920's on, there were very few ethnic Russians of recent arrival in the U.S., and the Western world in general, ...
- 70.7k
39
votes
Accepted
When and how did the Han ethnic group become by far the biggest ethnic group in China?
China is a continental scale country, thus "Han" is a category sorta like "European". One visit to Beijing or Shanghai will make it obvious that China is indeed a cosmopolitan, ...
- 7,412
38
votes
Accepted
Why did China annex Tibet?
The other two answers speak in terms of Tibet's legal status; and these answers, while correct, don't properly explain why Tibet is important to China. This answer relates entirely to geography. The ...
- 7,412
36
votes
Why did the Chinese Nationalist party members go to the island of Taiwan and not to any other island?
Tom Au is right; his answer is the correct answer. I want to add two more data points:
Hainan was closer to Mainland China and would be more difficult to defend against amphibious assault, Taiwan had ...
- 7,412
35
votes
Why did the Soviet Union not "grant" Inner Mongolia to Mongolia after World War Two?
Actually some of the answer is found on Wikipedia, but in the pan-Mongolism article:
In 1943, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office predicted that the Soviet Union would promote the idea of a ...
- 4,491
34
votes
Did people in China resort to cannibalism during the reign of Mao?
Jung Chang -author of bestseller Wild Swans (Harper Collins, London 1992) together with her husband, British sinologist, Jon Halliday, in their biography, Mao,The Unknown Story (Cape, London 2005) ...
- 2,102
29
votes
Did China ever consider a phonetic writing system?
TLDR: Phonetic scripts won't work because of how the Chinese languages are structured. So it never really came up before Europeans arrived.
Language Issues:
There are several ways to answer this ...
- 7,412
26
votes
Accepted
Had there been instances of national states banning harmful imports before the mid-19th C Opium Wars?
"Banning harmful imports" was often done.
Prime example being the satanic brew.
Coffee was banned in Mecca, Italy, Contantinople/Ottoman Empire, Prussia.
Similarly: tea was banned in East Frisia, ...
- 80k
25
votes
Accepted
How did the First Emperor of Qin "burn the books" prior to the invention of paper?
The Chinese term for the Qin emperor's "burning books and burying scholars alive" is 焚書坑儒 (character by character: burn/book/bury [alive]/followers of Confucius). The character for book or ...
- 7,158
23
votes
Accepted
Why does Japan celebrate the Gregorian New Year but China still celebrates Chinese New Year?
The short answer is because the Japanese government does not designate the old lunisolar new year as a public holiday.
Officially, China does in fact celebrate New Year's Day (元旦) on the Western (...
- 96.6k
21
votes
Accepted
Why did Hideyoshi invade Korea?
Hideyoshi's reasons were not singular. A number of factors motivated his invasion of Korea. Although speculative hypothesis regarding his mental state is popular, domestic pressure for expansion ...
- 96.6k
20
votes
Accepted
How did the ancient Chinese coordinate armies of tens and hundreds of thousands?
In Ancient China, the primary method of coordinating units were to use flags, drums and gongs. Beating drums was a signal to advance, whereas ringing gongs was an order to retreat. The use of flags ...
- 96.6k
20
votes
If the Ch’in dynasty was so short-lived, why was China named for it?
The Chinese actually refer to themselves as the Han most of the time. Why do westerners refer to China as such then? Well, it is more complicated than you might think. China is either a Persian or ...
- 209
20
votes
Where can I find the original "On the New Rules for Destroying Countries" (1901) by Liang Qichao?
The essay is indeed originally in Chinese, with the title 滅國新法論, which may aid further searches. It is collected in full in 《飲冰室合集》, as well as the 《梁啟超文集》 in abridged form.
The abridged version is ...
- 96.6k
20
votes
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Did drawbacks of egalitarianism or mismanagement cause the rural famine in the Great Leap Forward?
Incompetency and deliberate malice
First of all, we should note that in years immediately after the end of civil war in 1949, China was still largely backward agricultural society. Apparently, only 3% ...
- 11k
20
votes
Why was the US so pro-China and so anti-Japan before WW2?
One angle I think a lot of people miss (particularly non US people) is that, being a former colony that had to fight for independence itself, the USA during that period very much liked to identify ...
- 114k
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