Why didn't China do its own Meiji Restoration?
>>18616863Xinhai Revolution
>>18616863A few reasons, one is that Japan's modernization didn't happen until after they saw how badly China (historically THE most powerful civilization in the world to them) was getting absolutely fucked by the Europeans. Europeans didn't really care that much about Japan and saw it as a poor backwater compared to China, which it was. So while they did have to deal with some minor unequal treaties imposed by America and Russia, they had an opportunity to modernize before the imperialists really started to fuck them, which China did not.But the biggest factor was that China had to face the Taiping Rebellion just as Chinese leadership was waking up to the reality of just how backwards they had become in terms of military and industrial capacity. This rebellion was a true national disaster of unimaginable scale that locked up the richest and most productive parts of China in rebel hands for TWO DECADES and killed TENS OF MILLIONS of people. Its interesting that the second opium war happened right in the middle of the rebellion and the Qing saw it as an annoying sideshow compared to the more important task of destroying the Taiping, an estimation I have to agree with.This was a massive diversion of resources and effort that could have been used to modernize the country, something Japan had no equivalent experience to.There were efforts to modernize though, such as the self strengthening movement and the hundred days reform movement. China of 1905 was very different from China of 1830
>>18616863They didIt's called the Great Leap Forward
>>18616863Pure arrogance. Manchu leaders repeatedly snubbed British embassies which offered modern technology (including the steam engine) in exchange for opening ports to trade.
>>18616863They tried HARD. But they were just to clingy to the old Confucian system. By contrast, Japan has always been a nation of borrowers and tinkerers, never inventing but always adapting and improving.
>>18616863>Why didn't Chinathey tried to...- the communists won Legitimate government fled to Taiwan
>>18616863It's called the "Nanjing Decade".
>>18617102How many Chinese mega corps were founded during this Nanjing decade?In the first decade of Deng's reforms Haier was re-established, Lenovo and Huawei were founded.
>>18617089Where's Taiwan's reusable rocket?
>>18616863Because despite claims of "Oriental Despotism" the central government of Qing China was extremely weak. Partly due to geography, partly due to deep rot that had set in long before Europe even began carving them up. Japan could pull off the Meiji Restoration because they had a strong central government and bureaucracy that could force through radical reform and survive the pushback.
>>18617181A big part of it was also they were doing government on the cheap. The number of government officers never increased during the Qing dynasty despite the population increasing more than 4x. Passing the first tier civil service exam that 99% of takers failed didn't even get you a job. It just gave you a degree and privileges, like being exempt from corporal punishment, corvee labor, the right to wear a special costume, and the right to sit for the actual civil service exam that also had a 90+% fail rate. Most people with the first degree rank (who actually needed a job, most were from landed families) became local unofficial judges or expensive tutors. By the end of the Qing you had one government official for every 10,000 people. The imperial police force and criminal law courts (officials from the "ministry of punishments") investigated only the most infamous crimes like sedition, banditry, or murder, and punishments could include execution of the convicted's entire extended family or even the whole village. So local communities were careful to police themselves and disappear any local troublemakers.
>>18616863>Ctrl-F Cixi>0 resultsCrazy empress blew their entire modernization budget on a jade boat while ensuring only weak men held the throne with court eunuch shenanigans
>>18616869>warlord eraIt was mistake.
>>18617218>blew their entire modernization budget on a jade boatYeah, sounds about right for China.
>>18617230Japan blew its budget on hydrogen vehicles which are worthless while China raced ahead in EVs.
>>18617241*Japan focus its budget on hydrogen vehicles on nuclear protection*
>>18617241EV are garbage. This is the future.https://www.gasworld.com/story/toyota-signs-binding-deal-to-join-daimler-volvo-heavy-duty-fuel-cell-jv/2255398.article/https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/world-first-hydrogen-engine-emission-milestone
>>18617255Toyota has joint research with BYD toohttps://en.byd.com/news/toyota-and-byd-announce-rd-company/
Deng reforms
>>18616863They tried, it failedThey tried again under Mao, it worked but a shit ton of people died
>>18617272>it workedIt didn't work tho, Deng did the real work
>>18617261BYD still rotting with no sell
China's national characteristic is one of arrogance, and more glibly, autism. They are the "Middle Kingdom", where everything to the North, South, West, East, is peripheral. Hong Xiequan titled his realm as the "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom".>What I said is that all great powers are much less aware of the outside world than small powers. Simply because there’s so much going on inside them. They only have so many decision-makers. In the end you have executives, one or two, United States has one, in some other countries it’s two or three. They only have one set of ears and eyes and tongue.>Secondly, they’re more autistic for another reason and that is that they have a very strongly, very strongly built image of the proper relationship between China and the outside world. And that proper relationship is one in which China is not in fact an aggressor or invader, but other countries ought to be giving things to China in tribute to China’s centrality. China is the middle country. The characters translate as the country, the central country. The Japanese term, Chuugoku literally means that. It’s the country of the center.Read Edward Luttwak's "China Vs the Logic of Strategy"
>>18616870/Thread
>>18617809>Edward LuttwakLmao
>>18618575Luttwak's work on Byzantium, China, & Rome, always attracts the usual ire from specialists within the respective fields. Generalists are resented with the utmost scorn. Especially for that book in particular.
>>18619082>GeneralistsIs this a euphemism for someone who can't be bothered to seriously learn any subject but can binge watch those "oversimplified explained in 15 minutes" YouTube channels?
>>18619109I don't believe that Luttwak was binge-watching youtube videos, no. His adventures into classical antiquity were coloured by his personal experience as a defense analyst.
>>18619177>His adventuresYou sound like a fag and your shits all fucked
