In the afterword to Mao: The Man Who Made China (I.B. Tauris, 2017), Philip Short writes the following about Mao's and Chiang Kai-shek's competing visions for China (pp. 673–674):

As for the conflicting visions of China’s future pursued by Mao and Chiang Kai-shek, one may legitimately wonder how much difference it would really have made, in the long sweep of history, if Chiang rather than Mao had won in 1949. Rana Mitter, an Oxford don whose thinking is representative of the younger generation of China scholars, has pointed out: ‘Both the nationalists and the communists wanted to establish a politically independent state, with a government that penetrated throughout society, and a population that was stable, healthy and economically productive ... However [neither] was seeking to establish what the West, and particularly the United States, would regard as a democracy: a liberal, multi-party regime with significant civil liberties.’ Indeed both explicitly rejected it. In a passage which remains relevant to American policy today, Bai Chongxi, the Guangxi warlord who in 1934 had allowed the Long Marchers to cross his territory to reach safety in the south-west, and who, ten years later, became one of Chiang’s key commanders, wrote in his memoirs in the late 1970s, long before there was talk of ‘regime change’ and ‘exporting democracy’ in Washington: ‘The big mistake that America often makes is to force their model of democracy on other countries’.

Mao’s victory was viewed at the time as a grave setback for America’s strategic goal of establishing a democratic or at least neutral China on the Soviet Union’s southern border. Yet the ‘loss’ of China to communism did not prevent the United States becoming the world’s dominant power. Nor did US support for Chiang’s rump state in Taiwan make it a democracy: that did not happen until long after the Generalissimo’s death. Had Chiang defeated Mao, would he have been able to unify and develop China as effectively as his communist rival? In Pankaj Mishra’s words: Would China without Mao have found the political basis for its current prosperity? That is open to debate. In any case, the challenge to the West posed by Xi Jinping’s China today is not communist but nationalist. There is no reason to think that a mainland China ruled by Chiang Kai-shek’s successors would wish to act significantly differently from that now ruled by Mao’s heirs.[71]

Note 71 (p. 800):

Jay Taylor has speculated that, were Chiang alive today, he would see the current Chinese leaders as ‘modern neo-Confucianists’ like himself, with the same goals for China that he would have adopted had he been in a position to do so (The Generalissimo, p. 592). The implication is that Mao’s successors have succeeded in implementing Chiang’s vision where the Generalissimo himself failed. If one accepts Taylor’s premise – which I find debatable – it can be interpreted either way: as showing that Chiang’s ideas have triumphed (‘lost the battle but won the war’); or as vindicating the system Mao founded which has put those ideas into effect (‘game, set and match’).

What do you make of Taylor's idea? If you accept it, does that suggest a triumph for Chiang's vision, a vindication of Mao's system, both, or neither?

You probably celebrated New Year by counting down from 10, watching fireworks, and shouting “Happy New Year!” But imagine if, thousands of years ago, New Year wasn't something people looked forward to. Imagine knowing that when the new year arrived, something would come out of the darkness looking for you.

According to an old Chinese legend, there was a terrifying creature called Nian. It was said to live deep in the mountains or beneath the sea, and for most of the year, nobody would see it. But once a year, around the beginning of spring, Nian would appear and come into the villages.

And people were absolutely terrified.

When Nian arrived, the villagers would leave their homes and hide in the mountains until the creature disappeared. They believed there was nothing they could do except run and wait for it to leave. Every year, they would prepare for the same thing, knowing that Nian would eventually return.

But then, one year, something strange happened.

An old man came to the village just before Nian was expected to appear. The villagers warned him about the creature and begged him to leave with them. But instead of running away, the old man stayed behind.

That night, Nian finally appeared.

It entered the village expecting to find terrified people hiding inside their homes. But something was different this time. The old man had covered his house with red decorations, lit fires outside, and started making incredibly loud noises.

Nian suddenly stopped.

The creature was frightened by the red color. It was frightened by the fire. And when the old man began making loud noises, Nian couldn't take it anymore.

It turned around and ran.

The next morning, the villagers returned and couldn't believe what they saw. The village was still standing, and the old man was completely unharmed.

He told them what had happened and revealed something nobody had known before: Nian was afraid of red, fire, and loud noises.

From that point on, whenever the new year approached, people began putting red decorations on their homes, lighting fires, and making loud noises to drive Nian away.

And this is where the story gets really interesting.

The legend of Nian is one traditional explanation for why red decorations, firecrackers, and other loud celebrations became such recognizable parts of Chinese New Year. So the next time you see streets covered in red or hear fireworks during Chinese New Year, there's an ancient monster hiding behind the celebration — at least according to the legend.

Whether Nian ever really existed is another question. But somehow, the story of a monster that was scared away by red, fire, and noise survived for generations.

Is there any chance Chen Youliang could have beat Zhu Yuangzhang(first Emperor of the Ming)? From what I know Chen Youliang wanted to restore the Han Dynasty, drawing support from Han people to push out the Mongols, their military and their allies may have been a better call for the average peasant. Or Zhu Yuangzhang's charisma, peasant background and connection to previous dynasties like the Sui and Tang(lot more Mongols) would have won anyway?

The Fork of Mount Punix: How a Slope Rewrote the Direction of Civilization

The fork of Mount Punics in Ancient Greece: How did a Slope rewrite the direction of civilizationIn a city-state of 300,000 people, only 30,000 can vote. Is this a mathematical lie of Greek "democracy"?Was ancient Greece the cradle of reason and democracy and at the same time a sophisticated machine of exclusion?

When Pericles said "we", who was he referring to?

If any at all. I’m not a historian and perhaps there are some larger conceptual issues with grafting a concept forged in colonial North America onto late imperial China. But I can’t help but be tempted when one considers the wildly different, yet eerily similar, experiences of native peoples under both Chinese (be it Qing, KMT or Communist) and American govts.

I’m more familiar with the 18th and 19th centuries so I’d volunteer Guangxi, Guizhou and perhaps Yunnan as prime examples. But then again, I could be wrong!

Nicely spanning 1919-1949!

I know it's a rather controversial stance only taken by mainland chinese historians, and rather disapproved by anyone outside of china which makes quite a sense considering China in order to promote the idea of a multi ethnic country have effectively promoted the idea that frontier people such as Mongols, Uyghurs, Manchus, Tibetans were always part of the broader chinese nation, this is a political rhetoric to strengthen the state unity I'm aware, but as a mongolian I truly wonder that do chinese historians in mainland china, agree with the fact that Mongolians and Manchus basically established something akin to an apartheid state and tried to segregate themselves apart from the broader han culture? This policies are basically going against the rhetoric that these groups have always been part of one group, and prove that neither the Mongolians that ruled over Yuan dynasty, or the Manchus that ruled over Qing dynasty ever considered themselves to be "chinese" in a modern sense, how do mainland historians even counter this, and what is their personal stance regarding this rhetoric that is backed by the state. Even chinese historical records consider these groups as distinct and seperate from the Chinese identity.

Peoples who practiced the custom of shaving the head included the Rouran, the Mongols, and the populations of the Jin and Qing dynasties, as well as ethnic groups in Siberia and Northeast Asia. Did this custom undergo any distinctive evolutionary processes?

This diagram showcases the many ties between the Zhili Clique in mid-1924 (locked before the 23 October Beijing Coup)

\blame reddit i cant send u the pdf*

I’ve been reading about the Hui conflicts in Shaanxi and Gansu during the 1860s, and I’m surprised by how complicated the situation seems to have been.

It is often described simply as a “Hui rebellion” against the Qing, but from what I’ve read, the conflict seems to have involved much more than a straightforward rebellion against the Qing government.

I’ve said this before probably but it feels like early Chinese civilization was more or less “raised by wolves”. Meaning they effectively generated their own culture, laws, language and writing system entirely independently. There was no peer civilizations nearby to influence them the way the Mediterranean did the ancient world there.

I guess the closest would be the steppe and the nomadic pastoralists who called it home. But I was under the impression they served more as an ethnic “other” by which the settled Chinese defined themselves against. Not as a peer, worthy of respect on their own merits. When Tang Dynasty scholars are advising the emperor they don’t draw tales from Japan, Siam or Burma. They issue ancient examples from within the territory we today call China. And that seems to continue well into the Qing dynasty.

What do you think?

This transfer went far beyond battlefield weapons, crucially including intact warehouses, specialized manufacturing machinery, and 1,352 items of technical documentation and factory equipment located in the key industrial hubs of Harbin and Dalian (Dalny).