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Comment by hollerith | Hacker News Reader

>unification is Chinese core value, which is valued more than western freedom of speech, and that this core value has been around for thousands of years.

I don't have an opinion on that. Just want to point out that out of the previous 2500 years, China has been unified for only 500 years, and 300 of those 500 years was spent under the yoke of a foreign invader (the Mongols).

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> I don't have an opinion on that. Just want to point out that out of the previous 2500 years, China has been unified for only 500 years, and 300 of those 500 years was spent under the yoke of a foreign invader (the Mongols).

This is not true, Mongol rule only lasted for about 100 years.

Han dynasty lasted 400 years. Tang about 300 years, Ming and Qing together lasted about 550 years. All of that adds to about 1250 years of unified times. That did not count Qin or Sui or Northern Song, which are unified that just happened to be short lived.

I don't know where you got your numbers.

Why are you counting Qing dynasty into that?

Because you are using "Qing" -- A Chinese pinyin word to refer to that dynasty?

I'm not the original poster. Anyway, the point is that Qing dynasty was also "foreign" because it was reigned by Manchu.

It was foreign, but they sinicized and they claimed to be representatives of Chinese civilization, so in the course of history it was eventually accepted that they were legitimate successors. This is in contrast to imperial Japan, which explicitly did not claim to be a successor of Chinese civilization, which was one of the reasons why they continued to be viewed as foreign.

Also the landmass referred to as “China” has constantly changed throughout history. For example today China _is_ unified, but Taiwan is not a part of it.

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