An Inquiry of East Asia: Historical Patterns of Isolation and Imperialism Although the United States is considered a young country compared to others, it is still steeped in a rich and complex history. It is astonishing when you compare the length of history of the United States (less than 300 years) to an East Asian nation, like China, which has existed for 10 times as long with over 3000 years of equally rich and complex history. For thousands of years the Chinese believed that they were at the center of civilization, a concept known as Sino-centrism, As Liang Qichao stated about the Chinese upon his trip to America in 1903, “we have a village mentality and not a national mentality, ” which further anchors the idea of local views of East
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Geographically, East Asia is naturally isolated from the rest of the world. There is the massive Pacific Ocean to the east, a vast and desolate Gobi Desert to the north, thick and dangerous jungles to the south, and the world’s most massive and immense mountain range, The Himalaya’s, to the west. In the cradle of East Asian civilization, the early Chinese dynasties emerged, such as the Shang. This may explain why for thousands of years the Chinese believed that they were at the center of civilization, as the Chinese were furious when observed Matteo Ricci’s drawing of a world map with China on the edge with the Governor of a province stating ““He puts it (China) not in the center but slightly to the West and inclined to the north…China should be in the center of the world…How can China be treated like a small unimportant country, and placed slightly to the north as in this map? …show more content…
Historian’s state that the Sui were too imperialistic, and that led to its downfall. The Tang dynasty soon followed, who, in contrast to the Sui, did not care about conquering Korea. The second Tang Emperor, Taizong, stated that there needed to be a balance between imperialistic expansion and peace to continue the dynasty by saying “a warlike country, however huge and safe it may be, will end up declining and endangering its populace. Military force cannot be entirely eliminated nor used all the time.
Geographically, East Asia is naturally isolated from the rest of the world. There is the massive Pacific Ocean to the east, a vast and desolate Gobi Desert to the north, thick and dangerous jungles to the south, and the world’s most massive and immense mountain range, The Himalaya’s, to the west. In the cradle of East Asian civilization, the early Chinese dynasties emerged, such as the Shang. This may explain why for thousands of years the Chinese believed that they were at the center of civilization, as the Chinese were furious when observed Matteo Ricci’s drawing of a world map with China on the edge with the Governor of a province stating ““He puts it (China) not in the center but slightly to the West and inclined to the north…China should be in the center of the world…How can China be treated like a small unimportant country, and placed slightly to the north as in this map? …show more content…
Historian’s state that the Sui were too imperialistic, and that led to its downfall. The Tang dynasty soon followed, who, in contrast to the Sui, did not care about conquering Korea. The second Tang Emperor, Taizong, stated that there needed to be a balance between imperialistic expansion and peace to continue the dynasty by saying “a warlike country, however huge and safe it may be, will end up declining and endangering its populace. Military force cannot be entirely eliminated nor used all the time.