Researcher and writer on China.
Joined February 2021
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Human sacrifice has a long history in the Sinic region, especially among the Han. It did not stop until the mid-1600s when the foreign Manchu Qing emperors finally ended it.
Hot pot did not originate in China, it is actually a Mongolian food that conquered Chinese cuisine after the Mongolians colonized the Han heartland 800 years ago.
ALT Screenshot from South China Morning Post article about the origins of hot pot in Mongolia.
The word "Zen" (Buddhism) is derived ultimately from the Sanskrit word "Dhyana", the Chinese word "Chan" is also derived from the Indian word.
1949
American babies born: 3.6 million
Chinese babies born: 19.7 million
2025
American babies born: 3.6
Chinese babies born: 7.9
American babies went from 18% the number of Chinese babies to being 46%. China is losing its population advantage.
PRC China has never come close to matching the United States and its allies, and its share of global wealth has been shrinking in recent years. China has never been a superpower. Even economically, its rise is recent and unlikely to endure.
ALT America's enduring advantage over the PRC
PRC China is "living in the future", but only if that future is Mexico. Historically, and currently, most of China has resembled Mexico more than Europe, America, or Australia.
ALT China's GDP per capita is lower than Mexico's
What is "China"? Is it the Sinic civilization that began with the development of Hanzi and died in the 20th century? Is it "New China", the Marxist PRC? Or, perhaps, China is simply a geographic name for the land-mass now occupied by the PRC.
"China" cannot be all 3 of these.
1/2. I often see comparisons like "USA and China", but this is incorrect. It should be "America and China" or "USA and PRC".
Both "America" and "China" are the names of geographical regions, they are not technically the names of nation-states.
The recent fire that burned down Wenchang Pavilian is an example of PRC China's fake historical sites. Although the temple was widely reported to be "1,500 years old", it was actually only constructed in the 1990s, and the pavilion that burned was built in 2008.
Yongqing Temple was completely demolished in 1958 as part of the broader death of ancient Chinese civilization that occurred in the 20th century. The new temple, bearing the same name, was built as a tourist attraction in the 90s using reinforced concrete.
While many people think of Sinic traditional culture as indigenous to Mainland East Asia, the reality is that much of what we think of as "Chinese" was originally rooted in imported ideas from western regions. This is mostly ignored in popular level PRC narratives.
At University of Pittsburgh, discussing why Persia matters in Sinology. My three main points:
• 1. Persia and Greater Iran influenced Chinese civilization, but this isn’t
really recognized so much.
• 2. Chinese sources are a repository of historical data on late-antique
Iran, but Iranologists don’t really use it.
• 3. Iranian religions, especially Christianity, contributed to Chinese
sciences, a point we ought to recognize.
Chinese propaganda constantly claims "over 5,000 years of civilization". This claim is false, and the number was fabricated with the sole intention of being historically equal to Egypt. New China is a society suffering self-esteem problems and grasping for ways to feel superior.
The Confucian heartland of what we now call China was once ruled by an Indo-European dynasty. However, proto-Han racism resulted in a genocide that exterminated those with Caucasian facial features. Genocides were common during the proto-Han conquest of mainland East Asia.
The gap between Britain and the Chinese region has not shrunk since the First Opium War. The Qing Empire's nominal GDP per capita was 27% of Britain's in 1840, and today the PRC's is just 26%. Britain has maintained a huge economic lead over China.
