Chindia

[aware of emptiness]

How could you get a china and india united to form an empire of roughly the area of modern china plus the modern india? From a POD that does not involve a european power like the british invading and bringing them together.

The modern China and India may have political tensions now, but during most of their early history, the two areas did not have much political contact (because of the himalayas barrier) but extensive cultural contact and trade (silk road, Buddhism etc.) Although China and India may seem very different, they have cultural/philosophical/religious heritage in common like the fact that their cultures may be considered "eastern" dharmic cultures as opposed to the "western" abrahamic cultures. Some people have used this idea to support the idea of unity between eastern asian and indian cultures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-Asianism

 

[Flocculencio]

And Flocc rises in wrath

Umm...Chinese and Indian culture differ far more than you seem to think. They're both massive cultural areas with a habit of assimilating invaders to a greater or lesser extent (China with the Mongols and the Manchus among others, India with the Moguls and the British among others).

Added to that is the fact that India is by no means united except at an abstract cultural level- it's more comparable to Europe than to a united Empire. A Malayalee and a Punjabi are as different culturally as an Italian and a Swede. Add to that the fact that culturally the Chinese have a propensity for stability and practical solutions to problems while Indians tend to be as argumentative as the Greeks. "India" has always been an bastract conecept and only the European idea of nationalism introduced by the British made the modern Republic possible and, arguably, in the early decades of it's existence it was only held together by the clever directing of Indian wrath towards the scapegoat of Pakistan. Confucianism would never work in India while an Indian-ruled China would fall apart.

Plus, for mere physical problems you've got the Himalayas in between them- how would such an empire communicate effectively?

 

[aware of emptiness]

Add to that the fact that culturally the Chinese have a propensity for stability and practical solutions to problems while Indians tend to be as argumentative as the Greeks.

Is Indian culture more individualistic than the collectivistic Chinese?

 

[Flocculencio]

Is Indian culture more individualistic than the collectivistic Chinese?

Not so much individualistic as argumentative. Hendryk and I have discussed this before and I've PMed him to ask him to give his input on this.

Basically Indians tend to be a lot more interested in the philosophical implications of any particular concept they develop, or any concept which is introduced to them. Thus, they also have a huge propensity to factionalise around various interpretations of said concepts. Chinese culture, on the other hand, tends to be very oriented towards putting a philosophical concept into practice. I suppose for a vague Western analogy you could compare the two cultures to the Greeks and the Romans in the way they approached ideas.

The best recent example of this is the introduction of Marxism into the two respective cultural spheres. Marxism in India has resulted in various states (notably Bengal and Kerala) electing communist governments and then ditching them in the next election for the (somewhat more nationalist) Congress party and vice versa at the next round of elections simply because, speaking as an Indian myself, Indians can't resist an opportunity to argue with someone.

Communism in China, on the other hand, was implemented in a thoroughly practical manner. Thus, you had a revolutionary war which killed millions, a period of trying out various styles of communism and a current result of ruthless practicality.

Another example is Christianity. In India, it was introduced almost two thouand years ago, promptly adopted the caste structure, factionalised and frankly never amounted to much. In China in was introduced, semi-Sinicised and implemented as a practical mode of governance and the result was the Taiping War, the bloodiest civil war in human history.

Of course all of the above is a massive generalisation but with an AH idea of this scale I feel it has to be taken into account.

 

[Max Sinister]

Hendryk knows more about China than me, but Christianity was longer around in China IIRC (the Jesuites who approached the people at the court, although not the small people who'd later rise in the Taiping).

About the original idea: Chinese culture started in the North, today's South China wasn't always Chinese, but they assimilated it during time. Maybe SE Asia could follow under the right circumstances... but India too?

 

[Flocculencio]

Hendryk knows more about China than me, but Christianity was longer around in China IIRC (the Jesuites who approached the people at the court, although not the small people who'd later rise in the Taiping).

Orthodox Christianity has been in India since the first century AD FYI.

About the original idea: Chinese culture started in the North, today's South China wasn't always Chinese, but they assimilated it during time. Maybe SE Asia could follow under the right circumstances... but India too?

That's the main problem- it's too big and culturally powerful.

 

[Max Sinister]

I meant that Christianity in China had been longer around than when Taiping happened.

 

[Flocculencio]

I meant that Christianity in China had been longer around than when Taiping happened.

Oh, sorry. True but IIRC the Jesuits didn't do much proselytising- they seemed to hang around mainly in an observational capacity. Wasn't there some request sent by them to Rome to allow dispensation for the Chinese to carry on with their ancestor worship rites after converting which was turned down and hence led them to give up their attempts at serious conversion of the Chinese?

 

[MerryPrankster]

The first Christians of China were the Nestorians, who arrived in the 7th Century.

Unfortunately, most of their converts were among the Turks and Mongols, so most Chinese thought it was a "foreign" religion. Some severe persecution (mainly directed at Buddhism, but they got some too b/c they were a foreign fath) also damaged them.

The Jesuits and Nestorians got into a brawl at one point in the capital, so they did overlap a bit.

 

[Tyr]

hmm interesting there Flocc about India only being held together by Pakistan. Never heard that...I smell a interesting AH scenario (no Pakistan -> a dozen 'Pakistans' )

 

[Tyr]

About the original idea: Chinese culture started in the North, today's South China wasn't always Chinese, but they assimilated it during time. Maybe SE Asia could follow under the right circumstances... but India too?

Any idea what it actually was?
I know some was just a extendion of Vietnamn but...What were those jungle folks from around near that island called (yeah, wonderful describing there, I know....).

Even today the south does have Cantonese I suppose...Its probally the biggest minority in China proper.

 

[Flocculencio]

hmm interesting there Flocc about India only being held together by Pakistan. Never heard that...I smell a interesting AH scenario (no Pakistan -> a dozen 'Pakistans' )

That's generally how I've seen it- especially in the early decades after Independence you should have seen the extent to which Pakistanis were demonised. I've seen Indian films depicting the Indo-Pakistan conflict which are pretty much like the John Wayne WW2 films (i.e. our boys vs them inhuman demons style).

Put it this way- Pakistan is tiny compared to India. Before nukes came into the equation, if the Indian government had really wanted to it could have steamrollered Pakistan. When the Bangladeshis rebelled against the Pakistanis India went in chuckling gleefully and gave the Pakistanis an unholy smackdown on two fronts.

However, Pakistan was useful to India- you've got a country with as many ethnic groups as Westenr Europe and you want to hold it together. What do you do? Provide them all with an outside enemy to direct their energies against instead of letting them squabble amongst each other. Without the Partition or some other external threat (maybe Mao's China) I believe India would have Balkanised within a decade.

If Nehru and his gang hadn't been infected with quasi-Communist idiocy we might have seen a capitalist India with it's energies directed to a Cold War with China. Now that would have been interesting. However, as I've said before, asking any group of Indian politicians to listen to sense is a generally futile goal.

 

[HueyLong]

I've heard that about India from an Indian Muslim. qite a few times.

He thought that India should align against Communist China, should include Pakistan and Bangladesh.

 

[Flocculencio]

I've heard that about India from an Indian Muslim. qite a few times.

He thought that India should align against Communist China, should include Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Well in my opinion, ideally someone would have gunned down Nehru and his bunch. Then introduce some leaders capable of turning India into a capitalist country- in that way it could have become in the 60's what China is nowadays- factory to the world.

Pakistan would have devolved into a series of military dictatorships as per OTL. It's always saddened me that the fascists in Pakistan got support from the US during the Cold War while the idiots running India let the country decay. If the Malayalee and Bengali communists managed to get a bit more power you could see India's politics become something like that of a second/third-world version of Sweden. In case you don't know about them these communists have freely contested elections and have done quite a bit of good for their states.

Thus during the height of the Cold War you'd have a second/third-world social democracy which also happens to be the world's largest democracy allied with the US, the world's richest democracy.

 

[Glen]

How could you get a china and india united to form an empire of roughly the area of modern china plus the modern india? From a POD that does not involve a european power like the british invading and bringing them together.

The modern China and India may have political tensions now, but during most of their early history, the two areas did not have much political contact (because of the himalayas barrier) but extensive cultural contact and trade (silk road, Buddhism etc.) Although China and India may seem very different, they have cultural/philosophical/religious heritage in common like the fact that their cultures may be considered "eastern" dharmic cultures as opposed to the "western" abrahamic cultures. Some people have used this idea to support the idea of unity between eastern asian and indian cultures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-Asianism

In the 1700s, the Chinese had Burma and Nepal as vassal states...without a strong European presence in India, and with a few more lucky breaks for Qing China, you could see the Indian states becoming vassals of Qing China.

The history would get even more interesting from there....

 

[President Ledyard]

Geography won't allow this.

There is some unbelievably rough terrain separating these two cultural areas. There wasn't even a Lhasa railway until like last week.

 

[Glen]

Geography won't allow this.

There is some unbelievably rough terrain separating these two cultural areas. There wasn't even a Lhasa railway until like last week.

If the Chinese can get Burma and Nepal in their sphere, which they did OTL, then they can do the same to India. Those prove they could get around the Himalayas.

Maybe it wouldn't hurt if China started to develop a naval force...

BTW, they would pick up all of Southeast Asia along with India in this scenario...

 

[fortyseven]

Imperial messengers skiiing or handgliding down and cable car/aerial tramway up

 

[Glen]

Imperial messengers skiiing or handgliding down and cable car/aerial tramway up

More likely go along the Annan-Burma Road into India proper...

 

[The Sandman]

Here's one possibility for a POD that might produce this result: the Ming dynasty retains control over Annam, and continues to push southward and westward, occupying much of present-day Southeast Asia. In the process, they come into contact with certain of the more easterly Indian polities, establishing a valuable trade route through Burma and Northern Vietnam, along with a road network to sustain it (financed by said trade).

When the Timurids invade in the 1520s, an event which in OTL led to the establishment of the Mughal empire, the Chinese decide to intervene, both to keep a valuable trading partner in power and to deal with potentially rebellious peasants by using them as cannon fodder. With Chinese help, the Timurids are repelled; most of the Chinese soldiers, however, will remain in India to "repel future barbarian invasions" and because the Chinese government never really wanted them back in the first place.

In the end, the merging of China and India would be a slow process, with the end result akin to the Eastern and Western Roman Empires politically, albeit with somewhat greater unity and a single Emperor, likely ruling from Guangzhou or even Hanoi (which would be far more centrally located to such a vast empire than either Beijing or Delhi).