WI No Chinese civilization develops?

[aware of emptiness]

Nearly twenty percent of the world's population belongs to this, said to be the world's largest single human ethnicity, the Chinese (Han). But what if civilization had not developed along the Yellow river? If the area of China was still inhabited by the native tribes (Mongols, Hmong, Tai... etc.) that existed there, but none of them had developped any civilization as we know it. They'd be nothing of interest there except the native horse nomads, or hut dwelling jungle men. What if the Chinese language, culture, and history, not to mention food never came to be?

What would the world have been like with no China?

 

[Hapsburg]

The world would be a very sucky one indeed.

 

[Fabilius]

But how?

How will this happen. Civilisations tend to come into existance in fertile river areas, so unless you change the geography you will a civilisation no matter what.

One interesting question I often wonder about, is what if China hadn´t united, and a common chinese identity developed.

That´s more plausible, you will just need to cut out the common writing system China possesses and change military history a little. (Even with that things get pretty unpredictable, because of butterflies).

Anyway, not that your question isn´t good, just how will you do it?

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Hum... Perhaps some inventions would have been delayed... The patterns of immigrations and invations of barbarians would have been different... An Islam more set in Asia?

 

[Fabilius]

Hum... Perhaps some inventions would have been delayed... The patterns of immigrations and invations of barbarians would have been different... An Islam more set in Asia?

If I´d write such a TL I probably would butterfly Islam away. Although it doesn´t depend on chinese ideas, there are just so many things different.

 

[Smaug]

Inconceiveable.... and pretty sucky just sayin

 

[DuQuense]

After the Han won the 7 Kingdoms wars in the 200~300 BC time frame. They built the first great wall. This bankrupted the Country, But did provide a Barrier to the Nomadic invasions. As such a Cultural Idenity was able to develop and then slowly expand south and west.

Have one of the other 6 win, No wall. as such each of the seven would rise in turn, get defeated by the Nomads of the north, Colaspe and let one of the others rise.

The seven Kingdoms remain seperate, some other group rises in the south and a third group in the West and Asia develops more like Europe, with multiple serial empires.

 

[eschaton]

It's actually possible if, for some odd reason, rice, millet, and soybeans weren't around/were not domesticatable.

Without any native bulk crops, *china would need to wait for the arrival of wheat and other such crops from the Middle East before civilization took off.

Lacking Millet in north China is not a big deal historically, as this was just a place-holder crop which allowed local civilization to develop before wheat worked its way over from the silk road around 4,000 BC. There are two possibilities here: Either Northern Asia (North China, Tibet, Korea, Japan) will remain mainly racially Asian, but they'll end up mostly speaking Indo-European languages, or the higher-population farmers will just push them out entirely, and within a few thousand years, Northern Asia will be "white" Given the Tocaharians, who in OTL lived in Western China and had blond/red hair, it seems highly likely they'd end up looking more like Europeans and less like middle-easterners.

Southern Asia will, in contrast, be a wash for civilization Wheat farming and the like will be very marginal in much of this area. Unless rice is picked up as a crop in India or possibly Africa, my guess is that everything from Southern China and Japan on down through Indonesia and as far west as the border between Bangledesh and Burma will just be hunter-gatherers, probably until staple crops like the sweet potato are introduced from the New World. This has further implications, as it's widely thought that people throughout Southeast Asia, prior to the invention of agriculture, looked very close to people from New Guinea (dark brown skin, curly hair, more "African" looking than Asian looking).

So yeah, you could end up with a "white" northern asia and a "black" southern asia, with people who actually look asian being as marginal as say Bushmen are now in Africa (despite the fact that prior to agriculture they apparently lived all the way up to Somalia).

 

[Flocculencio]

Southern Asia will, in contrast, be a wash for civilization Wheat farming and the like will be very marginal in much of this area. Unless rice is picked up as a crop in India or possibly Africa, my guess is that everything from Southern China and Japan on down through Indonesia and as far west as Bengal will just be hunter-gatherers, probably until staple crops like the sweet potato are introduced from the New World.

You can grow wheat in most of the Indian subcontinent.

 

[Smaug]

Iv'e taken a couple Anthropology classes, (I know scary), but the Ainu from Japan are considered to be Caucasoids. So obviously there were, for lack of a better term, white influences in Asia proper.

IMO, there is no way that China wouldn't eventually harbor and advanced Civ.

Someone would have taken the initiative, China was somewhat safe early on from the barbarians, and had a wealth of food and raw materials. The area had no choice but to evolve as a culture.....Raw materials, Bodies, and I appologize for this, but, a Hive-like mentality. The Chinese have a mentality that ensures that all people must set themselves aside for the good of the anscestors and whoever is in power, IE Emperor/ Warlord.

hope this doesn't offend anyone, but its an extremely intriguing culture. No parrallels in the West.

 

[eschaton]

You can grow wheat in most of the Indian subcontinent.

I realize you can grow wheat in the Indo-Gangetic plain. I meant Bengal would likely be the furthest east the "wheat belt" and thus civilization could travel.

What portion of South India couldn't wheat be grown in?

 

[eschaton]

Iv'e taken a couple Anthropology classes, (I know scary), but the Ainu from Japan are considered to be Caucasoids. So obviously there were, for lack of a better term, white influences in Asia proper.

The Ainu are no longer considered to be caucasiods. Physical anthropology showed few similarities (other than both groups are really hairy), and genetics show the Ainu are very much East Asian, albeit with a slightly different gene mix than the Japanese (less Northern Asian genetic components, more from Southeast Asia actually)

 

[Smaug]

The Ainu are no longer considered to be caucasiods. Physical anthropology showed few similarities (other than both groups are really hairy), and genetics show the Ainu are very much East Asian, albeit with a slightly different gene mix than the Japanese (less Northern Asian genetic components, more from Southeast Asia actually)

Well said, the last I'd heard, they showed a genetic similarity to the Sammi(?) Reindeer herders(?). I do know that the Japanese don't think well of them. At any rate, thanks for the info

 

[NapoleonXIV]

Iv'e taken a couple Anthropology classes, (I know scary), but the Ainu from Japan are considered to be Caucasoids. So obviously there were, for lack of a better term, white influences in Asia proper.

IMO, there is no way that China wouldn't eventually harbor and advanced Civ.

Someone would have taken the initiative, China was somewhat safe early on from the barbarians, and had a wealth of food and raw materials. The area had no choice but to evolve as a culture.....Raw materials, Bodies, and I appologize for this, but, a Hive-like mentality. The Chinese have a mentality that ensures that all people must set themselves aside for the good of the anscestors and whoever is in power, IE Emperor/ Warlord.
hope this doesn't offend anyone, but its an extremely intriguing culture. No
parrallels in the West.

I guess it would be intriguing, since you're apparently proposing that it puts a certain mentality into the very DNA of the humans who live in it.

Otherwise, it is a culture, and has origins and a history like any other and that's why the people have the "hive-like mentality". (btw, by this do you mean that they work very hard, but often for little seeming purpose, and that they don't believe in criticising their leaders? if so, there must be lot of Chinese ancestry in a certain large American political party )

And what is being asked here is WI that very culture, and so that mindset, had never arisen in that area?

No Chinese, the world may be at the level of 1600, tops. Gunpowder might have been developed by 1700. Gutenberg's press, if not butterflied away completely, by 1800. Also little impetus for exploration, since the Spice islands would probably by unknown (along with the spices) and there would be no beautiful and highly developed porcelain and other crafts from China and Japan.

OTOH maybe not. Maybe a more European China would develop even more, and reach out to Europe, possibly the Americas, centuries earlier. Then we have ftl travel and colonies on Alpha Centauri.

 

[Smaug]

I guess it would be intriguing, since you're apparently proposing that it puts a certain mentality into the very DNA of the humans who live in it.

Otherwise, it is a culture, and has origins and a history like any other and that's why the people have the "hive-like mentality". (btw, by this do you mean that they work very hard, but often for little seeming purpose, and that they don't believe in criticising their leaders? if so, there must be lot of Chinese ancestry in a certain large American political party )

And what is being asked here is WI that very culture, and so that mindset, had never arisen in that area?

No Chinese, the world may be at the level of 1600, tops. Gunpowder might have been developed by 1700. Gutenberg's press, if not butterflied away completely, by 1800. Also little impetus for exploration, since the Spice islands would probably by unknown (along with the spices) and there would be no beautiful and highly developed porcelain and other crafts from China and Japan.

OTOH maybe not. Maybe a more European China would develop even more, and reach out to Europe, possibly the Americas, centuries earlier. Then we have ftl travel and colonies on Alpha Centauri.

You've made some very valid points, I for one prefer Asia and China in particular to be part of the mix, and in fact can't wish them away. It might, grant you, might, work in the new world, but I can't see making China, or the power that supplants it, just go away......too many bodies, too many ideas

Someone would have started something, but thats just my opinion

 

[Flocculencio]

I realize you can grow wheat in the Indo-Gangetic plain. I meant Bengal would likely be the furthest east the "wheat belt" and thus civilization could travel.

What portion of South India couldn't wheat be grown in?

Whoops- sorry...misread your post there. For some reason I read "hunter-gatherers as far West as Bengal" as "hunter-gatherers as far East as Bengal"

I'm not sure if it can be grown in Kerala, where the Western Ghats slope down to the sea- like Bengal, it's much wetter than the rest of India since it gets most of the rain off the Arabian Sea. Same with Ceylon.

However, can wheat be grown on hilly terrain? If so the highland areas of Kerala and Ceylon probably would be able to support a wheat based society.

 

[Flocculencio]

Also little impetus for exploration, since the Spice islands would probably by unknown (along with the spices)

I agree with much of the rest but what do the Spice Islands have to do with China? The trade routes into the Indonesian Archipelago passed spices on to the West through India.

If some polity cuts Europe off from recieving spices through the Levant there's still going to be an impetus to find a route around Africa.

Also, if no major civilisation arises in China does this mean the the process of Indianisation (in whatever form Indian civilisations take in TTL) is going to continue Northwards? In OTL it halted in Indo-China along the cultural border between Indianised Laos and Cambodia and Sinicised Vietnam.

 

[fortyseven]

I agree with much of the rest but what do the Spice Islands have to do with China? The trade routes into the Indonesian Archipelago passed spices on to the West through India.

If some polity cuts Europe off from recieving spices through the Levant there's still going to be an impetus to find a route around Africa.

Also, if no major civilisation arises in China does this mean the the process of Indianisation (in whatever form Indian civilisations take in TTL) is going to continue Northwards? In OTL it halted in Indo-China along the cultural border between Indianised Laos and Cambodia and Sinicised Vietnam.

and Brazil will be discovered if only by accident

 

[HelloLegend]

Nearly twenty percent of the world's population belongs to this, said to be the world's largest single human ethnicity, the Chinese (Han). But what if civilization had not developed along the Yellow river? If the area of China was still inhabited by the native tribes (Mongols, Hmong, Tai... etc.) that existed there, but none of them had developped any civilization as we know it. They'd be nothing of interest there except the native horse nomads, or hut dwelling jungle men. What if the Chinese language, culture, and history, not to mention food never came to be?

What would the world have been like with no China?

Then at some point Korea or Japan discovers this vaccuum and fills in the void. What written language Japan develops is anyone's guess. Korea would probably still have come up with an alphabet later on down the line.

 

[Flocculencio]

and Brazil will be discovered if only by accident

Hadn't thought about that but yep. It's going to happen if people are rounding Africa.