so ... what's your point ? I don't see any that I haven't made,
other than a demonstration of history as you perceive it.
yes, the mongol hoarde did occupy China, so did the Manchurians,
but does occupation = defeat ? ... the physical and cultural
vastness of China, with it multitudes, will swallow up any
invaders, notice how the Qing dynasty got to be seen as an
intrinsic part of China by history (and indeed, Qing maps are still
used as the basis of defining her international boundaries today,
no ? ), did you read what I've written at all ? Yes, military power
is a deterent, but you simplify the point, perhaps to paraphrase
from Chiang Kai-Shek ... "The Japanese are a disease of the skin,
the communists are a disease of the heart (of China) ... the man
recognized that the japanese are a mere footnote in the history of
China, in the greater scheme of things, which was why he was quite
happy to conserve the majority of his forces for the coming fight
with the communists, after the japanese are gone, no ? ... (a bad
political mistake perhaps, but he was always more of a military man
than a politician) but even so, speaking of the communists, look at
China today, barely a century after Mao mounted the dragon throne
...
and of course, colonizing a few natives in loin cloths and spears
is a very different proposition from trying to colonize a vast
country with it's multitudes and an ancient civilization eh ? Even
for India, indonesia, Malaysia, the phillipines, malaya, you
realize that these modern countries were essentially post-colonial
constructs cobbled together by western imperialists from small,
easily subjugated princely states ? ... these countries never had a
national consiousness, a national identity, until recently, quite
quite unlike China.
I shall always remember a line from the movie "Empire of the Sun",
by the "invited chink", Mr Chen to lockwood, "you've been in
shanghai for a hundred years, not a bad inning, but only an
incident, as for the japanese, four years ? .... we have 500
million fighting backup ... and we'll be here after this war an the
next !" ...
I guess we must keep several things in perspective, yes, the
lessons of history must never be forgotten, but then, history and
time spans centuries, indeed, millenium to the chinese ... and we
should all understand that history is a very powerful and convinent
political tool ....
so, now that we're convinced that China cannot be "defeated", the
question really is, what are her intentions, no ? ... who knows,
perhaps in 50 years, if Singapore is still around, we'll be hosting
Chinese aircraft carriers instead of American ones at Changi naval
base, eh ? ... as for whether the rise of the dragon is a good
thing for the rest of the world, especially in asia, we'll have to
see how she welds her power ....
I'm crossing my fingers.
(you know, as much as I can see that our national education
campaign is doing very well on providing some chaps with a certain
view of history, I sometimes wonder how much of it is just skin
deep and subconsious rejurgitation, judging by entries and comments
to japanese chicks and pornstars threads over at Original Babe
Forum, eh ? ... 
)
