Ghoti was (comment 13).

I would be a bit leery of considering swords a cultural import, given that pretty much everyone has invented them – if the Japanese swords were made the same way as the Chinese ones, that would be a stronger case.

Politics? Hmmm. Five hundred years takes us back to the late Ming in China, and the Warring States in Japan. In 1644 the Ming gave way to the Qing (not quite as simple as that, in that the Qing needed to extend their influence over the south etc), and in 1603 Ieyasu became Shogun, and after mopping up the last of the Toyotomi clan in the Summer and Winter Campaigns in Osaka (Hideyoshi having apparently conveniently told Ieyasu, when they were allies, the only way to take Osaka Castle was to make a settlement by which the outer moats would be filled in, which is exactly what Ieyasu did) there were no serious challenges to the Tokugawa regime until the mid 19th C. After a brief but far from unbloody rebellion beginning with the Toba-Fushimi battle and and ending with the Hakodate one, Japan undergoes regime change. At the same time, the Qing are reaching the end of their dynastic period, and under external pressure and internal corruption (notably the Dowager Empress Ci Xi) they fall in 1911. Up until here I am not aware of any notable instabilities in China apart from the Taiping Rebellion and the Boxer – these might be enough to claim it was less stable, but I tend to look for regime change to argue that. And after 1911, and especially after Yuan Shikai loses control of the country and the warlords take over, there is no doubt at all that Japan is more stable.

As for “well-governed” under the Tokugawa vs the Qing, I do not know enough about Chinese history to argue one way or the other, even assuming we define exactly what “well-governed” means (no rebellions? Happy farmers? Uncorrupt officialdom?).

It can be anything the Chinese make fuss about being originally theirs- the reason they want to do this is because they want to take credit for what’s widely known as Japanese- which might be indication of its “success”, for whatever that means. Sometimes, might-be-originators of famous cultures don’t want to take credit for them- see how the Hamburgers deny they have anything to do with the American dish. In the case of East Asia, I guess they want to smear it on the Japanese which seems to come from envy that Japan was able to modernize and prosper while others lagged behind for a while- and this envy/hatred is strengthened in multi-fold by the notion that it’s not fair for Japan, the loser in WWII- the immoral nation- to become prosperous.

But frankly, I haven’t seen any Chinese get into this “origin” argument- I rather see the Koreans do it, and so quite intensively.

“If you had all those ideas first, then why has Japan been so much more successful with them?”

Silence usually follows.

Really, it’s this sort of envy-fueled and back-biting behavior that always turns inward on a country, or even on a person. It’s one reason why I think Korea and China still have a serious reckoning in their futures, and that poses a danger to their neighbors.

http://bbs.enjoykorea.jp/tbbs/read.php?board_id=ttalk&nid=905409

This movement cannot be thought because even touching the net is a foul as far as it is in play.

No doubt. I like the gut reaction to insult someone saying they just watch anime when someone based in Japan says anything one doesn’t like. Sadly, it only shows how clueless about anything the person throwing the insult really is.

Really? I don’t know the standards they are using to define a country as a “developing nation”, but (and i don’t intend this to be an insult to these countries) Greece in 1896 and 1904 was hardly a first world nation. Ditto for Mexico (in ‘68) and South Korea (in ‘88).

Sorry, China/Japan/Korea aren’t the only countries in Asia, so before making sweeping generalizations, try getting some education on the rest of Asia other than from anime and Japan conflicts.

Before making a criticism, please try reading what I wrote…starting with the headline, and mentioned again at the end.

This post (and this site) is specifically about Northeast Asia. It is not about all of Asia, nor does it pretend to be. There are a lot of things I don’t follow, Vietnamese soccer and anime among them, and that’s why I don’t write about them.

I don’t mind honest criticism around here, but basic reading comprehension skills are the first condition for being taken seriously.