During thanksgiving the subject of turkey was brought up, which lead to the subject about genocide of American Indians. This reminded me of an Economist article I read earlier, about the extinction of Manchu. And that lead to my thoughts about *voluntary genocide*.
To commit voluntary genocide, all one country/race needs to do is to be (1) audacious enough to invade China, (2) good enough to win the war, and (3) stubborn enough to stay for a sufficiently long period of time. After that, the invading race will be absorbed by the Chinese.
The Japanese were least successful (and most lucky) to reach only stage 1, thus they are still a country. I am not sure exactly what they were thinking before the war, but mathematically, even if they had stationed every Japanese man in China there simply were not enough of them to be in control.
The Mongols were slightly more successful (and less lucky) to reach stage 2; they would have been a Chinese province if the Russians hadn’t intervened.
The Manchus were the most successful (and the least lucky) to reach stage 3. So within just one century after ruling the world’s largest empire, they are now on the brink of extinction.
Probably only the (Asian) Indians have sufficiently large population and strong enough culture to get to China without being completely absorbed. The geography (Himalaya) has prevented any large scale war between these 2 countries throughout the human history. The technology might have finally made this feasible now, though. My calculation is that if China were to engage in any future war with a neighboring country, India would be the most likely one. And I would be curious to see how they will fare.
“Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.” – Benjamin Disraeli
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