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Originally Posted by Red_Army During The only original Chinese are the ones living in Beijing, the inhabitants of rest of China, including Taiwan are transformed into Chinese over the years. |
This shows a lack of knowledge about Chinese history. Beijing was the capital of some dynasties, most importantly the Manchu Dynasty. The Manchu Dynasty was thought of as a foreign occupation by most of the southern Cantonese speaking people. To this day, there is somewhat of a counter-culture between the two groups.
Some would say that the people united under the Han Dynasty are the original Chinese and the history of China identifies heavily with the Han. The Han Dynasty controlled a large area in southern China, nowhere near Bejing. During the later Song Dynasty, the rival Ching Dynasty (which was largely the result of barbarian conquest and considered a barbarian occupation by the Song) had its capital at Bejing. It might be noted that the Tang Dynasty was the only ancient Chinese Empire to gain control of much of Tibet, and after the Tang, Chinese control of that region was nonexistent for a very long time.
The Manchu Dynasty managed to control the greatest area geographically of any dynasty, but their control did not destroy the diversity of cultures under them. They were also the last dynasty.
Modern China seems to site the borders of the Manchu as "the real China", but that does not make everyone in that geographical area Chinese in my opinion. (It also would seem to predict that modern day Mongolia is also supposed to be part of China too). Does the fact that Japan was HEAVILY influenced ... even limitedly controlled by ancient China make them Chinese? I should hope not.
This is a pretty good link:
http://www-chaos.umd.edu/history/toc.html
Anyways, that's my 2 cents. I'll have to find some links for my sources later.