"Despite their nomadic backgrounds, without them China as we know it today would never exist."
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This kind of statement is base on nothing but assumption. How do you know that is the case? And how do you prove it?
"Mandarin or Putonghua was developed later in the Qing dynasty, this language is till today the official language of the PRC."
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'Mandarin', for whatever reason the westerners nowadays call this the official language of china as 'Mandarin', indeed, it has not much to do with the Manchu people. "Mandarin" is a local dialect of beijingers, where the majority of Beijing people of Ming period were coming from the south, the surrounding area of Beijing and mingle with the local people.
"The Mongols and Manchus united China
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The Mongols conquer China eventually, is not for the purpose of united China, but for their land and material ambition, for a selfish purpose only, same as for the Manchu people take over China.
'Defined the borders of present day PRC, which is a subset of their
Respective empires'
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Foe the border issue, Mongols or Manchus, take the land is their land, also for their own beneficiaries only. Border is their border, their 'China's border, since China is their China.
In history, every dynasty changes in China, new border of China, size of the land the the new dynasty is able to control or rule, it depends on the military power of the new dynasty, and the ambition of the new dynasty.
For the contemporary history, actually, this kind land, military power, border, and ambition relationship, it apples to evry country and the whole world.
Manchu-Ching once ruled outer Mongolia, and a large area of northern Heilongjiang. When in the turns of last century, Manchu-Ching collapsed, Chinese people were so week at that time. New the china was in civil war, no regime or power was able to fight against the strong Russia, so Russia was manage to make outer Mongolia independent, and took a very big chunk of northern lands of Heilongjiang.
So, new China's new borer, is define by new China's own strength, in relatively to the out side power. But it is not define or set by Mongols dynasty or Manchu dynasty.
Edited by jjack - 08-Dec-2006 at 14:09