Chinese Roman interaction.

[ursus]

Sergey,
I think you overstae the cultural/ethnic unity of China quite a bit. Chinese citizens include Mongolians, Tibetans, Turks (quite a bit), Mantsjurians, and I bet there's quite a few names that I forget here (I'm not an expert at all!), which you quietly lump on the big Chinese heap.

You understand me, I meant main ethnos - "Han", they were majority in China in time of Roman Empire, still they are majority. They are true authentic ethnos. If we could still have in Europe the Romans who still spoke Latin (of couse I don't mean us on this forum), and still preserve traditional Roman values in their mentality and everyday life - I could agree with you.

Of course Chinese language, dynasties of rulers, name of the state etc. changed through the ages - but still they are Chinese.

What are the "Chinese" other than citizens of modern China? The people of Shanghai don't even speak the same language that the people of Beijing speak (other than what they are taught in school). Comparing Beijing language (which is the basis for Mandarin) and the Shanghai language is like comparing German and French. Of course, everyone in the eastern coast wants to stress that they are in fact true Han, even if they have darker skin (which is apparently a less desirable, non-Han trait there). They may affirm that they all speak a dialect of the same language, but that doesn't make it so. To an outsider, it might not be apparent that the Cantonese language in Hongkong and the Mandarin language in Beijing are not very related, but it's not difficult to see that the "Arabic dialect" and the "Russian dialect" are blatantly NOT dialects of Mandarin (contrary to whatever the Chinese government might wish).

Talking about the modern China, is really like talking about modern Europe. The only difference is that China is currently one sovereign state, but Europe is not. From a cultural and historical point of view though, Europe (at least western Europe) can be seen as a continuation of Rome.