Guns, Germs, and Steel: Chapter 16 Summary & Analysis

China is often considered one of the most politically, culturally, and linguistically monolithic countries in the world. Since 221 B.C., China has been united under one government. Also, the vast majority of Chinese people speak Mandarin, and most of those who do not speak one of a relatively small number of other languages (6 or 7) that are closely related to Mandarin. But how, exactly, did China become “Chinese”—or rather, how did China stay Chinese for so many centuries?

China’s culturally monolithic nature is especially surprising because of the geographic differences in the country. Northern China’s climate is much drier and colder than Southern China’s—if environment is such an important determinant of culture, why is China China, instead of half a dozen different states, each with a different culture and language?

Let’s look at the Chinese language more closely. There are eight “big” languages spoken in China, all closely related to Mandarin. But there are also hundreds of “little languages,” spoken by thousands, or tens of thousands, of people. Many of these languages are structurally linked to languages more commonly spoken in modern-day Thailand, or Cambodia, or Laos, or Myanmar. Further linguistic history indicates that the earliest speakers of Mandarin Chinese lived in Northern and Southern China. Often, a new language “replaces” another in a region because the new language is spoken by powerful warriors or colonists. In this case, the colonists drive out many of their enemies into other regions, spreading the defeated groups’ languages. So really, the question is, what allowed the Mandarin-speaking Chinese peoples to drive many other ethnicities into surrounding Southeast Asia, thereby uniting all of China under one authority?

In ancient times, ethnic Chinese people living in both Northern and Southern China were hunter-gatherers. But the ethnic Chinese were some of the earliest peoples to experiment with agriculture and domesticated animals. Rice and millet grew easily throughout China, thanks to the temperate climate, and there were many large mammals to be domesticated. In the manner Diamond has discussed earlier on, China’s access to large mammals and agriculture led to the discovery of metallurgy and other sophisticated technologies, as well as rigorous social hierarchies. Unusually, though, China may have been the site of independent agricultural centers in both the north and the south.

How did the different parts of China interact with one another? Chinese people in both the north and the south had access to agriculture. Thanks to China’s unique network of large rivers, they could also travel north and south fairly easily—far more easily than could peoples in the Americans or Africa. As a result, many technologies diffused throughout China, including rice cultivation, writing, and ironwork. Most of these technologies diffused from north to south (writing, for example), but a few diffused from south to north (smelting). The result was that the ethnic Chinese were culturally and politically unified from north to south.

The formation of a Chinese dynasty began in 221 B.C. in Northern China. Chinese states in the north, with their powerful weaponry and sophisticated agriculture, united with the ethnic Chinese in the south. One reason for the unification of China under one state was cultural: the Chinese peoples in the north and the south shared many of the same technologies, thanks to cultural diffusion in the preceding centuries.

The unified ethnic Chinese drove out non-ethnic Chinese peoples living in China, and eradicated non-ethnic Chinese culture, which they regarded as “barbaric.” For instance, many early Chinese emperors burned books in non-Chinese languages, making the culture of the newly united China increasingly monolithic. In spite of the geographic differences between the different regions of China, one important geographic feature—the presence of easily navigable rivers—allowed the ethnic Chinese in the north and south to unify, use their superior technology and organization expel other cultures, and make Chinese culture unusually monolithic.