I'm going to have to do a point-by-point rebuttal here.
Hardly. My point is Japan is not exactly beating China in the racial diversity competition. And one of the reasons for this is China actually acknowledges it has minorities, which is a hell of a lot more diverse than Japan simply pretending they don't have minorities, and going very far out their way at times to make that the case. Plus any knowledge of Japan's colonial empire and their wartime goals indicates that you sure as hell could not attribute their strength to "diversity". Thus, claiming diversity is why Japan is ahead of China seems... weird.
Except you know... China cloistered itself away from the world while Japan (due to "cheating") was forced to embrace what the world had to offer.
Cheating?!? 200 years. Japan spent 200 years cloistered up in a way that only islands can achieve. During this period China was ruled by Manchus (which really should make us question what "ruling china" even means) and had trade with the West (trade that would eventually lead to the Opium Wars). During that same period, Japan was a feudal society which had actually gone out of its way to turn back the clock, and did a damn good job of it. Japan AND China were BOTH forced into the "modern" world. Claiming that one doing much better then the other because of "diversity" is absurd.
Diversity is not JUST "racial diversity" but also diversity of ideas and cultures...
So does Japan tolerate feminists during that period? Socialists? Christians? Ainu? Anything at all? it tolerates western technology is what it did.
Japan originally starts off with a rigidly western programme (albeit one that manages to skip over any real talk of liberalism or various useful but overly liberal reforms), one that embraces the tradition of colonization just as the rest of the world was being forced to deal with the consequences of colonialism. As the rest of the world turns away from that path, Japan embraces an ultra-nationalist, ultra-racialist amazingly xenophobic, and yes I do say fascist worlview that demands the subjugation of others and the destruction of the foreign in order to safeguard Japanese traditions and ideas. The logical conclusion of this is an outright war against every single major power in the Pacific and ends with their complete destruction as a state. And you are telling me they are advanced because of their diversity. Meanwhile China adopts (although that's a weak word to describe a civil war) a completely foreign ideology during this period. And China isn't diverse? I like diversity as much as the next guy, let me assure you, but
this is not a good example.PLUS as I said there is a reason why China has those minorities... and I am not sure I'd praise it as being diverse given that a few of those groups exist due to extreme xenophobic prejudice towards them... Some exist because China was completely conquered by them and had no choice.
Koreans. Okinawans. Christians. AINU. WHAT ABOUT THE AINU DAMN IT. The entire island of Hokkaido had an entire race living there before the Japanese got there. Japan has nearly wiped them out. Isn't that a point in China's favor vis-a-vis diversity? "We didn't attempt to completely erase all foreign cultures within our borders?" China could probably have engaged in a war of extermination if it really wanted to, but the point was the Manchus legitimized their rule through a unique blend of ethnic-federalism and the traditional Imperial bureacracy that was a hell of a lot more "diverse" than you give them credit.
It would be like saying Early America was a diverse because they had a lot of Native Americans... Which ignores the whole situation completely.
Are you ignoring the situation? It's like saying if you conquer the minorities near you, that counts as diversity, right? No? Because that is what I am hearing here.
No, diversity doesn't work like that. It's a fact, not a mindset or a philosophy. If you have a socialist, fascist, a liberal and a conservative in the same room, that room is by definition diverse. You have a Swede, a Hutu, and a Korean in the same room, and that room is objectively more diverse then a room full of Englishmen. You are thinking of pluralism, or cosmopolitanism, which are attitudes of
embracing and/or encouraging diversity. But America is a diverse nation regardless of whether or not those people hate each other or embrace each others positions. You can argue about whether diversity is good or not, but regardless it just IS. And because of that, by any reasonable definition, Japan is not, nor has it ever been, particularly diverse (although it would be a lie to claim it isn't at all diverse, as ultranationalists would). You might argue it was more open-minded regarding the West than China during a very specific period in their histories, but even that is debatable as being the result of government shape (Japan was literally a feudal society for 1850 for fucks sake, while China operated on an Imperial Bureaucracy that lasted until 1911) and other historical factors. Arguing Japan was western is missing the whole point that Japan ultimately rejected the West and the rest of the world in order to operate on a system of Asian Imperialism until the US came in and bombed democracy into them. Japan didn't embrace diversity. it embraced western guns and colonialism.
TL;DR: Japan is not the most diverse country ethnically, and is a hell of a stretch to claim that it embraced diversity as official policy or culturally. And even given one or both of these, arguing that either of them led to Japan's success (in what? China is the world's second biggest economy and world's biggest army. define...) rather then some other, more relevant factor, is the biggest stretch of all. You are highlighting Chinese problems while not acknoledging any of Japan's numerous ones.
Also, I am going to get seriously annoyed if you mention China conquering minorities and calling that a symbol of undiverseness while ignoring that Japan does literally the same thing, and just does a better job of erasing them. You are literally citing the US conquering natives while ignoring [ur=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ainu_peoplel]Japan did almost the exact same thing.[/url] I don't think you are being willfully ignorant, but damn it man. Context is everything.
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