China's "Map of National Shame" From 1938

[Futurist]

Here you go:

[Futurist]

Indeed, does anyone here know Chinese?

[AJFFM]

Wow, for a country that was being bullied in submission by a much smaller neighbour those Chinese officials really had some imagination.

[L1E1]

Inside the map, the Chinese word 國 is written in "traditional form" , but outside the map it is written as "simple form 国".

[Futurist]

Wow, for a country that was being bullied in submission by a much smaller neighbour those Chinese officials really had some imagination.

Well, those Chinese officials probably longed for the "good old days" when various other Asian countries were China's vassal states!

[Futurist]

Inside the map, the Chinese word 國 is written in "traditional form" , but outside the map it is written as "simple form 国".

Out of curiosity--do you know what exactly this Chinese word means?

[L1E1]

國 means Country. 国 is the simple form of 國. Japanese also use 国 as 國.

[The 51st Division]

I'm Chinese myself and seriously who the hell made this map? Afghanistan or Kazakstan were never parts of China anyways and China only had minimal political influence in Southeast Asia. China did loose lots of lands to imperialists but really this map just has too much lol.

[L1E1]

When we study history, we have to keep all of this in mind. We need to know when and how the way people view the world today emerged and to be careful not to apply modern ways of thinking to times and places where such concepts did not exist.

The 51st Division, if you read carefully, Afghanistan / Kazakstan fall inside the red line but are in different colours. We can mistake them as two special administrative regions under the China Emprire (RED Line) if we apply modern ways of thinking.

However, it would be more appropriate to apply the concept while the map was drawn. It was clearly stated in the map that the red line is 州界 surrounding area, not 國界 National boundary. That means, within the red line, it was under the influence of the China Emprire. And the two independent small countries, Afghanistan / Kazakstan, were under the protection of the China Emprire.

[The 51st Division]

Well, according to my knowledge, Afghanistan/Kazakstan were not (and had never been) areas under Chinese influence. Han Chinese control extended to as far west as the Tian Shan mountains and that was it. Anybody outside that is called the 西戎, xirong, barbarians basically. Those Central Asian countries simply have nothing to do with China.

As of the Southeast Asia countries, I'm not 100% sure. There might have been some extensive Chinese influence in Siam or Burma due to trade, but I think they had always been independent nations, not vassal states.

[Sid Guttridge]

One thing is very topical - the map includes most of the South China Sea, where Red China is currently building outposts.

Sid.

[L1E1]

Afghanistan 阿富汗, Kazakstan 哈薩克汗國 (玉茲) were two 藩属国 of Ching Empire.