The Differences between China and India

Two of the world's oldest civilizations are China and India. For centuries characterized by stagnant economies and low quality of life, today Southeast Asia, India, and China are experiencing rapidly growing economies and neoliberal economic reforms that are rapidly integrating the nations into the global marketplace. Due to religion, trade, geography, warfare, and other aspects of society, classical China and India played a major role in shaping the societies or social structures of other nations like Malaysia and the Philippine Islands. Classical China and classical India can also be viewed as an influence in modern China and India, with factors like agriculture continuing to play a major role in the burgeoning economies of each nation. This analysis will discuss how factors like geography, social organization, government, and religion in classical India and China helped shaped other nations, as well as modern India and China themselves. This paper will argue that different social structures developed in classical China and classical India deriving from government, geography, agriculture, warfare, trade, religion, and other aspects of society that influence the shape of these nations then and now as well as those of others.

A major factor instrumental in shaping and informing classical civilizations was geography. Civilizations emerged in coastal South India in the first millennium BC. Port cities developed, reflecting increasing trade with other re

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ifices; a shift Sutherland (316) maintains represents "a cultural transformation in the construction of women." Roles of women were rigidly enforced in both cultures, something that would be seen in other countries like Malaysia, Funan, and the Philippine Islands. The impact of Confucius on China and other nations cannot be underestimated. Confucius' truths united Chinese society and represented a form of spiritual existence with respect to treatment of the self and others. Confucius' influence on Chinese philosophy and government also helped influence other nations. Even in modern China the influence of Confucius is readily apparent. When Mao Zedong ruled he was often poetic and relied on metaphors in his speeches, using words like branches, leaves, or trees (Spence 473). Like Confucius, Mao rejected materialism, seeing it as divisive for in China in the lives of the people. He also believed in "spiritual dedication of the self to society" (Spence 473). Confucius, like many Emperors, was a reformer and sought reform for China through moderation, harmony, and respect, values which are still revered in Chinese culture. Buddhism, Confucianism, and Hinduism spread throughout Southeast Asia and helped to civilize an

Category: History - T