今天的中国比汉朝和唐朝在鼎盛时期更加繁荣和强大吗？ [美国媒体]

Is today’s China more prosperous and powerful than the Han and Tang Dynasty when it was at its peak?

今天的中国比汉朝和唐朝在鼎盛时期更加繁荣和强大吗？




Kang-Lin Cheng, I'm just some guy
Answered Mar 10
That depends on what “prosperous” means.
If you mean by world power and nationalistic sentiments, then Tang wins. The Tang was the dominant power in East and Central Asia, with influence expanding far into the Silk Road (which was the most important trade route in the world at that time). People from all over the world traveled to Tang to learn from its culture, whether they be from Arabia or Japan.
Modern day China is not a superpower, although it is arguably a great regional power. However, its influence is far weaker than Tang’s. Although most people are starting to respect and learn from China more, the vast majority of the world still believed that American and Western European cultures are more interesting. China does NOT control the major trade routes, which are now largely sea routes instead of land routes (this is actually one of the major reasons for the South China Sea and Taiwan disputes; China needs control of these crucial seafaring routes in order for its trade to prosper.). In addition, modern day PRC is up against the United States, which is seen as a welcomed addition in the rest of Asia to counter PRC’s rise. The Tang didn’t have this problem because it successfully defeated all major countries that could potentially pose a threat to it.

这取决于“繁荣”的含义。
如果你指的是世界强权和民族主义情绪，那么唐朝更胜一筹了。唐朝是东亚和中亚的主导力量，影响力一直延伸到丝绸之路(丝绸之路是当时世界上最重要的贸易通道)，来自世界各地的人们来到唐朝学习它的文化，无论他们来自阿拉伯还是日本。

现代中国不是一个超级大国，尽管它可以说是一个地区大国，但是，它的影响远不如唐，尽管大多数人开始尊重和学习中国，但世界上绝大多数人仍然认为美国和西欧的文化更好，中国不控制主要的贸易路线，主要依赖海上路线，而不是陆地路线( 这实际上是南中国海和台湾争端的主要原因之一；中国需要控制这些关键的航海路线，以使其贸易繁荣 )。此外，现代中国正在与美国对抗，美国被视为亚洲其他地区对抗中国崛起的受欢迎的补充，唐朝之所以没有这个问题，是因为它成功地击败了所有可能对其构成威胁的主要国家。

However, from an individual’s perspective, modern day PRC is unquestionably the best time to be a Chinese ever.
Infant mortality rates are at an all time low (remember, not even the Emperor of China, who had access to the best doctors, could be blessed with all of his children growing up to be healthy. This was why emperors needed a lot of concubines and sex in order to ensure a lot of sons. Having one son was too dangerous; he was very likely to die in childhood)
Literacy rates are the highest in Chinese history. What good is having great culture and literature if you can’t read? For 99% of Chinese people for 99% of our history, the sole purpose of our lives were to farm and provide for the rich. Not only could most of us never know the pleasure of reading a good book, but being illiterate also meant that we would have no understanding of philosophies in life. As such, sites like Quora would not exist, and even if they did, none of us would know how to enjoy them without literacy.
Most Chinese people nowadays have access to flushing toilet. Recently, I went to the countryside of China were the people didn’t have flushing toilets. It was an AWFUL experience. Those of you who have never experienced this would not understand the horror; you might think this is a troll answer. I assure you, it’s not. In addition to smelling bad, you are exposing yourself to diseases like cholera whenever you have to go.

然而，从个人的角度来看，现代中国无疑是成为中国人的最佳时期。
婴儿死亡率一直很低(请记住，即使是有最好的医生的中国皇帝，也不可能幸运地让他所有的孩子成长为健康的人，所以皇帝需要大量的侍妾和妃子，以确保许多儿子，生一个儿子太危险了，他很可能夭折 )。

识字率是中国历史上最高的。如果你不识字，拥有伟大的文化和文学有什么用呢？对于99%的中国人来说，在我们99%的历史中，我们生活的唯一目的就是耕种和供养富人，因此，像Quora这样的网站是不存在的，即使它们存在，我们也不知道如何在不识字的情况下享受它们。
现在大多数中国人可以使用冲水厕所，最近，我去了中国的农村，那里的人们没有冲洗式厕所。这是一次可怕的经历，那些从未经历过这些的人不会理解那种恐怖，你可能会认为这是胡扯，我向你保证，事实并非如此，除了气味不好之外，当你不得不去**的时候，会把自己暴露在霍乱这样的疾病中。

People live longer lives. The life expectancy is generally around 75 to 80 years old for humans nowadays. However, back then, it was not uncommon for anyone to suddenly die from an illness (although young children were the most vulnerable). Just look at how many emperors of China died young (again, let me emphasize that they had the best doctors)
No major wars. Well, OK, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution were very bad. They were some of the darkest times for China in the 20th Century. I’m not trying to downplay these events, but so far, nothing in PRC’s history can be compared to the deadly An Lushan’s Rebellion. While the rebellion killed less people than GLF and CR, keep in mind that Tang’s population was much smaller back then. As such, the damage done on a proportional level was much worse. In addition, while Tang survived the An Lushan’s Rebellion, it was permanently crippled for the next 150 years until its demise. The Huihe people constantly invaded and extorted money from Tang, claiming that this was the cost for them to aid Tang in the war against An Lushan. Even the Tibetans were able to capture and destroy Chang’An! Then, about 100 years after the rebellion, another deadly rebellion caused by Huang Chao further destroyed the country. On the other hand, as tragic as the GLF and CR were, nowadays, the PRC is a thriving country, with no trace of its tragic past just several decades earlier (except for the bitter memories in the people who had survived).          

人们的寿命更长。现在人类的预期寿命一般在75到80岁之间。然而在以前突然死于疾病的人并不少见(尽管年幼的儿童是最脆弱的)。看看中国有多少皇帝英年早逝(让我再次强调一下，他们有最好的医生)。

没有重大战争。嗯，好吧，大跃进和文化大革命是非常糟糕的。这是20世纪中国最黑暗的时期之一。我不想淡化这些事件，但到目前为止，在中华人民共和国的历史上，还没有什么可以与致命的安禄山叛乱相提并论，虽然叛乱造成的死亡人数少于大跃进和文化大革命，但请记住，当时唐朝的人口要少得多。因此，按比例造成的损害要严重得多。此外，唐朝在安禄山叛乱中幸存了下来，但在接下来的150年里，它一直处于苟延残喘状态，直到灭亡，回鹘人不断入侵唐朝，勒索唐朝的钱财，声称这是帮助唐朝抗击安禄山的代价，甚至藏人也能占领并摧毁长安！然后，大约在叛乱100年后，黄巢发动的另一场致命叛乱进一步摧毁了这个国家。另一方面，如今的中华人民共和国是一个繁荣的国家，其悲惨历史在几十年前就已经小时的无影无踪了（除了那些幸存下来的人们的痛苦回忆）。

Tong Zou
Well, you could say the same for America, and for Japan and for Russia and for South Korea and for UK and for Canada and for Australia… you get my point? I don’t think any developed country these days have people that are *worse off* than they were in the 1800s or before… its really hard to be, as long as you have industrialized into a modern country. I think the only exception might be North Korea whose people are worse off than they were in the 1950s and even that is debatable.

好吧，对美国、日本、俄罗斯、韩国、英国、加拿大和澳大利亚，你都能说同样的话。你明白我的意思了吗？我认为现在没有哪个发达国家会比19世纪或以前更糟了，只要你已经工业化成为一个现代化国家，那真的很难，我认为唯一的例外可能是朝鲜，其人民的生活状况比上世纪50年代更糟，但这也是有争议的。

Chen Yankai
Mar 10 · 8 upvotes including Kang-Lin Cheng
Nice answer.
BTW, Tang’s last 150 years was not that misery if compared to (southern) Song/Ming/ or late Qing.
Let’s see what late Tang did:
Uyghur khanate was finally destroyed by Tang under Emperor Tang Wuzong’s lead in 842 AD.
Tibetan empire did have a short-living edge over Tang after An Lushan’s rebellion. But since 777 AD(2 decades after the great rebellion), that edge perished. Tibetan empire was defeated by Tang continuously in the eastern line, from Sichuan to Longnan. Tang forced Nanzhao, a Tibetan vassal, to transfer into Tang’s vassal again.
In the 850s, Tang recovered the whole Hexi area from Tibetans. And Tibetan empire couldn’t afford to proceeding the war against Tang. Finally, the civil chaos terminated Tibetan empire, half the century before Tang’s ending.

顺便说一句，唐朝的最后150年，如果与(南)宋/明/或晚清相比，并没有那么悲惨了。
让我们看看晚唐做了什么：
公元842年，在唐武宗的领导下，维吾尔汗国最终被唐朝消灭。
安禄山叛乱后，吐蕃确实比唐朝有了短暂的生存优势，但自公元777年(大叛乱后20年)，这一优势就消失了，在东线，从四川到陇南，吐蕃不断地被唐朝打败，唐朝迫使西藏的附庸南召再次成为唐朝的附庸。
850年，唐朝从西藏人手中收复了整个河西地区，吐蕃无力发动与唐朝的战争，最后，在唐朝灭亡前半个世纪，其国内的混乱局面就终结了吐蕃帝国。

Victor Shi
Your answer reminded me that today all the vassal or enemy states you mentioned is under PR China’s direct control, either Tibet, Nanzhao(Yunnan), Uyghurs(Xinjiang), Turks(Inner Mongolia) or Gpguryeo(Northeast Provinces). Is this a sign that today’s China is powerful?

你的回答提醒我，你提到的所有附庸国或敌国都在今天中国的直接控制之下，要么是西藏、南召(云南)、维吾尔族(新疆)、土耳其(内蒙古)，要么是高句丽(东北省份)，这是当今中国强大的标志吗？

Chen Yankai
That’s a different story, my friend.
Gokturk khanate was very large, including lands all the way from Manchuria to Caucasian area, not just Inner Mongolia.
Tang was a country with a size of 12.37 million km^2 in 660s. That’s a long long time ago. It was amazing at that time because of being the largest empire in the world. Roman Empire was huge because it was larger than every one else in the Europe at that time. But as we all know, most recent colonial empires’ sizes were much bigger than Roman Empire’s. We couldn’t say Roman Empire, thus, was lesser.
And Size is just one factor to uate a country. China didn’t have the influence like Tang, no matter in political or cultural way.
P.s Tibetan empire =/= divided tibetan tribes in the latter time
Tibetan empire, at its zenith, conquered Tarim basin on the North and Indian Ganges river area in the South, with a population of about 10 million.
(Yes, to Indians, Tibetans were once invaders).
What Tang faced in Tibet was just totally different from what Mongols faced 3 centuries latter.

那是另一回事了，我的朋友。
高句丽面积很大，包括从满洲一直到高加索地区的土地，而不仅仅是内蒙古。
唐朝是一个面积为1237万平方公里的国家，那是很久很久以前的事了，这在当时是惊人的，它是世界上最大的帝国。罗马帝国之所以庞大，是因为它比当时欧洲其他任何一个帝国都大。但是我们都知道，近代大多数殖民帝国的规模都比罗马帝国大得多，因此我们不能说罗马帝国就是个小国。
而规模只是衡量一个国家的一个因素，无论在政治上还是文化上，中国都没有唐朝那样的影响。
P.S 吐蕃=/=后一时期分裂的藏族部落。
吐蕃在其鼎盛时期征服了北部的塔里木盆地和南部的印度恒河地区，人口约1000万。
(是的，对印度人来说，西藏人曾经是入侵者)。
唐朝面对的西藏，与三个世纪后的蒙古人所面对的西藏完全不同。

汪 阳生, worked at Beijing, China
Answered Mar 10
Can be sure to tell you no. The Chinese dream proposed by Xi Jinping is the dream of China's renewal. Why does China have to rejuvenate? Because during the Sui and Tang dynasties, China was the world’s most powerful nation. I'm talking about Sui Tang Shengshi.
During the Tang Dynasty, China was rich in people and people. Through the mainland’s Chang’an, it reached the land-lined Silk Road on the Mediterranean coast, and it spread the glorious Chinese civilization to all parts of the world. The kings, envoys, merchants, monks, scholars, craftsmen, Doctors and Hu Ji came in droves to complete economic, cultural, manual, music and dance and national integration in Chang'an. The age of Tang Dynasty is the most glorious chapter in the long history of the Chinese nation. It began in the first half of the seventh century and finally reached the middle of the eighth century AD. Datang’s political enlightenment, emancipation of thoughts, talented people, vast territory, national defense consolidation, and national harmony are very prosperous images in the world at that time. Until today, overseas Chinese are still known as"Chinese people." In the Tang Dynasty, Tang Taizong Li Shimin and Tang Xuanzong Li Longji appeared in the long history of the glorious promising emperor, and during the Tang Dynasty, Empress Wu Zetian, the only woman in Chinese history, appeared. At the same time, Datang’s economy and culture are highly visible and have a tremendous impact on the social culture of Japan, West Asia, and even Europe.

可以肯定的告诉你，答案是否定的。习近平提出的中国梦是中国复兴的梦，中国为什么要复兴？因为在隋唐时期，中国是世界上最强大的国家，我说的是隋唐盛世。

唐朝时期，中国人口众多，繁荣富强，通过大陆的长安到地中海沿岸的陆路丝绸之路，把华夏文明传播到世界各地。国王、使节、商人、僧侣、学者、工匠、医生和胡姬成群结队来到长安，完成长安的经济、文化、手工、乐舞和民族融合。唐代是中华民族漫长历史上最辉煌的篇章，它开始于七世纪上半叶，止于公元八世纪中叶，大唐政治开明、思想开放、人才济济、国土辽阔、国防牢固、民族和睦，是当时世界上极度繁荣的代表，时至今日，华侨仍被称为“唐人”。唐朝，唐太宗李世民、唐玄宗李隆基是中国漫长历史中广受好评的皇帝之一，而且在唐朝，还出现了中国历史上唯一的女皇武则天，同时，大唐的经济和文化也非常引人注目，对日本、西亚乃至欧洲的社会文化产生了巨大的影响。

The prosperity of China at that time was very obvious. The Americas and Africa basically belonged to the "sleeping continent" (except North Africa); Europe was in the period of creation of the Frankish kingdom, and the wounds of the Roman Empire caused by barbarian invasion could not be repaired. Asia is regarded as an affluent East. Due to the rapid rise of the Arab empire, long-term wars against Byzantine, Persian, and Indian nations have caused peace in West Asia and South Asia. Only China won unprecedented unification in the 7th century AD and achieved unprecedented achievements in all aspects of politics, economy, and culture.
Tang Chang, the capital of the Tang Dynasty, is both the political center of the country and the center of economic and cultural exchanges among Asian countries. There, ethnic minorities from various countries and people from all over Asia have become an international big city. The Tang Dynasty was an important period for the development of China's multi-ethnic united nation. At that time, various ethnic groups were further integrated, and economic and cultural exchanges among ethnic groups were further intimate. The Tang dynasty’s territory was unprecedentedly vast. During the Tang Dynasty, there were sudden Turkic movements in the north and Hui peoples in the north, and ethnic groups in the northeast. The Tang Dynasty established Dufu and Dudufu at the northern border. In the southwest, there are Nanzhao and Tubo; Nanzhao is the ancestor of the Dai and Bai peoples, and has received the title of the King of Yunnan in the Tang Dynasty; Tubo is the ancestor of the Tibetans and intermarried several times with Tang to maintain the close relationship between “and the same family”. At that time, all ethnic groups in the border areas made outstanding contributions to the development of the Chinese nation.

当时中国的繁荣是很明显的。美洲和非洲基本上是“沉睡的大陆”(北非除外)；欧洲正处于法兰克王国的建立时期，罗马帝国因野蛮入侵而造成无法修复的创伤是，亚洲被认为是富裕的东方，由于阿拉伯帝国的迅速崛起，对拜占庭、波斯和印度的长期战争在西亚和南亚打破了和平，只有中国在公元7世纪获得空前的统一，在政治、经济、文化等各个方面都取得了前所未有的成就。

长安是唐代的都城，既是国家的政治中心，也是亚洲各国经济文化交流的中心，来自各国的少数民族和亚洲各地的人民让长安成为一个国际大城市，唐代是中国多民族团结民族发展的重要时期，各民族进一步融合，各民族之间的经济文化交流更加密切，唐朝疆域空前辽阔，唐朝在北边建立了都护府，在西南地区，有南诏和吐蕃，南诏是傣族和白族的祖先，曾被唐朝封为云南王，吐蕃是藏族的祖先，曾多次与唐朝通婚，以维持“一家人”的密切关系，边疆各民族都为中华民族的发展作出了突出的贡献。

During the Tang dynasty,[1] China's economy and culture were in a world advanced status. External traffic was more developed than before, and there was an unprecedented increase in traffic between Datang and Asia, Europe and other countries. [2] The Tang Dynasty and the Silla of the Korean Peninsula have maintained friendly relations. The relations between Tang and Japan have become closer. The Tang culture has had a great influence on Japan. From the political system to the customs of life, Japan has been affected by Chinese culture. The Tang dynasty and the Indian Peninsula had frequent exchanges of envoys. Xuanzang's journey to the west has become a story in the history of Sino-foreign relations. The Persian and big food in the Tang and West Asia have a good relationship. Chinese ceramics and other sources are continuously transported to the area. Western Asian goods are also imported into China.
The age of Tang Dynasty is the pride of the global Chinese.

在唐代，中国的经济和文化处于世界先进地位，对外交通比以前更加发达，大唐与亚洲、欧洲等国家之间的交通出现了前所未有的增长。唐朝与朝鲜半岛的新罗保持着友好关系，唐朝与日本的关系越来越密切，唐代文化对日本产生了巨大的影响。从政治制度到生活习俗，日本都受到了中国文化的影响。唐朝与印度的使节往来频繁。玄宗的西游记已经成为中外关系史上的一个传奇故事，西亚的波斯和大食与唐朝有着良好的关系，中国的陶瓷和其他原料源源不断地运往这些地区，西亚商品也进口到中国。
唐代是全球华人的骄傲。

Torax Müller
Answered Mar 10
Of course. In all ways.
Humans throughout history have not degraded and became worse over time, the same applies to countries.
Virtually any country that exists today, can defeat the great ancient Empires of the past, in all ways, it doesn’t matter if in trade, economy, warfare, quality of life et cetera.

当然啦，所有方面都比汉唐时期强。
纵观历史，人类没有退化，也不会随着时间的推移变得越来越糟，同样的道理也适用于各国。
事实上，今天存在的任何一个国家，都可以打败过去伟大的古代帝国，不管是在贸易、经济、战争还是生活质量等方面。

ChenMu
Answered Mar 16
Actually, China achieved its peak during Han Dynasty instead of Tang. It's a wrong opinion that so many people believe so even Chinese ourselves.

实际上，中国在汉代达到鼎盛，而不是唐朝，很多人甚至中国人自己也这么认为，这是错误的。