[Cronos]

I doubt that, Chinese civilization is very very old, and pretty as advanced as western civilization at any given time, until the industrail revolution.

well, yes and no. Chinese civilisation IS very old but mostly based in the heartland i.e. eastern China. The Xinjiang area was not really Chinese in population until pretty recently.

Chinese civilisation also borrowed a lot from it's neighbours -- for instance Buddhism, the architecture of pagodas, martial arts etc. were all brought to China by Buddhist missionaries from the Indian continent.

[blam]

"well, yes and no. Chinese civilisation IS very old but mostly based in the heartland i.e. eastern China. The Xinjiang area was not really Chinese in population until pretty recently."

Chinese skeletons started showing up in this region about 100BC, previous to that, they were all Caucasoid.