“The things that China conquered are mostly now... China.”
Tibet and East Turkestan are modern exceptions, but generally it’s the opposite.
The places that conquered China became China and Chinese.
Qing Dynasty and Manchu rule is the most recent example.
Chinese would get conquered by outsiders, but would absorb the outsiders in to Han culture.
Well fine, but I think the whole thing was supposed to be about where did these ideas that China ought to be hegemon come from.
Are they simply Marxist ideas with no further history? Or are there strains of Chinese thought (in whatever sense, even if they were from former outside sources) which were doggedly set on hegemony one day?