Five thousand years, one continuous civilization — China was conquered, divided, humiliated, and came back Chinese every time.
China has been conquered by steppe horsemen, carved into warring kingdoms, and humiliated by foreign gunboats — and every time, the conquerors ended up speaking Chinese, writing Chinese, governing the Chinese way. No other civilization has been destroyed and reborn so many times. It is not the oldest civilization on earth. It is the one that never stayed dead.
