via: mutant frog, read the post: Henry Kissinger doesn’t know Chinese history (or maybe just lies about it)
to refute Dr. Kissinger's assertions that "Military imperialism is not the Chinese style." and that "The Chinese state in its present dimensions has existed substantially for 2,000 years.", mutant frog gives us a map of Han dynastry of china:
obviously it's more than enough to retort the second assertion of " ...in its present dimensions has existed substantially for 2,000 years", but let's see if it's enough to retort the two assertions with another two maps of china.
map of china, yuan dynasty
map of china, qing dyansty
if you only regard "Han people" as the "chinese people", actually most of the territories like tibet, mongolia were seized by manchus or mongolians, not by "chinese people", therefore, it is true that "Military imperialism is not the Chinese style"
if you also include manchus and mongolians as part of "chinese people", then the first map mutant frog gives us is quite misleading in representing the "map of china", and the "chinese state" that includes the territories of manchus and mongolians and tibetans certainly "has existed substantially for 2,000 years", therefore, it is true that "Military imperialism is not the Chinese style" (in fact except a few sporadic periods)
well, i am not trying to defend Dr. Kissinger's view point. what i want to indicate is the diversified ways to interpret history, in some cases to mislead people by distorting or disguising part of history (not refer to mutant frog here).