Introduction
I wrote this essay for answering the question on Quora last year: What, in your opinion, is the most important battle in Chinese history? Because my answer is long enough, I decided to post here and made some complements.
Two meanings of China
Regarding to this question, we have to identify the meaning of China. There are two kinds of “China”, the first one is a modern Nation whose name is “People’s republic of China”, and the other one is a kind of abstract community with almost three thousands years’ continuous evolving history.
The first meaning: PRC
Firstly, I will talk about the modern Nation: “PRC”. After establishment of PRC in 1949, I think two wars are very important in PRC’s history: one is the Korean War, the other one is the Sino-Vietnamese border conflicts.
Korean War.
Although it’s a tough war for PRC, and it’s also a little strategically unnecessary, it showed Chinese People’s strong determination and bravery to win any battles even though the opponent is the most powerful superpower in the world. Therefore the Pyrrhic Victory of the Korean War brought the peaceful surrounding for decades. Also because of the huge sacrifice dedicated in the War, Soviet Unit decided to help China propose the process of industrialization.The Sino-Vietnamese border conflicts.
It’s a small regional war, but it stopped Vietnamese’s growing ambition. It not only accelerated the Fall of Soviet Union, but also brought more steady relationship with USA. It has made the fundamentals for Chinese Economic Reform.
The second meaning: An Abstract Community
Now the latter one will be discussed: the abstract conception of China. It's a long long story that how this concept was generated. Therefore I picked three important wars:
The battle between The Yellow Emperor(黄帝)’s tribe and Chiyou(蚩尤)’s tribe. This War is the signature of forming HuaXia nation which is the origin of Chinese.
Qin's wars of unification happened at the end of Warring States period around 230–221 BC. This War and Qin dynasty’s following actions institutionally and culturally terminated the division of the country by many tiny states. This war avoid China mainland becoming the divided countries like Europe. Although dynasties always changed, the unified Empire still existed until now.
The war against Japanese during World War II. I have to say this war was filled with Chinese people’s bloods and humiliations, but during this war, China as a modern country was forming, and the modern military forces were also born. Importantly, the concept of Chinese nation has come out. From that time on, Chinese people finally got rid of his heavy historical burden, and became a young, energetic modernized Country.
Final
Although the main subject of modern world is peaceful development, these Wars are extremely important to our great country. In short term, wars bring endless disasters and cruel slaughters, so every people should try our best to avoid it. However in long term, wars give us many opportunities to be powerful, to be more united, so we also need to be preparing for fighting.
