China's majority ethnicity, the Han, were taken over by a series of other ethnic groups over thousands of years, but Chinese culture stayed somewhat coherent and continuous because of its system of civil servants who needed to be versed in arts and culture to get those jobs. This is thumbnail history, but it is a theme. Thus they were ruled by Mongolians and others, but remained a single people over time.
In the 19th Century, the British fought a war with China for the right to sell opium from the middle east in China. You don't think of Britain as the Columbia cartel of Europe, but it was so. There was strong opposition against opium in China. A long term lease on the city of Hong Kong was one of the spoils of that war, and the lease only expired in 1997. I visited Hong Kong when it was still a British Crown Colony and the school kids all wore school blazers and ties like English public (private) school kids.
In the 19th Century, the British fought a war with China for the right to sell opium from the middle east in China. You don't think of Britain as the Columbia cartel of Europe, but it was so. There was strong opposition against opium in China. A long term lease on the city of Hong Kong was one of the spoils of that war, and the lease only expired in 1997. I visited Hong Kong when it was still a British Crown Colony and the school kids all wore school blazers and ties like English public (private) school kids.
