How come Chinese dynasties never invaded Khmer, Siam, etc? I only know of the Sino-Burmese War. How come the Chinese dynasties only picked on the Vietnamese?
Also, how come the Chinese dynasties never invaded Japan?
>>1418429
There are mountains in the way.
There's water in the way.
But really, they just didn't care. China was rarely interested in expanding (except under the Yuan) and when they were they were usually just dealing with their immediate neighbors like Korea and Vietnam or securing trade routes. They were interested primarily in their own civilization, and when they did get involved in far away places it was generally related to trade in the Silk Road and the Indian Ocean, not in the irrelevant islands of Japan or the Indochinese kingdoms. Japan and Indochina were both great civilizations, but they weren't of any real economic or political importance to the Chinese.
>>1418429
The women of those regions are ugly.
>>1418583
Interesting points. I didn't realize just how mountainous Southeast Asia actually is till looking at a map just now. Looks like there's a mountain range that divides Vietnam from Siam/Cambo to the West, and Laos provides a mountainous border that separates China from Thailand. Holy shit Laos is freaking mountainous
>>1418583
As for Japan, yeah, I figured that Japan was simply too far away and not important enough.
>>1418683
Laos is just crazy.
>>1418429
Massive jungles, massive mountains, and disease. Tropical areas breed diseases, and are generally hard to live in. Especially hard too if you're trying to conquer a people already familiar with the region. Also, long distances from their seat of power which was mostly in the north of China. Vietnam can be explained because ease of access through ocean trade routes.
