Genie of my lamp 
My Country's Older Than Yours
I mentioned above that if one takes the Xia Dynasty to be the genesis of Chinese civilization, then this makes China roughly 4,000 years old. This, as Lum points out, makes China much younger than Mesopotamia or ancient Egypt (p. 16). Basically, in the 1990's, Chinese head-of-state Jiang Zemin went on a state visit to Egypt and someone casually mentioned "hey, here's a country that can lay claim to an older civilization than yours," and the Chinese (who, after all, absolutely MUST be the superlative in all things) immediately and arbitrarily decided to add a millennium to their country's age (Chu, p. 25), and as it is apparently essential in China's eyes for the world to believe this fish-story, they have taken care to repeat it ad nauseum.
I'm not good at English, but
I agree with @ patriamreminisci's claim.
The modern Chinese government denies that Chinese civilization was born 2000 years later, compared to ancient Orient civilization.
The historical fact that Chinese civilization, the center of the world, was born later than other civilizations could not be admitted.
Fun Fact: China has Almost Never Actually Been Called "China."
One of the biggest surprises for early students of Mandarin (or expats struggling to get a survival grasp on the language) is that no word even vaguely resembling "China" has ever existed in the Mandarin Language. The Mandarin word for the country, at least in its shortened form, is Zhong Guo (中国), which literally translates as "Central Nation," though the Chinese like to dress it up in a more palatable Tolkien-esque style as "Middle Kingdom" for Western listeners, and it is also worthy of note that this term never existed as a name prior to Sun Zhongshan's 1911 revolution. Prior to that, the nation we call "China" never even had a name other than the name of the ruling Dynasty, a fact much lamented by the 19th century reformer Liang QiChao (Lee, p. 46). Since the 1911 revolution was not only the first official use of the country's current name, but also a paradigm shift in its mode of government (from an imperial monarchy to at-least-nominally a republic), one might make a case for this being the beginning of "China as we know it," making the country a spry 108 years old, but considering that there was very little cultural discontinuity between pre-1911 and post-1911, that seems a bridge too far.
However, an examination of where the Western name "China" came from does give us some clues as to the country's actual genesis.
From about 475 B.C to 271 B.C., during what is known as the "Warring States Period (Metropolitan Museum of Art)," the plains of what is today called "China" were home to a collection of warring kingdoms that had nothing in common except the Han ethnicity and languages which were all derived from the same cave-drawings (Han J., p. 15 - 21). These kingdoms had different customs, laws, languages (2), religions and ways of life, and completely separate political agendas (Cao, 55). They even -quite frequently-fought wars against one another. Essentially, think of the Greek City-States, except more separate since the Greek city-states all spoke the same language and had the same pantheon of gods.
There was no country named China as
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinhai_Revolution
As
However, with the birth of the first nationalist state in England, nationalism was prevalent all over the world.
With the collapse of feudalism in Europe and the emergence of nationalist countries, European empires began to conquer abroad.
As Europe developed through nationalism into a powerful unified empire, European empires began to conquer abroad.
Japan imitated European empires, and after creating Japanese nationalism, it transformed from a feudal state to a unified empire.
The Japanese Empire felt fear and anger in the strength of the American Empire that emerged beyond the Pacific Ocean.
The Qing Dynasty in China was plagued by the invasion of European empires, but by offering tribute to European empires, the Qing dynasty remained in power.
However, since the Joseon Dynasty on the Korean Peninsula was poor, the European Empire ignored it.
Japan was an island country far away from China, so it was possible to escape the invasion of European empires.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Expedition
However, Japan was frightened by the invasion of the giant America, which appeared beyond the Pacific Ocean.
European empires, the British Empire and Russia are poor countries and cannot conquer Japan.
However, the United States was a very wealthy empire that dominated the entire new continent.
The Japanese realized that the United States possessed territories and wealth so vast that it was incomparable to Europe.
Europeans simply robbed slaves, territories, money and resources from East Asia.
However, the United States sent missionaries to East Asia to build churches, schools, and hospitals for Christian mission.
The Japanese were convinced that the United States would destroy Japan's indigenous faith, religion, and culture through Christian mission.
Christian Empire The United States uses Christianity to make Japanese slaves for the United States.
In the end, the United States has ambitions to conquer all of East Asia.
Japan, who came to this conclusion, made the Japanese emperor a human god in order to fight against American Christianity.
When Americans believe in Jesus as God, Japanese people must believe in Japanese emperor as God.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Shinto
The Meiji Restoration reasserted the importance of the Emperor and the ancient chronicles to establish the Empire of Japan, and in 1868 the government attempted to recreate the ancient imperial Shinto by separating shrines from the temples that housed them. During this period, numerous scholars of kokugaku believed that this national Shinto could be the unifying agent of the country around the Emperor while the process of modernization was undertaken with all possible speed. The psychological shock of the Western "Black Ships" and the subsequent collapse of the shogunate convinced many that the nation needed to unify in order to resist being colonized by outside forces.
The Japanese empire believed that conquering China would make it an equal empire with the United States.
So, first Japan invaded Korea. When Korea was conquered by Japan without help, China interfered with Japan.
China and Japan fought a war in 1884 to take over Korea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Sino-Japanese_War
The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895), also known as the Chino-Japanese War, was a conflict between the Qing dynasty of China and the Empire of Japan primarily over influence in Joseon Korea.[1] After more than six months of unbroken successes by Japanese land and naval forces and the loss of the port of Weihaiwei, the Qing government sued for peace in February 1895.
Japan, which won China, again fought the Russians and won, and eventually Korea became a Japanese colony.
The Russo-Japanese War (Russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, romanized: Rússko-yapónskaya voyná; Japanese: 日露戦争, romanized: Nichiro sensō; "Japanese-Russian War") was fought during 1904 and 1905 between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and Korea.[4] The major theatres of operations were the Liaodong Peninsula and Mukden in Southern Manchuria and the seas around Korea, Japan and the Yellow Sea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War
After the Japanese Empire won the war against China and Russia, the Japanese Empire was placed on a par with the Western Empires.
The Chinese were shocked when Japan pushed China out and became a central country in East Asia.
What causes China to lose to Japan?
The Chinese found the cause in Japanese nationalism.
The Japanese Empire was strong because the Japanese created a nation-state called Japan.
China will have to transform the feudal system divided into tribes into a single Chinese nation-state.
So, the Chinese end the feudalism that has been maintained for 2000 years, and a unified Chinese people creates the Republic of China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Republic_of_China
The History of the Republic of China begins after the Qing dynasty in 1912, when the formation of the Republic of China as a constitutional republic put an end to 4,000 years of imperial rule. The Manchu-led Qing dynasty ruled China proper from 1644 to 1912. The Republic experienced many trials and tribulations after its founding which included being dominated by elements as disparate as warlord generals and foreign powers.
Modern China = the Republic of China was born in 1912.
In order for Japan to become an empire on par with the United States, it has transformed itself into a nationalist state.
After Japan won the war with China, China also imitated Japan and transformed itself into a nationalist country.
After all, by the U.S. invading Japan, China has transformed itself into a modern China.
In the end, the United States played a crucial role in the modernization of East Asian civilization.