However you cannot say he's a traitor to China. Had he failed to overthrow the Ming he would indeed be a traitor to China, however he didn't instead China became Qing and no longer Han ruled. As China persisted as a nation and I would argue that any Manchu is just as a much Chinese as any Han, ultimately he's not a traitor say for maybe ethnic feelings.
What kind of logic is this? the Matter is NOT who ruled China. There had been many minority rulers in China. Li shimin of Tang dynasty was NOT Han Chinese. Even the first emperor of China, Shi Huang Di, was not "Han" in the pure sense of the word. His ancestor was actually a barbarian tribe in the northwest. What is the key here is the national sovereignty.
AT THE TIME, Manchu and China were two separate countries!!! They were separated by the Shanhai Pass. Everyone who had fought them had been called national heroes in China. If you believe that Wu defected to Manchu, which WAS called Late Jin empire at the time, then he was a traitor to China. Yes, Manchurians are part of China NOW, but at the time when Wu made the decision to align with the Manchus, he was defecting to a separate nation. I don't think anyone at the time actually thought Manchu was part of China BEFORE THE INVASION, including Manchurians themselves. Actually, they might think it was an insult.
The fact that China persisted was not because Manchurian occupation was a domestic issue, but it came out of pragmatism. Manchurian, many fo whom wanted to kill off all Chinese and establish a pure Manchurian nation, found out that it was impossible to do it. And they didn't want to be the second Mongolian empire that was kicked out after only 100 years. So they decided to learn the Chinese way. So in a sense, Manchurians were been assimilated. So China survived NOT because Manchurians and Chinese were one, but because Manchurians decided to become Chinese, in a way. They COULD do what normal occupation forces do, force the local Chinese to learn the Manchurian language, Manchurian customs and culture and have Manchurian names and all. If they did these, Chinese culture would be seriously damaged. They simply didn't do that. But this does not change the fact that they COULD do it and that it was a foreign invasion, not matter what of the outcome is.
We cannot judge the
motive of someone's action by looking at what's happened 300 years after the fact. Yes, China includes Manchurians and Han and many others NOW, but that should not change the fact that they were separate nations before. I am going to say this one more time. Manchu, or the Late Jin Empire, was a separate nation from China, which was in domestic conflict at the time. Yes,China at the time did not have an official govn't, but that does not mean that China has also lost its sovereignty. China was still a sovereign and independent nation albeit in domestic conflict. The Manchus wisely took advantage of the domestic conflict and successfully occupied China. After that, they decided to learn the Chinese way and sort of give up their own culture. Eventually, all become Chinese. If you agree with me on this chain of events, then Wu who helped the Manchurians in their conquest of China was a traitor to China.
