Could China balkanize?

Second is Confucianism, the religion of the aforementioned class, which taught that there can be only one civilized China and one true ruler.

Most people don't think of the Chinese as religious, but actually on matters of land, people, history, Confucianism is quite dogmatic. Imagine if the Christian Bible required a unified Christiandom as its central premise. For the same reason, even today China place unification with Taiwan very high on its priorities. Deep down the concept of unification is an internalized religious requirement, just like the concept of recovering Jerusalem to Abrahamic religions.

I would like to hear more on this, this is fascinating.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
We also shouldn't forget the Warlord Era of the early 20th Century. China was cut up into a bunch of different military cliques who largely became content with staying regional powers. Hell, had it not been for the Japanese invasion, China may have stayed that way for quite a while. It's commonly posited that, had the Nationalists won the Civil War, the area we now know as the PRC would have been divided between Xinjiang, Tibet, Manchuria, and the rest would be what we call "China." So that's a potential balkanization of sorts.

I know there is a lot of resentment in the South of China over the Northern-dominated Party apparatus and how much of the South's generated wealth is being redistributed into the North instead of back into the South, leading to widespread poverty. Not to mention the cultural and political differences between Northern and Southern China (South: individualistic/capitalistic North: collectivistic/socialistic)

You could try something along the lines of another Chinese Civil War in the near-future that could lead to (at the very least) regional balkanization.
 
I would like to hear more on this, this is fascinating.
I've heard China described as a civilization state rather than a nation state. The people of the Chinese civilization see themselves as a part of an ordered universe defined by Confucianism. At the center is the emperor, a god-king, son of heaven who is the head of the gigantic Chinese household. This is the proper state of the civilization. A fragmented household with multiple heads is the antithesis to Confucianism and Chinese identity. It is therefore unholy, against the will of heaven.

Chinese history has multiple periods of division, but Confucian historians do not treat these as legitimate periods of history. They are seen as transitional and abhorrent, unholy times of Confucian dark age despite the fact that plenty of records were kept and that the arts and culture flourished. They represent periods when men of virtue (the Confucianists) couldn't get their act together to pull off a central government.

The Confucianists serve as the clerical class of China. When a new dynasty is founded, inevitably the conqueror must seek out the support of the Confucianist/clergical class. It's only with this support that a dynasty is viable. In times of division, rulers of various kingdoms derive their legitimacy through claims on the imperial throne, or profess loyalty to a puppet emperor. They don't formally break away to form a nation state as this would surely alienate the Confucianists and his own subjects.

Throughout Chinese history, whenever there have been periods of division there have always been attempt to unify the empire. The attempt itself is seen as virtuous. The closest analogy would be a crusade or jihad in Abrahamic religions.

When China broke up into warlord fiefdoms in the early 20th century (an unusually short period of division by Chinese standards), there was a instant crusade for unification. Chiang Kai-shek was lionized for doing this, despite his obvious short comings. His ultimate failure to consolidate China was by itself an indictment against his legitimacy. Similarly Mao was enormously popular (most certainly the Chinese leader with the most fanatical following in history) largely due to his achievement in creating the most centralized Chinese state ever. In other words, these men were seen as messiahs. One does not judge a messiah by earthly standards of morality alone.

Despite all of Mao's atrocities he is still accorded great respect that mystify Westerners. What Westerners are missing is the religious element of Chinese culture. This is easy to miss because the Chinese do not practice religion like Abrahamic cultures. They don't go to temples and chant from a holy book. This process is much more subtle. It's internalized. It's not even conscientiously articulated among the Chinese. But if you look for the manifestations of religion, it's all there. The Confucian faith runs deep in the background. Chinese history start to make a lot more sense along these lines. In modern times it can be disguised as Nationalism, a concept relatively new in Western history and thus it's easy to think of Chinese attitudes to land and history as nationalistic. However this is a uniquely Chinese brand of nationalism, an offspring of its ancient religious faith, thus there is much more than meets the eye.
 
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We also shouldn't forget the Warlord Era of the early 20th Century. China was cut up into a bunch of different military cliques who largely became content with staying regional powers. Hell, had it not been for the Japanese invasion, China may have stayed that way for quite a while.


Actually, by the time Japan invaded major heads had been cracked by Chiang. He led a government of China that deserved the title. The warlords were on the periphery and could nto defy his rule, and hia main rival were the Communists, who definately wanted a unified China.

It's commonly posited that, had the Nationalists won the Civil War, the area we now know as the PRC would have been divided between Xinjiang, Tibet, Manchuria, and the rest would be what we call "China." So that's a potential balkanization of sorts.

Xinjiang is possible, perhaps even Tibet. Machuria less so. For a rump PRC in the northeast, you'd want a PoD before the war, I think, and of course you'd have both sides preaching a united China.

I know there is a lot of resentment in the South of China over the Northern-dominated Party apparatus and how much of the South's generated wealth is being redistributed into the North instead of back into the South, leading to widespread poverty. Not to mention the cultural and political differences between Northern and Southern China (South: individualistic/capitalistic North: collectivistic/socialistic)

You could try something along the lines of another Chinese Civil War in the near-future that could lead to (at the very least) regional balkanization.

Sorry, what? This is very, very unlikely.
 

Neil Craig

Banned
Despite appearances China is already very economically divided. Some parts (Shanghai, Shengow beside Hong Kong) have very successful free market economies. Some bits in the interior have economies about as controlled & as successful as North Korea. China is almost a social science experiment in free enterprise v socialism. So some division is inevitable.

On the other hand most of the things that pulled countires apart in the past (provinces being far away separated by days/weeks/months of travel, river, mountain barriers) no longer apply in the modern world & even when divided China has had a cultural unity against the rest of the world.

I think we will see the economic diversity continue & it being more noticed by the rest of the world but cannot see divided sovereignty.
 
In the aftermath of the fall of the Qin, the Han faced off against a coalition of pre-Qin states led by Chu (I think).

The Han won. If the Chu-led coalition had won, it's possible China might balkanize again.

(However, the Qin had been in power for a long and time engaged in a lot of centralizing/unifying measures, so even if the concept of a united "All Under Heaven" is tarred with the Legalist abuses, someone might pick up the ball later.)
 
What is quite plausible is abrading off the various peripheral regions that have geographic defenses and didn't have a Han supermajority till relatively recently - Tibet, Turkestan, Greater Mongolia, Manchuria, Taiwan, something out of Yunnan, something out of Guangxi, and maybe something in the mountain west if politics allow. But you'd still have a China in the centre, and it'd still be big, and very hard to divide into subunits without some guy converting a momentary advantage into Emperorship.

This is something that interests me since I have an interest in the Hill Tribes and the Atayal. But I frankly don't know enough to know how plausible any prospects for independence would be.

Anyone?
 
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