Well, at least the Tibetans managed to become free again. They're well out of it.
Yeah...the situation in China's awful. And let's be honest: Taiwanese territory has basically seen a resurgence of warlordism - half the 'special military governors' in Southern China are involved in the illegal drugs trade, and run their provinces like their own private fiefdoms.
I work for Hormel foods, and I did a couple supply runs in China, mostly because I needed the money bad, and you don't need to worry about little things like back ground checks or experence.
Lets get things strait about china as some one who's been there.
Lets go over it all bit by bit.
Tibet, they got lucky during the exchange they were not hit at all. The chi coms decided to try to rebuild china here. They failed, badly. The locals resented them, India wanted a buffer state and had a load of refugees who wanted their home land back, and then the chi coms tried to black mail india by messing with their water.
Heres an outdated map of china that the chi coms use.
Once they were kicked out the remnant forces decided to settle mostly in Quinghai, other remnants flocked to them. They claim all of china but really only control the western half of the province at best.
I sold bulk packages of spam and water to them, they paid us back with scrap metal and what ever else they could get. Poverty here is bad really bad but their arguably the nicest guys in the area. Which tells you just how bad their neck of the woods is.
You go north from that and you hit the buffer states.
Mongolia got inner mongolia after the exchange and kicked out what few Han residents remained. Which wasn't a whole lot. The Russians created a puppet state out of the XinJang. Their talking about changing the countries name but they also kicked out the Han.
Korea took over the collapsed north and split machuria between mongolia, Siberia and themselves. I spent a couple runs in the area last year.
Mongolia...
Mongolia claims a lot of land but they don't have the numbers to keep it. Their economy runs off of mining and resource extraction. They sell raw materials to the koreans and get goods in return. People are happy with that deal.
Korea, south of the old DMZ korea is a techno wonderland. The place oozes money, get above that and things start looking shabby. Its not bad but its well like mexico city. Its livable but not as nice as the south. Then you get to the new territories. The people here are mostly miners, work for the army, or are people who just could not cut it in korea proper.
The ROC
Taiwan is a techno marvel equal to Japan and the good parts of Korea. Then you get to the mainland.
The ROC claim the whole of china. What they actually control is the coastal areas of Fujian up to Shandong. These area's are actually recovering their much poorer then Taiwan but its like living in east germany during the 70s. Crappy shabby but livable.
Rule of law exists on the coast and its actually pretty safe.
It gets bad as you go inland, the ROC simply does not have the money or the resources or the people to retake china. No one wants to live in the inland areas. So you get one of three types of people who try to man the frontier.
One is new recruits they transfer out as soon as they can in the ROC army the interior is considered a rite of passage but once you have done a year you pull your stuff and transfer out.
Two is corrupt officials and criminals, Taiwan has a policy of giving sentenced criminals a choice between serving on the frontier or in prison.
Finally number three the screw ups and misfits who simply can not make it any where else. Theres a lot of corruption in the frontier but the ROC areas controled areas are still better than.
The warlords.
The rest of china is wasteland, small city states and rampaging warlords. The city states vary, some of them are hell holes, but some are like Shaolin and are actually pretty nice places to live, by chinese standards.
For those who want to do a run here are some rules.
1. Keep driving, never ever stop for any one.
2. Always keep yourself armed.
3. Don't think with your ho haw.
4. Sleep in the trucks, eat your rations and stay out of local affairs.
5. If your Russian or have a Russian last name stay out.
Seriously the Chinese hate Russians with a crazed kind of intensity. My convoy was running with this guy named Sasha who ran guns. He was big, macho and made a few comments to the little old ladies of the village we were in.
They tore him apart.
6. Be polite.
7. Have small things to share, tea for example works great. Personally I keep a large sack of fun sized skittles and give them to the local kids.
8. Finally watch the mood of the comunity, if the locals are scared you should be scared too, if the locals are angry get out of there, if their happy then get ready to do some trading.