What if China collapsed?
- Thread starter Wr1t3r
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The Soviet republics had the constitutional right to secede, the PRC doesn't have such mechanism, the breakway states (honestly it is just Tibet and Xinjiang/Turkestan) need to actually force Beijing to accept their secession, easier said than done, even in a case of Chinese "collapse".
And don't forget, the USSR was still (mostly) the old Russian Empire, which means much of it was made up of conquered and trod upon peoples, most of which with their own (if repressed) cultures, religion and language. Compared to this, China has been one country for milenia.
Then some other country becomes the boogeyman that threatens the hegemony of the Euro-Atlantic democracies and you get shitty youtubers making videos (and pundits writing op eds) of the imminent collapse of [said country] every couple of weeks.
Combined with Japan's housing market issues and their subsequent Lost Decade in the 90s the most likely country on the up and coming superpower list would be... India, with their size, population, nuclear capabilities, and economic prowess they are the only ones left to play the great game.
Combined with Japan's housing market issues and their subsequent Lost Decade in the 90s the most likely country on the up and coming superpower list would be... India, with their size, population, nuclear capabilities, and economic prowess they are the only ones left to play the great game.
I don't think the OP means to have China collapse like the USSR did with territories seceding.
If the communist party collapses, famine, again, after that probably civil war with various groups trying to seize power. No idea how good a hold the communist party actually had on China in those days. But it could be bloody. Lots of assassinations? I dunno.
If the communist party collapses, famine, again, after that probably civil war with various groups trying to seize power. No idea how good a hold the communist party actually had on China in those days. But it could be bloody. Lots of assassinations? I dunno.
Not accurate, The unification of modern China is a rather 'awkward' event. Western China is dominated by the Uighurs, then there's tibet, Manchuria & inner mongolia. Even if you were completely accurate, Yeltsin still took power from Gorbachev by force
Western China is about half Han and Hui. Tibet population is low and is in no position to force and keep the Chinese out. Manchuria and Inner Mongolia have a Han Majority
That is an extremely crappy counter-argument. This is mostly due to the Chinese government incentivizing the Han to move out west.
If China had another warring states period/civil war that would be enough for them to leave, at least until some chinese faction conquers them
Definitely one of the worst case scenarios. One of those would be two or factions claiming to be a legitimate government. The most recent model might be the collapse of the Manchu dynasty & the subsequent War Lord era.
However it occurs a internal war in China creates a large hole in the global economy & subsequent world history is very different.
Having half your population opposed to independence while being supported by the Chinese government is a problem
The feudal struggle which was the warlord era is impossible. China is a lot more united and connected along with a unified national identity.
No such thing is real.
In feudal times there was nothing as "one country", most lands you saw on the map were distant remotely ruled by clients and foederates.
One state is pretty far from one nation, which is a modern construct. Under Habsburg Germans, Slovens, Italians, Hungarians, Polish, Czechs, Slovaks, Cumans they all shared a same state.
China unifying these lands is a pretty modern phenomenon, as modern as German unification -- which happened in the Weimar Republic.
The Chinese unified these lands under late-Qing with the help of foreign bankers and technology to colonise inward. As same as how the Republic of India colonising India inward. Deposing princes, installing bureaucracy, establish permanent outposts, tax these peoples.
It would be pretty ridiculous saying that Roman Empire or the Caliphate is one country for millennia. Men had their own families and identities to fight for, which is not exclusive with his subjugation by a Roman Emperor.
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Impossible? The provincial governors filled in when the central government became ineffective. Practically ceased to exist. The provinces became warlord states in filling the vacuume. This has repeatedly occurred in global history, and in Chinas history. Roman central government became ineffective and the empire disintegrated into multiple states. The Austrian Empire flew apart into four or five new separate nations and other territories joined neighboring states, There are endless examples of this across five or six millennia. The details vary, but Chinas empires have disintegrated into waring states or civil wars over and over.
It's quite disingenuous to view a feudal conflict as being possible in a modern nation based on it having occurred in the past. Nations don't randomly balkanize.
Which were modern nation-states based on ethnicity, not warlord realms.
I see a fundamental disagreement here in the nature of the civil war in Chana in the 1920s. The KMT emergence was certainly not a 'feudal ' event. Neither was the Communist takeover of a couple provinces. Beyond that a number of the warlords owed nothing to any overlord, being self-made as it were or leaders in a local coalition of city governments and powerful businessmen.
So? The point is large political constructs, empires if you will, frequently fly apart into multiple states when the central government ceases to be effective. The details differ but the basic pattern is similar.