You’ve been hearing it’s eminent because most of Chinese history has played out this way and the Chinese world view sees government as dynastic and cyclical as opposed to progressive or something else.
It’s plausible because it’s culturally coherent but that does not necessitate it. Communism could have easily been too alien to succeed but Mao made it contextual, so it unified the society instead.
The way I look at it, every government has an existential risk of getting out of sync with its host culture. When that happens, the system breaks and you get an irruption—revolution, civil war, Balkanization; is the current Chinese system and its overall direction compatible with its cultural inheritance? The degree of that answer is the degree of risk.
I’ve been hearing it’s eminent because China is not a democracy, I hear the western perspective.
I see revolutions as an alternate elite agitating for change. In my model an effective suppression of an alternative elite is sufficient to prevent revolution. In my model it comes down to which secret police are more effective, the MSS or the CIA.
Which is especially relevant here because how much of the ‘Thielverse’ is really a CIA cutout, is Yarvin an external expression of an internal CIA power struggle.
The US is not a functioning democracy and therefore effectively not a democracy at all, either.
It's hard to pinpoint exactly when an empire will fall, but the signs seem to be around for a long time prior to that moment, and you basically have the people who recognize those signs, the people who don't, and the people who profit from confusion and disorder that pay a lot of money to both overtly and subtlety convince people that everything is fine.
> The US is not a functioning democracy and therefore effectively not a democracy at all, either.
It's a weird statement because you are jumping from a descriptive statement ("not a functioning democracy") to a normative one (if it's not at least 80% democratic then I have decided that it's not a democracy)
I am getting too old not to notice such rhetorical tricks. Do better.
It's not a rhetorical trick, and I would appreciate the benefit of the doubt. I just didn't feel like writing a larger comment.
The US is 100% not a functioning democracy, and whether something is a thing if it does not function as a thing is actually a deep philosophical argument that goes back thousands of years. Is a chair a chair if it functions as a chair, or simply if I call it a chair? Can a chair which one cannot use as a chair still be a chair? As you can see, I have an opinion on this, at least in this context, but I am not trying to convince anyone else to share this view. However, it is my view and I used it to advance my argument.
I don't want to be pedantic or prescriptive, but it's "imminent" not "eminent." (The wrong word got introduced upstream in this thread and was taken up by multiple commenters.)
IMO it's largely ignorant talking heads taking "The Empire, Long Divided, Must Unite" from popculture / memes and just ran with it, because China bad / should bulkanize, not historic credence. If there was actual historic awareness, this argument would also note significant united cycles of Chinese periods last 250-500 years, after shorter balkanization cycle (50-150 years, eastern zhou shitshow aside).
Then the argument would be CCP dynasty is just starting - 70 years into multiple generation spanning 250+ year cycle where they're already cooking, and TBH more geographically and culturally cohesive than any past periods. Or, US is 250 years into cycle, i.e. potentially approaching bulkanization time. But that would defeat / be contrary to the entire is PRC collapsing / bulkanizing meme. It's based on hopium.
This is a biased and narrow take. The reality is that both the US and Chinese empires are threading a needle right now with respect to economics and civil unrest. The Chinese government is bad, and it's already split into China and Taiwan, further erosion of the dynasty is absolutely plausible.
There is zero value in pretending everything is hunky dory up until the moment that it all collapses.
There's nothing biased/narrow to note that if one evaluates Chinese history, CCP/modern PRC is experiencing unprecedented domestic serenity and is likely amidst the rising/reunifying era post chaotic Qing interregnum/collapse. Given timeline, and procedurally, ROC/TW isn't indicator of start of balkanization but last piece to reunify now that frontiers like Tibet/XJ has been thoroughly incorporated. Between eminent rise and eminent collapse, it's pretty obvious to me which way PRC comprehensive power is trending towards.
There's zero value in pretending just because things are burning in US means things are also similarly burning in degree/scale in PRC. That's cope/projection. Of course eventually "China" can break up again, but the way things has/are trending, there's still a lot of rising to do. Like it would be one thing if PRC was stagnant or relatively declining throughout last 30 years of China collapse narrative (i.e. USSR vs US), and one can argue it's a matter of slowly then suddenly. But most lines are going up, in the opposite direction of collapse, sometimes at absurd slopes, despite best effort of hegemonic US trying to contain.
Not everything is hunky dory, but let's not pretend it's threading a needle with collapse. That narrative hasn't/doesn't reconcile with reality and history. And historically, authoritarian Chinese governments can grow very powerful for a very long time. To acknowledge your concern, the state can be strong at the expense of the people, both chinese and outside "barbarians", hegemonically strong. If CCP/PRC is just average performing dynasty, they'll likely still be around and powerful in 100+ years, i.e. all of our life times.
It’s plausible because it’s culturally coherent but that does not necessitate it. Communism could have easily been too alien to succeed but Mao made it contextual, so it unified the society instead.
The way I look at it, every government has an existential risk of getting out of sync with its host culture. When that happens, the system breaks and you get an irruption—revolution, civil war, Balkanization; is the current Chinese system and its overall direction compatible with its cultural inheritance? The degree of that answer is the degree of risk.