Is China under Chinese Communist Party control immune to the weight of its history?
China has a long history from which to draw worries:
In the last few centuries, China had endured periods when independent warlords ruled portions of a divided China, and the communist Chinese feared this might happen again. For thousands of years the large East Asian area dominated by the Han variant of Chinese people was sometimes united, but more often divided into separate kingdoms.
This is one reason why I reject the idea that observers of China must predict the one direction for the development of China:
I've had my doubts about the inevitability of China's growth that so many say will supplant us as the dominant power.
So what happens when there is a systemic crisis in China? How do we predict what happens to China, then? I say we may not have to predict which outcome takes place. In a continent-sized country, all of the above could be the result.
And while I'm in the neighborhood of China's history, I think it is ridiculous to claim Chinese rulers have some near-genetic ability to make long-range plans. Patience they may have. That is not prescience.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
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NOTE: I made the image with Bing, which was amazingly obtuse about creating what I described.
