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[mainiac]

I think everyone will see it coming whether it happens or not.

[DJ]

In Yugoslavia different ethnicities were for the most part in different states (Bosnia being a notable exception), and we all know how that went.

Did the Serbians in Yugoslavia outnumber all other ethnicities combined by more then 10-1 ratio?  Because if the answer is no then it's not a very good comparison.

Only like 1.5 : 1, but they had full control of the national army (ie *all* the tanks, planes and artillery).

[kaijyuu]

I think everyone will see it coming whether it happens or not.

Perhaps I should specify, no one will accurately predict it happening until shortly before it does People will be inaccurately predicting it from now until forever.

[mainiac]

In Yugoslavia different ethnicities were for the most part in different states (Bosnia being a notable exception), and we all know how that went.

Did the Serbians in Yugoslavia outnumber all other ethnicities combined by more then 10-1 ratio?  Because if the answer is no then it's not a very good comparison.

Only like 1.5 : 1, but they had full control of the national army (ie *all* the tanks, planes and artillery).

Dude let me put this in perspective for you.  The Uighur have a population of about 3.6 million.  China has a standing army of about 4.6 million without a draft.

[scriver]

They do however share the rising extreme nationalism with each other, unless I'm mistaken?

Who, the Tibetans and Uighurs?

I was thinking more about the Han, actually, though I appreciate the inview.

[Scoops Novel]

So, what would it take?

[GreatJustice]

The Uighurs and Tibetans are about as likely to successfully break off from China as the state of Wyoming from the USA, at least militarily.

However, the fact of the matter is that China's stability is largely built on a steady increase in wealth and economic prosperity. As has already been said, the Chinese are not going to revolt for democracy when things are going good. Yet when the Chinese economy slows down and inflation starts to catch up (a result of the messy Chinese banking system), people begin to want to do something, like the Shanghai truck strike. Presently, a Chinese revolution in the near future is looking fairly unlikely.

Mind, even if growth reversed in a sufficiently big way to provoke action, it wouldn't result in some happy democratic revolution, it would result in a giant goddamn mess more resembling China in '27. China has a rather poor history with revolutions. China would have "revolutionary" groups and warlords ranging from masses of rioters to isolated inland villages to some guy, his cousin and his dog out in the middle of nowhere. Democracy advocates would become effectively irrelevant (unless the CIA gave them choppers or something) and China would cease to exist.

[sluissa]

*Cough*...

Wyoming to consider buying an aircraft carrier.

Unless of course... that was the joke.

[RedKing]

They do however share the rising extreme nationalism with each other, unless I'm mistaken?

Who, the Tibetans and Uighurs?

I was thinking more about the Han, actually, though I appreciate the inview.

Ahh, yeah. Sino-nationalism is a whole 'nother ball of wax. One that worries me, but not too greatly. Again in my experience, most young Chinese are proud of what their country is accomplishing but not in a rabid, militaristic sort of way. And older Chinese are very circumspect about the whole thing, especially those old enough to have lived through the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. They know firsthand that their government has done some fucked-up shit, and isn't perfect.

The fenqing minority are more or less the equivalent of "USA #1 AMERICA FUCK YEAAHHHH". Only with a bit more hacking skills. And a propensity for smashing Hondas because Japan = TEH EVUL 

So, what would it take?

I can see several ways that it *could* occur, but it would take a number of signficant events to occur, IMHO. You'd need multiple "personalities" to emerge, not just within the Party but as public figures. People like Hu Jintao well enough, but only by virtue of the office. Beyond that, he's sort of a bland technocrat...not the kind of guy people would talk about if he weren't at the top of the food chain.

The CPC sort of frowns on top officials making a personal spectacle out of themselves. One, it's distracting. But two, they're worried that personal charisma/popularity could become a powerbase outside the Party's influence. If Bo Xilai had been overwhelmingly popular, for instance, it would have been tougher to bring him in for trial without risking unrest. They're also very careful about not letting entrepeneurs become too popular. They've seen what happened in Russia during the Yeltsin years, when billionaires became more popular than the government and threatened the power of the state itself until Putin began systematically bringing them to heel.

If you had one or more popular figures (either in the CPC or an independent entrepeneur) taking a strong stand against the ruling faction's policies, it could create a polarizing situation. Particularly if you had, say, a neo-Maoist Premier who wanted to roll back the SEZs and flatten out the wealth curve (with the support of hundreds of millions of rural poor and hardliners in the military), arrayed against the party chiefs in the SEZs and the billionaires (and the hundreds of millions of urbanites whose prosperity depends on the SEZs, along with reformists in the military).

In such a situation, I could see the western and central 2/3 of China (and a majority of the PLA) lining up with the neo-Maoists, while the coastal regions (and a majority of the PLAN and probably PLAAF) lining up with the reformists. If it came to blows....it would be beyond ugly. Which is why I don't ever see it happening--the impulse towards the preservation of the status quo and order is just too built into the system. I don't think it would ever get to that point, and I don't think enough people on each side would be willing to throw the country into the fire. Honestly, I think in a scenario like that above, most of the reformers blink and accept China returning to a totally command economy (and either find ways to fit into the new system, or flee the country with what they can carry, a la Chiang Kai-Shek and followers in 1949).

@GreatJustice: Yeah, that's my biggest fear for China, is that there's just a total collapse of the state apparatus and it returns to something approaching the modern Warlord era. Dynastic change in China either results in a change at the top but not much change locally, or the whole damn thing just shatters and you get the "Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms" sort of chaos. That would be extremely ugly as well. Thankfully, that seems very remote to me. Things would have to get a lot worse under the current system, and Beijing would have to be a lot more marginalized.

They don't always get all their orders followed now, but then that's always been a problem. If you had had something like Bo Xilai refusing to be placed under arrest and having worked out some kind of alliance with Gen. Li Shiming (CO of the Chengdu Military Region) to use his chunk of the Army to shield him...yeah, that's when the alarm bells go off. As long as Beijing can make its will felt when it really counts, I'm not worried.

[Scoops Novel]

If the economy got sufficiently bad, in your opinion would the government cave in to calls for reforms? And if there's sufficient change in the west, how do you think that will impact it? Say people get a taste for it and America becomes predominantly liberal.

[Scoops Novel]

Also, if something did happen, let's discuss the rest of the worlds reaction.

[scriver]

@RedKing - I understand. I also realised why my question was strange or seemed out of place - everybody else was discussing revolts in China but in my head I had already derailed and the discussion was about parallels between the now of China and the almost 100 years ago of Europe/America.

Also, it seems to me that the the reason for an overturning of order for China won't happen is pretty clear - Not Enough Mongols. Or well, it doesn't have to be Mongols specefically; any motorbike nomad culture that trains shotgun-shooting from bike-back from childhood will do.

[mainiac]

Also, if something did happen, let's discuss the rest of the worlds reaction.

That's just way too impossible to predict.  Keep in mind that RedKing was just giving one possible scenarios, there are tons of scenarios possible with or without a revolution taking place at some point.  There is no way to know what the rest of the world will say without even knowing what the world will be looking at.

[Xeron]

I could see America getting in on the goods just so that it can avoid the MASSIVE debt that it has to China right now.

[mainiac]

I could see America getting in on the goods just so that it can avoid the MASSIVE debt that it has to China right now.

That's not how these things work.  Even assuming that the Chinese couldn't very easily sell the bonds to other parties before any such shenangians could go through, which they most certainly could, the US would be slitting it's own throats to try such a thing.  What you are talking about is a unilateral unstructured default on US treasury bonds, the backstop of the majority of the world's commerce.  To put it simply banks take their solvency from certain assets that you would know making extremely non-trustworthy.  This would cause margin calls and defaults worldwide causing trillions of dollars of economic fallout, most likely eclipsing the Chinese default many times over.  The 2007 economic crisis would be peanuts in comparison.  Furthermore the ECB has gone to balls lately and this default would destroy the credibility of the FED, leaving the world without a lender of loss resort.  So there would be a huge negative shock with nobody to clean up in a globally connected economy.  We'd be lucky to get off with something as bad as the great depression and it's not a question of if nuclear war would break out but how severe it would be.

So yeah, not a good plan.

But also that massive debt thing is mostly a bunch of crap.  Yeah there is debt but it's in very low interest bonds (actually negative interest inflation adjusted).  Paying them off isn't that hard, our situation is only a little bit more adverse then it was in 1993 and a lot less adverse then it was in 1946.  All we need is for democrats to control the government like they did in 1993 and for the country to not be in the middle of the worst financial crises in 70 years.