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I am not a sociologist, political scientist, or an economist. It appears that China is too big to govern and has become a diseconomy of scale. China has 160 cit
by SCAQTony 11y ago
I am not a sociologist, political scientist, or an economist. It appears that China is too big to govern and has become a diseconomy of scale. China has 160 cities with over 1-million people in them (US has 10 cities) and I think it's a miracle that the lights still work and they have running water.
When you double the size of a plane it it becomes 4-times heavier (Observe what it takes to fly a B-52).
The PRC seems to be circling the wagons to protect from some unknown enemy that the free flow of information will allow the arrows to strike.
- agumonkey 11y agoIt's odd between mainstream media talking about how China is becoming the main power ignoring structural issues of that kind. But that's only a 'theory' so far, how to know if China will evolve into tumor or functioning organism.
- coliveira 11y agoThese things work until they suddenly stop working. The USSR was considered to be as wealthy as the USA until a few years before its end. Few people really saw it coming, and they were not believed by the media.
- clw8 11y agoIs there a good summary of this anywhere? Sounds incredibly interesting.
- KineticLensman 11y agoCheck out the link [1] for a quick intro. Personally I'm not sure that China today is quite like the Soviet Union just before the end of the cold war. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War#Final_years_.281985.E2.80.9391.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War#Final_years_.281985.E...
- ommunist 11y agoI confirm that. In 1989 I talked out a stipend from the enterprise I wished to work for in the USSR. I thought my future is all set. What happened in 1991 was a complete surprise for me, and completely redefined my future.
- agumonkey 11y agoEurope doesn't have enough room to host China.
- clw8 11y agoIt's no miracle, the bureaucracy is as huge as the cities. Even in a shit tier city like Zhanggong, Jiangxi they employ hundreds of people to monitor social media. I imagine the number of people employed for things that actually matter must be many thousands.
- flatline 11y agoChina has historically been too big to govern. Few regimes over the last 2500 years have managed to hold any major portion of what is modern day China under a single rule for any amount of time. While the PRC may make token shows of aggression on the world stage, all of their arrows are really pointed inwards.
- smacktoward 11y agoOutward aggression can have internal reasons, too. War with a "foreign aggressor" is a pretty good way to get a fractious polity to pull together, historically speaking. The trick is to find a "foreign aggressor" who's powerful enough to scare people into putting their internecine disputes aside, but not so powerful that they stomp your regime like a bug.
- codeisawesome 11y agoI'm based in India and you make me want to hide.
- newjersey 11y agoI don't think China has any intention of attacking and occupying India. I'm sure they are more than capable if they wanted to but there is just no incentive.
- codeisawesome 11y agoArunachal Pradesh, sheltering the Dalai Lama, generally not cozy with Pakistan (Chinese ally)... there are a lot of "incentives" that can be invented if they need a war to justify staying in power.
- SCAQTony 11y agoI suspect they want totalitarian control over the south "China Sea" like Turkey practically has over anything leaving the Black Sea via their naturally formed strait, the Bosphorus.
- kazinator 11y ago> When you double the size of a plane it it becomes 4-times heavier So there is a creature after all, even if mechanical, to which the BMI applies!
- Terr_ 11y agoIf nations had institutional-DNA I'd say modern China has probably inherited at least a few traits that aided its sprawl-prone predecessors. (Whether they'll be enough for modern challenges is, of course, another question.)
- jbmorgado 11y agoHistorically, too big to govern would apply not to the number of citizens but to the time information needed to cross the empire. Hence the famous Rome roads, the Nile for the Egiptians or the excellent communication system of the Incas (there are quite a few other examples) that made those empires possible. China might have been historically to big to govern with some stability, but with the high speed communication networks of the present that might have changed.
- majewsky 11y agoOr they might just be hitting different obstacles now. History is not always a linear interpolation of the past (though more often than most people are ready to admit).
- hackuser 11y ago> It appears that China is too big to govern The population wasn't as big, but without modern technology the history of Chinese national governance is likely better than any other region in the world. From around 250 BC to 1911, the Chinese usually had effective national government which made China a world leader economically, culturally, and technologically. (There are many caveats: 1) During that time there were periods of civil war and division also; 2) the geographical area defined as China varied quite a bit; 3) I use the word "usually", but I don't know the percentage of time stable, effective government was provided; certainly there were many successful emporers and dynasties.)
- doyoulikeworms 11y agoI think that Chinese history is quite remarkable. It's a bit like a Roman Empire that grew, changed, and stumbled, but never truly fell. Heck, it even has about the same amount of arable land as the EU[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arable_land https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arable_land
- mortehu 11y ago> Observe what it takes to fly a B-52 Not that it's your main point, but I think B-52 has 8 engines because they're an old design. They're about 10,000 lbf each, while the engines in new planes provide more than five times the thrust, so two 787 engines are stronger than ten B-52 engines.