From the armchair--I think China is rather hard to govern, and if you study its dynastic history, most existential challenges tended to come from popular revolt

From the armchair--I think China is rather hard to govern, and if you study its dynastic history, most existential challenges tended to come from popular revolts from within. Also, the Republic of China's Nationalist Party-led government isn't much older and was no saint for most of their existence. After being ousted to Taiwan in 1949, they kept martial law on the island for almost 4 decades, and famously imprisoned over a hundred thousand perceived enemies of the party, executing thousands during the White Terror. Political and democratic reforms that did emerge in the late 80's were not guaranteed. In a way the same pressures emerged concurrently in the mainland and we know how that turned out. Edit: The "CCP is China" issue is a great point, and I wish that the distinction between government, nationality, culture, and race could be made a lot clearer (speaking as an American living in the US who is ethnically Chinese). What's personally distressing is how easily the media and politicians here leap from 'China lies and steals,' which is a debatable topic from a political science perspective at least, to 'The Chinese (people) lie and steal,' which is a subjective take on motives. Not sure if that's what you were talking about but wanted to get that out there...