China After Xi || Peter Zeihan

The southern coastal cities from Fuzhou to Guangzhou lack interior territory and local agricultural products, depend on supply chains from outside the Asian mainland (historically for 1500+ years), and have had infrastructure built only in the last 30 years

“if you're in the series of cities on the southern coast roughly from fuan to Guang Joo you don't have an interior you don't have access to local Agricultural Product and you don't have access to one another what infrastructure exists in this area has been built just in the last 30 years and I don't mean to suggest it's not impressive by any standards it is but it's nothing like say being in the midwest or in Northern Germany where the land is flat and infrastructure is easy and so all these cities have their own individual identities and historically speaking all of them have gotten the majority of their calories going back, 1500 years from somewhere not on the Asian mainland”

China's geography is difficult to govern because it contains varied geographic zones that historically looked to different parts of the world (or different parts of the country) for leadership and economic growth models

“there's add problem here um and that's just the geography of China itself uh it is not an easy place to rule you have a lot of varied geographies that look to different parts of the world much less different parts of the country to for leadership and economic growth”

The North China Plain (around the Yellow River) was historically too large to be governed by a single warlord until the industrial era, leading to a pattern of warlordism and conflict over waterworks, creating a nationalistic and militaristic culture

“you got the north the North China playe around uh the Yellow River this is an area that is pretty flat and the problem is is it's just it's been too big historic ly speaking to be all under one power until the industrial era and so you would generally have Warlords trying to take over individual chunks of the territory and because this is also a flood and drought Throne area the Waterworks were necessary to maintain the population so when a warlord thought he was going to lose or wanted to launch an attack on a neighbor he'd go after the Waterworks anyway so you get this nationalistic militaristic North”

Xi Jinping has imprisoned and executed his way into being a cult of personality with no successor or potential successor because he has purged the entire system of any ambition or competence

“XI has um imprisoned and executed his way into being a cult of personality there is no successor there is no potential successor there is no upand cominging Cadre of people with Talent he has basically purged the entire system of any of ambition or competence”

China is technically federal but has become functionally superunitary because Xi has purged all regional and local governments of anyone with capacity, making Beijing the only source of authority that matters

“technically China's Federal but because of the purges and because of the control of the Communist Party it has basically become super unitary where everything that happens in Beijing is the only thing that matters cuz G has purged all of the regional local governments of anyone who has any capacity”

There are two primary historical models for holding China together: either allowing regions as much autonomy as possible (which risks civil war, particularly in the north) or hyperconcentrating authority in Beijing under the emperor or Communist Party General Secretary

“so you have to basically look at Chinese history from this point of view that there's kind of two models model number one is each region has as much autonomy as it can stomach and the whole thing spins apart and the North in particular falls into Civil War there's a reason why all of China's dynasties never last very long it's hard to hold this all together or you over over compensate the other direction and Hyper concentrate Authority in Beijing under the emperor or now under the Communist party's General Secretary and hold everything as tight as possible neither of them last for long”

China's demographic situation is so bad that the country could collapse economically before any new government could theoretically rise on the other side of state dissolution

“and because the demographic situation is so bad it's entirely feasible that we have a collapse in the country's ability to generate any economic activity of note uh before such time as something can theoretically rise on the other side of this”

There are three primary governing system types: confederal (regions have more power than center, like Switzerland or Canada), federal (shared competence between national, regional, and local governments, like Germany or US), and unitary (national government sets all policy, like Russia, France, or Argentina)

“there are different sorts of governing systems um confederal federal and unitary uh confederal your regions have more power than the center so I think Switzerland or Canada in a federal system there's a shared competence among the national government the regional governments the local governments think Germany or may be the United States and then there are unitary systems where uh the national government basically sets all policy and everyone just has to go along with it uh that's Russia that is France that is Argentina”