I think they lean more towards the group, but it's probably a bit more nuanced than that

The Taiwanese are pretty different, as is HK

I don't understand all the political intricacies.

I think they also had a period of being a bunch of smaller provinces that got conquered by one

Just the general dynamics.

So kind of like if Charlemagne had succeeded

Chinas been reunified many times

I'm fascinated to see how the Chinese are managing what no one else did, a conversion from Communism to Fascism without missing a beat. Deng Xiaoping deserves immense credit for that.

And broken up

You just needed to be really authoritarian. Thats it really

I'm not sure if the lifetime appointment alone makes the difference between communism and fascism.

There is more to fascism, although it's certainly authoritarian.

If someone wanted to, if they had the power xiaoping had they could have up in democracy instead

Taiwan is...complicated. You have the colony drop of Republican Chinese over top of a native people more alike to Okinawans than Chinese

Friedrich Hayek has actually made the best description I have read so far, in his book Road to Serfdom.

A lot of internal resentment

I am not sure how the party leaders were selected previously, but I'm not sure it makes that much of a difference.

The natives want their country independent and their own again but China will quite literally wipe out everything alive on that island if they do.

If you have on leader for life that the party wants, or a bunch of leaders, each selected by the party.

/shrugs

The ethnic Chinese maintain that they are the rightful rulers of all China.

That fiction keeps the balance,

I mean, if the American government was thrown off the mainland and forced to go to Hawaii, they'd still say they're the rightful government too.

Well, either way, it seems we can all agree on the general trend.

@GingaBomber , I'm honestly not sure the Chinese were ready for democracy. Not even the Russians were and they had more connections to Europe.

Actually, I am really interested in that.

The couple of Taiwanese I've met always insisted they be called Chinese, and never confused with the mainlanders

Remember back to the Mandate of Heaven

Why do some people develop democracies and others don't?

China MUST remain cohesive to keep order

Otherwise you have civil war, famine, and destruction

Oh no, not famine.

5000 years of histiory

That wouldn't happen under a one party state.

Look at how much of a mess they were in the 1920's

Warlords

Actually, with such a large country, I am more surprised that their system is not more federalistic in nature.

the Chinese themselves don;t want a return of that

I know that there are different levels of government, though.

Yes, and some parallel between the Party and the state

Anyway, China is perhaps where I disagree the most the the Democrats in international affairs. It's where I hoped Trump would get it right. Handle China transactionally and don't meddle in internal affairs. Hold them accountable outside their borders.

Unfortunately we ended up in a trade war 😕