Rise and Fall of Empires

 

 

471，510，791，15，422，46，155，169，

37，289，72，319，97，276，268，38, 

and next?

 

Let's take a look at the series of numbers above. Who can tell what the next number is? I bet that even the most intelligentmathematician couldn't give a correct answer. Why? Because the numbers are random, no pattern at all. However, if you connect the numbers to this article's title, you could find out the subtle relationship. China has undergone over 4000 years of authoritarian governments from Xia dynasty to current Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ruled China. The above numbers represent the length of reign in years of each dynasty or regime with the shortest of Qin, only 15 years and the longest of Zhou, as long as 791 years. The missing number will be the total years of that the CCP will rule China.

Let me rewrite above numbers corresponding to their dynasty and regime names.

Xia(471), Shang(510), Zhou(791), Qin(15), Han(422), Three Kingdoms(46), Jin(155), Southern & Northern Dynasty(169), Sui(37), Tang(289), Five dynasty & Ten Kingdoms(72), Song(319), Yuan(97), Ming(276), Qing(268), ROC in mainland(38), PRC(66+X).

The average years of reign of a regime is 248, and the median is 218. Over one third of regimes are short lived, less than 100 years. The CCP regime has survived over 66 years. Therefore its life span will be 66 + X. The question is what X is.

Historically all authoritarian regimes were doomed to perish sooner or later. The West always wants to know when the CCP regime will collapse. I am not a fortune teller neither a mathematician. Predicting somebody's longitude or the demise of authoritarian regimes is not my business. However, the history is a mirror and our best teacher. It can provide us a lots of lessons and clues. By analyzing key playing factors in the ups and downs of previous dynasties we could discover laws in predicting the future. In this article I try to offer my insights on how long the CCP regime would stay in power and to look for signs of decay and decline to indicate when it will come to endgame by using a historic approach.

 

Why the West has been going so wild about predicting the demise of the CCP regime?

In 2001 a lawyer named Gordon Chang in his book "The Coming Collapse of China", which has made him so popular in the west, argued that the hidden nonperforming loans of the "Big Four" China state owned banks would likely bring down China's financial system and the CCP ruled China would collapse in 2006. But he missed once in 2006, and again in 2011 and 2012.

Mr. Chang has been so emotional in predicting the demise of the CCP ruling in China. He first assumed a conclusion and then looked for evidence and proofs. His prediction has been missed three times in a row. He was simply wrong because the CCP government could ask its central bank to print trillions of currency to pump into the "Big Four" banks and bought out their bad debts just like what President Obama did in 2008 in bailouts of AIG, GM, the two "Mae's" and major U.S. banks to avoid collapse of American financial system. 

Recently Mr. Chang published another article "The Chinese Century Is Already Over" in the National Interest on May19 2015 issue. His argument was based on two news events: one is the China visit of Indian Prime Minister Modi, the other is China's aggressive move in South China Sea. Modi's visit had no practical progress in solving the territorial disputes between the two largest Asian countries. China will create tensions with US on land reclamation in South China Sea. China is not able to agree with either of these two countries: one is the largest democratic and the other is the most powerful. He concluded that the Chinese century is already over. This time he is wrong again. The CCP regime has learned to make adaptations in dealing with US and the rest of world. As the second powerful person in Chinese military, Vice Chairman Fan Changlongvisited US recently, the CCP compromised with US that it will stop the South China Sea construction and will enhance military relationship with US counterpart instead of inflicting any conflicts with US.

On March 2, 2015 TNI issue Mr. Peter Mattis, a fellow with the Jamestown Foundation published  another article "Doomsday: Preparing for China's Collapse" in which he asserted that China is on the brink of collapse and presented advices to US government on how to prepare for the possible China's collapse.

Mr. Mattis was not alone. A few of days later on March 6, 2015, Professor David Shambaugh of GWU published his essay "The coming Chinese Crackup" in WSJ. Prof. Shambaugh is one of the most influential experts of contemporary China in both US and China. He is named the second most influential expert in U.S. by the CCP after David Lampton of Johns Hopkins University. Prof. Shambaugh asserted that the CCP regime in China is coming to the final stage based on five indications he has observed in Chinese political, social and economic changes recently.  These five indications are trivial and not enough to bring down the CCP regime soon. Dr. Dingding Chen, an assistant professor of the University of Macau in his article "Sorry America: China is NOT going to Collapse" published in TNI on March 10, 2015, rebutted one by one on Prof. Shambaugh's five indications. Dr. Chen argued that the CCP regime will be getting stronger and will keep control of China for a long time instead of a quick collapse, which will disappoint the wishful thinking of the West.

People would be wonder why the West has been going so wild about predicting the demise of the CCP regime. I can think of three reasons. First, the CCP regime is one party ruling government and by the nature is an autocratic rule which is opposite to democratic governments with universal suffrage.  Capitalism and communism have opposite ideologies. The West has been against communism since its birth. Seeking democracy and freedom is the world trend. Most of countries in the world have adopted democratic systems except communism countries such as China, North Korea and Vietnam. The west has been thinking that the collapse of Communist ruling governments is inevitable since disintegration of the former Soviet Union. Second, the radical social and political changes in the Eastern European countries in 1989, the demolition of Berlin Walls in 1990 and the collapse and disintegration of the former Soviet Unions in 1991 were totally out of the western expectations. Even CIA missed it entirely. China is the only remaining largest communist ruling country. The West thought that China would follow the suit of Soviet Union. This time they do not want to miss the prediction of its collapse. Third, China is rising as a global superpower instead of a quick collapse of which the West has being expected of. It seems uncomfortable for the West to see a strong communist regime survived and prosperous. A powerful autocratic regime like CCP ruled China is not in the interest of the West. Therefore the West is wishfully thinking that the CCP regime would collapse as soon as possible.

Wrong prediction of collapse of the CCP regime would mislead the US policy makers and put America at adverse situation.

 

Key playing factors and triggering event in collapse of an empire in Chinese history

 

In democratic countries people chose their leaders by casting their votes during elections. The candidate or party with the most of votes shall win the elections and be the leader or leading party. The transition of power is peaceful, smoothly and orderly.In religious countries the leader of religion is also the leader of the entire country because people believe that the religious leader is the incarnation of God. In authoritarian countries like China, the dictators must have a reason to justify their rules. In ancient China back to the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors era during 2852 BC to 2070 BC, the power transition went by the abdication and hand over of crown. Starting from the first dynasty Xia about 4000 years ago in Chinese history, all dynasty emperors ruled people by the theory of "Mandate of Heaven" which was first formalized by Duke of Zhou in 11th century BC, who used the slogan and helped his elder brother, the first king of the West Zhou dynasty in seizing power from the last Shang king. Later during Spring and Autumn period of the East Zhou dynasty, the theory of "Mandate of Heaven" was endorsed and promoted by Confucius. Since then the theory of "Mandate of Heaven" has been adopted by all dynasties till modern China. The “Mandate of Heaven” awards the right not only to the ruler as long as it rules well and justly but also to the rebellion as long as it overthrows the current ruler successfully. This can be characterized by the popular Chinese saying that “The winner becomes the king and the loser becomes outlaw.” In 1920s the communist rebellion leader Mao Zedong rephrased the "Mandate of Heaven" as "Power comes from barrel of gun" which has been the ruling basis of the CCP regime in China. It really means regime change must come from violent struggles. 

I summarized the key playing factors and triggering event in collapse of a dynasty or regime in the following table. The triggering event is the first event occurred which had a deadly impact on a regime’s rule and since then the regime started to decline till perish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dynasties	Years of Reign	Triggering Event	Years to Perish	Other Key playing factors
Xia	471	Tyrannous and extravagant last king 1653 BC	53	Economic collapse and rebellion
Shang	510	Impious and cruel last king 1075 BC	29	Uprising and rebellion
Zhou	791	Collapse of royal authority by false alarms of beacon fires in 779 BC	523	Accelerating collapse of royal authority (Dynasty actually disintegrated after 771 BC), incompetent kings, foreign invasion wars and civil wars
Qin	15	Chen Sheng & Wu Guang uprising in 209 BC	3	Weak and incompetent emperor and rebellions
Han	422	Power struggles starting around 100 AD	120	Weak and incompetent emperor, rebellions
Three Kingdoms*	46	Coup in 260 AD	20	Weak and incompetent emperor, power struggle
Jin	155	Civil war (the war of eight princes) from 291 to 306 AD	114	Minority invasion, weak and incompetent emperor
Southern & Northern*	169	Coup in 581 AD	8	Civil wars and power struggles
Sui	37	Murder of Emperor Yang	<1	Economic collapse and power struggles
Tang	289	An-Shi Rebellions starting in 755 AD	152	Calamity, economic collapse and rebellions
Five Dynasties & Ten Kingdoms*	72	Coup d’état in 959 AD	<1	Power struggles
Song	319	Mongol invasion in 1259	20	Corruptions, weak and incompetent emperor and minority invasion
Yuan	97	Drought and floodresulting famine in 1351	17	Economic collapse and rebellions
Ming	276	Shaanxi earthquake in 1556	88	Economic collapse, rebellions and minority invasion
Qing	268	Opium war in 1840	72	Japanese invasion, corruptions and rebellions
ROC in Mainland	38	Nanchang Uprising in 1927	22	Japanese invasion, corruptions, and civil war

*Denotes “period of disunity” in Chinese history.

 

By studying over 4000 year Chinese cyclic dynasty history, we could easily discover the following observations. 

1. Under the ´Mandate of Heaven” China has seen cycles of rise and fall of dynasties and cycles of prosperity and decline. Over 4000 years China has experienced at least 17 major dynasties or regimes. Han, Tang and Song dynasties are considered as the most prosperous periods in both Chinese and world history, but they all decayed, declined and eventually perished. Any regime without people’s involvements and supervisions is doomed to perish sooner or later no matter how powerful it looks. I have not yet seen any exception to this rule in world history. 

 

2. Under the “Mandate of Heaven” power transitions from one regime to another have been protracted, messy, violent and bloody. Dynasties were ruled by imperial families; The ROC (in mainland) and CCP regimes were ruled by single party. They are all autocratic by their nature which is incompatible with other regime competitors and challengers and only one regime can exist at any given time. No dynasty can rule forever. The transition of power was not automatic, orderly and peaceful and the succeeding regime must overthrow the preceding regime by violence which would create turmoil in society and cost thousands sometimes millions of civilians’ lives. 

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3. Power struggles had played the most important role in regime changes before Song Dynasty; Power struggles have been replaced by corruptions after Song Dynasty. Before Song dynasty, the bureaucratic system were relatively clean with few corruptions. The officials tended to pursue for power and personal reputations instead of wealth. Power struggles and resulted coups were typical indications in triggering regime changes. The first emperor of Song dynasty Zhao Kuangyin seized throne through coup and established Song.  After he became emperor, the first thing he did was to force the high ranked generals who helped him in the power struggles to retire in a court banquet to avoid the capable generals to seize the throne from him. He appointed incompetent officials and generals helping him rule the country. These officials and generals tended to pursue for money and treasures and were lack of interest of power and would not challenge the throne. Since Song all succeedingdynasties followed its suits. Dynasties or regimes were plagued by corrupted officials and generals.

 

4. Corruption itself could not directly make a regime collapse; it would weaken and damage the regime’s economic and military capability so that it would cause the regime lose in fighting against rebels and invasion wars and finally brought down the regime.Starting from Song Dynasty, corruptions replaced power struggles as a major playing factor in collapse of regimes. Corrupted officials and generals would weaken regimes’ economy and military capability. Song lost in Mongols invasion wars and replaced by Yuan Dynasty: Yuan lost wars against rebellions and replaced by Ming Dynasty; Ming lost wars against rebellions and Manchu invasion and replaced by Qing Dynasty; Qing lost in Opium war, the western powers and Japanese invasion wars and replaced by Kuomintang ruled Republic of China; ROC lost in civil war and replaced by the CCP ruled People’s Republic of China.

 

5. A quick collapse was usually triggered by the coup d’état; and regime collapses caused by other triggering events took a longer time ranging from 3 years to over 100 years. A triggering event put a dynasty or regime on deathbed, but it struggled to maintain its rule. Except the coup scenario the endgame period lasted from 3 years to over 100 years. The endgame period of Zhou dynasty was over 500 years because it existed in name only. Zhou Dynasty set up an enfeoffment system which allowed the central government to invest royal family members or dukes with hereditary titles, territories and slaves.Over time this decentralized system became strained as the familial relationships between Zhou kings and the regional dukes thinned over the generations. Although Zhou Dynasty lasted 791 years longer than any other dynasties in Chinese history, the actual political and military control of China by the dynasty lasted only until 771 BC, about 275 years a period known as the Western Zhou. After the last king of the Western Zhou played dukes by false alarms of beacon fires in 779 BC to make his favorite concubine laughing, the dukes lost trusts in dynasty kings. The Eastern Zhou dynasty existed in name only and the country actually were disintegrated into seven independent states through Spring and Autumn and Warring states periods for over 500 years until Qin dynasty reunited China.

 

6. Qin and Sui Dynasties were short lived because their ambitious emperors initiated widely reforms and started costly constructions of Great Walls and Grand Canals which had exhausted their economic capabilities.

 

7. One or more factors usually worked together to bring down a regime. Excerpt the power struggle resulting coup in which scenario regime change took place immediately, many playing factors must work together in order to bring down a regime.

 

The indications to signal possible collapse of the CCP regime

The CCP regime is a single party government which is autocratic by its nature, hence it will not escape from the fate ofhistoric cycles of rise and fall. During Mao era from 1949 to 1976 the bureaucratic systems were relatively clean with few corruptions, but it had many power struggles which resulted in thousands of abnormal death. Since the economic reforms were initiated by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, China has been rising as the second largest economy after US in less than 35 years. The regime survived from the first challenge in the spring of 1989 when thousands of college students assembled in Tiananmen Square to demonstrate for democracy and freedom. Unfortunately it was cracked down by the military on June 4. Since then the CCP regime has managed to go through sanctions by the West and continued its economic reforms. Under Deng’s leadership, power struggles have been replaced by corruptions and corruptions were getting worse during Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao eras. After Xi Jinping took over the presidency in 2012, he started to cleanse the bureaucratic system and put the high ranked corrupted officials and generals in prisons. It is hard to tell at this time whether his cleaning campaign was intended for selective purges or a real anti-graft. This year China is no longer to keep the GDP growth rate at 7% above. Some people maythink that Chinese economic growth is coming to the end. I would rather consider it as in the rising period since the peak has not appeared yet. When a regime rises to its peak it starts to decline till perish. From the historic views the following indications will signal possible collapse of the CCP regime.

1. Power struggles and resulting coups

As I revealed in historic review when the bureaucratic system is corrupted power struggles cease to exist; Power struggles and resulting coups will become a reality when the bureaucraticsystem is relatively clean. Since Xi Jinping took office in 2012, he has started massive campaign against corruptions. He has put high ranked corrupted officials and generals into prisons. If he can restore the bureaucratic system to a relatively clean state like the one in Mao eras, then power struggles will plaque in high level of bureaucratic system and resulting coups will immediately change the CCP regime.

2. Corruptions

Corruption itself could not directly result in a regime’s collapse as I pointed in previous section. It will weaken and reduce the regime’s economic and military capabilities so that it will lose in possible civil and rebellion wars or wars against or from foreign countries. As corruptions have widely and deeply penetrated into Chinese bureaucratic system even the top political and military leaders were corrupted, people started to doubt that the Chinese military can fight and win any wars. A loss in any warwill trigger the collapse of the CCP regime.

3. Economic Collapse

Chinese economy has fast grown for over 30 years. This year so far all economic indications point to a slowdown and a possible recession in near future. Will the CCP regime survive from an economic collapse? It depends on severity of the economic collapse. If most people’s wealth is deprived by the economic collapse, the CCP cannot maintain social stability and no longer can fill people’s bellies, then social unrests will rise and rebellions will come to play. The CCP regime will start to shake.

4. Peaceful evolution into democratic system

This will unlikely happen, but it is not only the best way for regime change but also my personal   favorite because it will greatly reduce social turmoil and avoid bloody violence. Since Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989 and collapse of Soviet Union in 1991 the CCP has taken up the deepest fears of the former Soviet Union. The CCP regime halted political reforms because it thought that insidious import of the Western ideology and resulting color revolution would be the biggest threat to its regime. It also built a “Great Fire Wall” to restrict its people to access worldwide web internet. Only censored information can be accessed through the fire wall. In Qin Dynasty of ancient China there was a Great Wall of bricks and stones and todaythere is a Great Fire Wall of ideology. The Great Wall did not stop the fall of Qin Dynasty. Will the Great Fire Wall prevent the collapse of the CCP regime? Only leaders of the CCP believe it will. Since Xi Jinping took the presidency in 2012, he has greatly intensified the political repression, oppression, persecution and outright brutalization of human right activists, dissidents and anyone suspected of disloyalty to the CCP regime. In the upper level of the party hierarchy nobody wants to be the former Soviet leader Gorbachev who presided the disintegration of Soviet Union in 1991. In CCP’s ideology, democracy and freedom will divide China. China has experienced over 4000 years of autocratic governments. Chinese people have never been entitled a right to choose their governments. They are used to be political slaves. As Chinese economy is keeping growing, most Chinese people are pursuing personal wealth and do not care it is an authoritarian or democratic government. Since 1989 at the lower level there has been no more non-violent demonstrations and protests against the CCP’s rule. Therefore in the near future, the peaceful evolution into democratic system unlikely will happen.

5. Wars

China has territorial disputes with its neighbor countries Japan, India, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. China also claims Taiwan as a part of China. Under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, China had been pursuing the strategy of "concealing its ability and intentions and keeping a low profile" in foreign affairs. This strategy had been adopted by the succeeding Chinese leaders of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. Under such a strategy, China would focus on developing its economy and leave territorialdisputes for later generations to resolve. China has experienced the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1996, bombing of Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia by U.S. leading military operations on May 8 1999 and colliding accident of US surveillance aircraft EP-3 with Chinese fighting aircraft J-8 in South China Sea on April 1 2001, China did not escalate tensions with US instead it compromised and peacefully resolved the crisis with US. As China is emerging as the second largest superpower after US, It started getting more aggressive in foreign policies after Mr. Xi took office in 2012. He presented “Chinese Dream” (a copy of American Dream) in domestic development and “One Belt and One Road” in foreign policy. He also founded Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) competing with Asia Investment Bank by Japan and International Monetary Funds by US. It seems that Mr. Xi will abandon Mr. Deng’s strategy. Since US has Taiwan Relations Act and US-Japan Joint Defense Treaty China won’t take risks to inflict wars with US by using military forces to resolve territorial dispute with Japan and to reunite Taiwan and instead it turned its strategic gravity center into the South China Sea where US has no formal joint defense liabilities with the countries who have territorial disputes with China. China has started land reclamation on the reefs and islands in the South China Sea and built airports and military installments. All of what China is doing in the South China Sea indicates that China is preparing for possible wars with these countries. China would win the wars with these small and weak countries like Vietnam and the Philippines without US intervention. American presence in the South China Sea will curtail China’s risky and aggressive adventures in that area. If China does take risks into wars and gets lost, it will indicate that its endgame starts.

 

6. Rebellions and uprising

Rebellions and uprising are resulted from a severe economic collapse and loss of wars.

7. Unexpected events

Unexpected events include natural calamity such as earthquake, flood and drought. Severe and catastrophic natural calamity could result in a widely spread famine which will cause social unrest and rebellions.

 

China is rising as a superpower. The peak remains unseen. By examining the above indicators there is no triggering event so far. When Chinese economic growth comes to the end we might see the CCP regime’s peak time. This possibly will happen during 2030 to 2050. A powerful and authoritarian CCP regime will exist for quite a while. America has to prepare to deal with the CCP ruled China for a long time. I would like to end this essay with Dr. Henry Kissinger’s remarks. 

“Attitudes are psychologically important. China needs to be careful about policies that seem to exclude America from Asia and about U.S. sensitivities regarding human rights, which will influence the flexibility and scope of America's stance toward China.
America needs to understand that a hectoring tone evokes in China memories of imperialist condescension and is not appropriate in dealing with a country that has managed 4,000 years of uninterrupted self-government.
As a new century begins, the relations between China and the United States may well determine whether our children will live in turmoil even worse than the 20th century or whether they will witness a new world order compatible with universal aspirations for peace and progress.”