Hacker News Reader

Comment by SCAQTony | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

> 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.)

I 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

China 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.

Outward 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.

I'm based in India and you make me want to hide.

I 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.

Arunachal 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.

I 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.

> I 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.

They do not. Conquering and occupaying a country with the size, population, and nuclear weapons of India would be a massive undertaking, I think the largest such war in history. And remember that China would have to cross the Himalyas to reach India, maybe the most difficult geopolitical obstacle in the world. Finally, China is just developing its military and their capabilities are limited (but growing quickly); many experts believe Japan is more miilitarily capable than China, for example.

Japan? The country that has in its constitution that it cannot hold an offensive military, nor take part in researching/developing offensive military technology... Which expert believes that?

Or do you mean historically? (Pre WWII)

I would hazard a guess that China's korean war "Human wave" tactics would be sufficient against Japan (assuming US was not also involved).

> Japan? The country that has in its constitution that it cannot hold an offensive military ...

The consequences of that are not what one might think. Japan has the 7th largest military budget in the world, and it's been high for a long time (i.e., they've accumulated quite a bit). Much of what they own, from fighter planes to warships to submarines, could just as well be used to attack as to defend. The current Japanese government has been stretching the bounds of the pacifist Constitution greatly; they are not going to sit by and watch China dominate them and the region, and they want Japan to take its place in world affairs commesurate with its population (10th largest) and economy (3rd). For example, they now take part in multinational military operations, they are equipping and training their marines to storm islands, they are exporting Japanese military equipment, etc. Also, remember that Japanese companies are world-class in technology; they can build some pretty good equipment.

Japan long has been considered to have one of the finest militaries, restrained by policy - and that policy is fading away.

> I would hazard a guess that China's korean war "Human wave" tactics would be sufficient against Japan

They'd get pretty wet. Also, that doesn't work in wars against modern countries whose air power is so accurate (the Gulf War is considered the turning point in military history on this issue). The Chinese, and many other large countries, have been shrinking the number of soldiers in their military as a result.

>Few regimes over the last 2500 years have managed to hold any major portion of what is modern day ____ under a single rule for any amount of time.

This is meaningless. How could this statement be possibly falsified for any given region of the world?

It'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.

Historically, 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.

Or 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).

> 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.

It'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.

These 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.

Is there a good summary of this anywhere? Sounds incredibly interesting.

Check 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.E...

I 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.

Europe doesn't have enough room to host China.

If 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.)

> 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!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com