Sarah Paine

The idea has traditionally that the Chinese believe there's only one civilization that would be theirs.

It's based on Confucianism.

That would be a world order unto itself.

And that worked for them for a couple thousand years.

And there are certain pillars of legitimacy that have endured, are probably originating this, but enduring one.

and one is ethical rule well that's gone for the communist party let's try the next one economic prosperity whoops going fast that leaves the communists today with territorial expansion well that's ongoing with territory incursions into india south china sea island building and then all these gathering threats to taiwan and in part what's going on is the communist party wants everyone

He wants to play the nationalism card the same way Putin is.

If you haven't gotten anything else for you, play jingoistic nationalism because we human beings can be particularly attentive to that one.

And so that if you focus on that, maybe the Chinese people won't look at the ethical lapses of the Communist Party or the fact that their paychecks aren't going anywhere anymore.

So good old Xi, he doesn't have a marketable ideology anymore.

And what's really scary is Confucianism had just been this enduring feature of China.

Dynasties came and went, but Confucianism stayed.

until China was unable to fend off Japan in the first Sino-Japanese War that I told you about, and the Europeans in the Opium Wars, when all of a sudden Confucianism just seems totally inadequate.

And so when enough Chinese cease believing in Confucianism, that's when you get the 1911 revolution, and it just vanishes.

as an organizing principle for running your government.

And this is the total nightmare.

One of the frightening things for the Communist Party is when people cease believing in communism.

So when China's nightmare scenario is these horrible periods of chaos, they're afraid of if the communists go, that China's going to devolve into these civil wars, these periods of one.

And a second one is that maybe Russia or the Soviet Union, when it's shattered, that may well be their fate, that maybe these communist regimes can't last forever.

So Russia's nightmare scenario is other people invading Russia.