Sarah Paine

But it meant when the Soviet Union shattered, there were plausible divisions already set up on an ethnic basis, and that is how you get places like Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, etc.,

China's like, no way.

So this helps explain the genocide of the Uyghurs that's ongoing now.

I think this is their rationale for doing it.

And then what you want to do, and you can see Xi Jinping doing it, is you want to prioritize maintaining the monopoly of the Chinese Communist Party over economic efficiency when those two things run at cross purposes.

And that, I think, helps explain some of Xi Jinping's growth-depressing choices that he's making.

What Gorbachev discovered when he tried to reform communism is that democracy and communism just don't mix.

If you give people elections, they're going to support multiple parties.

Also, when the communist track record becomes known of incompetent economic management,

summary executions, famines, just all the things that they've been up to.

It's very hard for them to remain in power.

Also, as Gorbachev discovered, democracy and empire don't mix.

When you give different minorities a choice of whether or occupy places, a choice to leave or stay, they bolt.

And there's a consensus among the Han, the preponderant ethnic group in China, that they want to maintain the empire.

So they don't care how many Tibetans immolate themselves, right?

That's no longer going on now because the mortar has descended into Tibet.

And they don't care how many Mongols complain about lost lands.

The Han want to keep it.

Also, for the generation that survived the Cultural Revolution, which would be Xi Jinping, he's precisely that age group, they do not ever want to go back to the chaos, the Luan of the Cultural Revolution.

It was horrendous.