Balkanizing China: How would this work?

This thread was made due to the W Wthree thread in the world building thread, and I had some idea on balkanizing china (ethnicity, dialect and religion is an example) but ho wwould you balkanize china if you had the chance.

I wouldn't. It's too much of a mess to try. It'd be like Balkanizing the US or Russia or Afghanistan.

We could split off Tibet, Hong Kong, and Uigharistan, I suppose.

^ HK won't take up that offer. Even if they don't like the communist government, the "one China" idea is still a very big part of the cultural narrative. After being a british colony for 100 yrs, HK ppl like being part of China again. While they may prefer a more democratic government, as long as people can find jobs and make money and raise a family in relative prosperity, they'll stick with what they got.

edited 1st Oct '10 8:04:05 PM by nightwyrm_zero

It's been done before◊.

^ yes, and the cultural narrative depicts that era as being an endless series of wars where the strong swallows up the weak. A strong central government being able to protect the nation and ensure the prosperity of its people is a very common lens through which the chinese sees their history. Periods of history where china is divided or where china has lost control of its territory are rarely, if ever, depicted as a good thing.

edited 1st Oct '10 8:10:24 PM by nightwyrm_zero

^That's more of a case of Written by the Winners.

^ Undoubtedly. But even though the ruler, Qin Shi Huang, who unified the country and ended that era is probably one of the greatest tyrants in chinese history and numerous historians have severely criticized his heavy-handedness throughout history, the act of unification itself is rarely depicted as a bad thing.

The idea of "a unified China being a basic requirement for a strong, prosperous China" is every bit as ingrained in the chinese consciousness as "the founding fathers are awesome people" in the US consciousness.

edited 1st Oct '10 8:22:09 PM by nightwyrm_zero

Dude, you don't need to balkanize everything.

bioelectricclaim, thank you, but I as thinking more of 'balkanization reflecting the ethnic/linguistic boundaries'. Those warring states did not exactly completely relect the ethnic groups of that time - just as a lot of old european countries like france & england earlier on (the normals) did not reflect the people who lived there.

A strong central government being able to protect the nation and ensure the prosperity of its people is a very common lens through which the chinese sees their history. Periods of history where china is divided or where china has lost control of its territory are rarely, if ever, depicted as a good thing.

I was thinking more of the United Republics of China concept, a confederated system. Of course, depending on the alternate/future history the Koreas & Japan may be member states. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Republics_of_China

I wouldn't. It's too much of a mess to try. It'd be like Balkanizing the US or Russia or Afghanistan.

Uh, balkanizing the USA is relatively easy to do. As in basic regions that would break off. Stuff like Appalachia & what states might form is 'harder' to do - as that is relatively obscure in US history. Mapping the southwest is going to be well, politically/racially oriented - and depending on the southeast the same might apply. But there are ideas that have already been presented in the USA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_separatist_movements_in_North_America#United_States

EDIT: the case of Afghanistan is basically giving parts of western afghanistan to Iran, parts of northern afghanistan to the soviet republics, and splitting off Balochistan. Also the P Ashtuns end up independent or part of Pakistan.

Russia...well just subtract each 'republic' & break off smaller groups like Kamchatka etc etc. The rest gets weirder yeah

We could split off Tibet, Hong Kong, and Uigharistan, I suppose.

^ HK won't take up that offer. Even if they don't like the communist government, the "one China" idea is still a very big part of the cultural narrative. After being a british colony for 100 yrs, HK ppl like being part of China again.

Hong Kong would likely end up linking up with the rest of the Cantonese speaking peoples in this breakup.

edited 2nd Oct '10 3:47:45 PM by BalloonFleet

Sounds like what you really want to do is federalize or democratize China, not balkanize it, as the term is usually taken to mean (breaking up a state into many smaller independent states).

Isn't China already balkanized via Taiwan? So going Balkanize Me on China would be plausible, like in the 1940s.

edited 4th Oct '10 1:41:19 PM by secretist

^ Balkanization ggenerally refers to the process in which a nation collapses into a multitude of smaller hostile states. The 'parent nation' does not exist afterward.

The People's Republic of China is a break off of the Republic of China (Taiwan).

edited 4th Oct '10 2:35:53 PM by Pentadragon

try google "nine nations of china"

Well if you really wanted to balkanize it, much like how people break up USA, then there's really a lot of ways you can do it.

Ignoring what national sentiments actually are, if you wanted to do it there's a few general rules.

a) Turkic regions in the northwest. That desert area is notoriously and historically poor except for a couple places where the silk road was attached. The poverty causes a rather broken national sentiment.

b) Northern steppes where the mongols and other historic nomadic people were. These days there are inner and outer mongolia, obviously the part that is part of China is far richer (both in resources and in government social spending). Hard to say what kind of cultural differences have emerged due to mongolians living in two very different political systems.

c) Northeastern areas where there are sufficient resources for a second empire to exist. For instance, Jin Empire in the 12th century. There aren't any kind of separatist feelings here but it is a separate area.

d) Tibetan mountainous region. However, they were rarely unified themselves except during the Tibetan Empire (co-existing beside Tong Dynasty before later sacking and killing everybody in it :P)

e) Southern jungle areas used to be full of barbarians. It's obviously... not anymore but there are some cultural differences, the spicy foods thing.

f) Central China is divided into north and south by the giant river that runs through it. If I'm not mistaken, this is how the Chinese split China between the "north" and the "south", the Yellow River.

g) The coastal regions, usually split between north and south.

h) Taiwan, had a bunch of natives, then got colonised by the Portuguese, then Ming took it. Then Qing took down Ming and they retreated to Taiwan. Then after a century, the Qing took Taiwan. Then the Japanese took Qing. Then the Japanese were defeated and it was given back to the Nationalists. Then the Nationalists lost on the mainland and went to Taiwan. Maybe another 50 years before it is resolved? It's been a last bastion for whatever power last lost in China for a long time now (I guess maybe around 500 or so years?)

there isn't much splliting you can do, but realistically, there lands disputed with india you could give to india, Tibet could break off, theres a western province that is majority Islamic that has a very seprate culture but is kept in you could break out, and tajakizstan(butcherd the name, I know) has some areas in china that should be theres and I believe theres another strong ethnic group on an area near mongolia that could be split off. other then that, theres not much. all in all thered be about 30% territroy lost, give or take 5%

tiwan is a possiblity, but only if a majority of the han chinese who immigrated went back to mainland china willingly, which is unlikly, to say the least, now.

North sections hold plebiscites to join Mongolia.

Xinjiang rovince holds plesbiscite to gain indpeendce and creater Uighurstan.

Tibet is granted immediate independence. Government-in-exile takes over before elections of an assemly to create a new constitution.

How would it work? Poorly.

I'd be a success, actually.

It would in perfect, lab-grade ideal conditions that don't exist.

Unless you propose the EU, Russian Federation, and US march in and partition China (History Repeats), they'd never vote for it themselves...