Is China collapsing? Yes.

Is China collapsing tomorrow? No. Is China collapsing in three days? No. Is China collapsing next week? No. Is China collapsing next month? No. Is China collapsing …

How many of these stupid ‘China is collapsing in X days’ videos did you binge?! China is not in its final phase of collapse that I can tell. Nation-states don’t collapse quickly. It takes usually several years from the first domino to the final one. I think we might be midway through the China is Collapsing show.

Will China necessarily collapse? No, it’s always possible that the CCP can get its collective act together and actually govern well enough to fix the system rather than attack the brushfires, but it ain’t looking good for that right now.

Let’s deal with the elephants in the room. Nation-states can collapse in multiple ways and they can occur separately or together. China appears to be in economic trouble (but economists are not universal in expecting a full collapse) but I’m not an economist so I’ll leave that form of collapse alone. The main political forms are party, government and nation-state. There’s a lot of overlap so don’t get too hung up on the terms.

Party collapse is routine in democracies and deadly in one party states. China is a one party state and in my estimation, is heading for some form of party collapse. Because it is a one party state, China will have a government collapse to go with it. Government (or administration in US terminology) collapses are fun to watch in parliamentary systems where nation-states change governments like socks, but are very, very dangerous in authoritarian countries like China. This will be very bad.

Nation-state collapses are like what happened in Sri Lanka, Cuba and North Korea. Nothing works and the government, if it survives, is ineffectual. There’s not a lot of difference between a failed state and a collapsed state beyond what side of the international spectrum is propping them up or helping pick up the pieces. Let’s just say Russia and China both stink at the ‘picking up the pieces’ part.

Yes, North Korea is a collapsed nation-state. It exists as an independent nation-state because China doesn’t want a physical border with a democracy of any sort, least of all South Korea. It’s governed, such as it is, by useful idiots that can be thrown rather cheap bones when they become annoying. No need to install a puppet when North Korea’s government is such a cheap date.

Cuba is in final collapse as it can no longer sponge off their ideological comrades – basically, Russia lost interest decades ago and Venezuela is broke. It will go out with a whimper, not a bang. The only people left in Cuba are so beaten down that they don’t have the will to fight for themselves. When there’s nothing but scraps, the government will eat itself and what emerges will come to the US, hat in hand.

China is a special case. It is far from broke but its people are already giving up in places. That’s not causing the collapse but it is a really bad sign. China cannot handle an economic downturn of any real depth. Not because people will rise up but because they won’t.

If there is no hope, people just quit trying. They get by with less and less and just don’t try to improve. It’s a downward death spiral that is exacerbated by an authoritarian government, especially one as comically tragically incompetent as the CCP. We’re already seeing this happen with the ‘lying flat’ and ‘let it rot’ trends.

But more importantly, the CCP is made up of people, too, as are its defense forces, police and other implementers of its will. All of those people expect better lives for their service to the CCP and as the economy withers, the CCP cannot keep up its end of the bargain. Police go home to upset families that can’t go out or buy things. Government officials find that there’s less money to be made as the people stop working hard. You can’t cheat people out of something when they have nothing. Lower level party members want the perks but the shops are closing and Western companies are trickling out.

This isn’t what they signed up for. That realization begins the internal pressure. China’s pie is getting smaller and a lot of fingers were already in that pie – fingers that directly serve the CCP. Here’s where the factional splits get wider and more aggressive. These are things that were probably already happening at the upper levels of the CCP for other reasons but they become much more dangerous to the CCP itself as it spreads to the lower levels.

Ambitious party members see their hopes of power dwindle. Greedy members see their graft funds diminishing. Members who just wanted to retire to the Riviera see the borders closing. Discontent in the public is dangerous; discontent in the party is deadly.

But the party is still their best bet for getting what they want so the small fry go along or even try to help shore up the party. If they are lucky, they are rewarded, but upper echelons will likely misconstrue their initiative as undermining the power of the Central Party and almost certainly over react. This stops the bleeding for a while as everyone else falls in line so as to not end up executed but it also sends the message that the party cannot be trusted. They fall in line but no longer really try to save the party as they have no idea how to do so safely.

I think, outside looking in, China is at about this stage. There was already a lot of dry rot in the CCP – corruption does that – and the purge as Xi took power (his ‘anti-corruption’ campaign) pretty much whipped the dogs into the line. But whipped dogs don’t fight for you or work their best for you. They either just lay down or actively look for a way out.

China as a nation-state has a laundry list of things going hysterically wrong right now: real estate collapse, bank runs, bank protests, lockdown protests, lockdowns, insane C19 policies, historic floods, historic droughts (being geographically big can be a pain that way), international conflicts, potential loan defaults from Africa, foreign investment pulling out, being export dependent, having no allies, facing possible secondary sanctions, and the scary yet funny arms race with the US. This mess would be a massive challenge to a healthy government.

The CCP ain’t healthy. Dystopian power is still dystopian. It’s current solution is ‘blame the US’. That Nancy Pelosi made them look like fools did nothing to help that strategy work. All the CCP succeeded in doing is increase the pace of the foreign investment flight. No one wants to do business in a nation-state ruled by crack-pots, especially not communist ones. They will steal all your stuff!

Eventually, the USS Ronald Reagan will merrily sail straight through the Taiwan Straights. There have already been US cruisers sent through. See, for most nation-states using the US as a big baddie works because everyone at home already knows that their nation-state isn’t a peer of the US. But China has the opposite going on – their people, especially the diehard CCP supporters, truly believe China is superior economically and militarily to the US. Every time the US pushes back just to maintain international waters, China, and especially the CCP, looks weak.

The CCP is built on a reputation of strength that it cannot afford to lose. No, the Chinese people won’t rise up but they also won’t bother to work their best or nearly as many hours. Their lives have been devastated by the CCP’s economic mismanagement and now they can’t even believe that their beloved China will one day topple the United States of America. A weak CCP is nothing to believe in and people simply won’t keep trying in the face of hopelessness.

The entire Chinese bone continues to get smaller and the dogs of the CCP get more and more aggressive fighting for their bite. Authoritarian nation-states collapse from within. China looks to be no different.

So is China collapsing? Yes. But you’ve got plenty of time to run to the lobby for more popcorn. The second act is only just beginning.