rump China in 2300 AD

[general_tiu]

I planned to make a rump China write-up on Etranger years ago, but RL issues forced me to postpone my plans.

Here's my plan.

The People's Republic of China is the weakest, the poorest, and the least technologically advanced of the three Chinese states, but like the Manchu Empire and the Republic of China/Canton [well, many people treat that as fanon, right?, but it's up to people to decide ] , they also wanted to be treated as equals. It is just those 'traitor' states who bordered them are trying to keep China down. At least until at end of the 23rd century.

These days, China had some secret backing of the United States, and more overt backing of Australia. It is also trying to make contacts with the Inca Republic, whom it find some [but not all] commonality in politics. And China had already arranged to build exclaves in the Australo-American arm with both countries, and China had stated that if New Zealand or Korea decide not to colonize Avalon, China will apply in their place. So far, little if at all progress is made. To do that, China in the 2300s decided to build a small space navy to protect their interests, however small, in space, and to prevent unwarranted Manchurian and Cantonese interference.

China's mission is to establish itself as a nation to be respected. Although it never gave up its claim to rule in all China [as Manchuria and Canton do], it wanted both of these states to respect them. This is one reason why the Manchus and Cantonese fought their war on Syulham rather than Earth; they are both unwilling to fight a state that sworn to avenge its dissection, and while their equipment is second or third rate at best, are fully armed to the teeth and as determined as their opponents.

Any questions and violent reactions?

 

[Peter Schutze]

I wasnt aware that either Australia or America were encouraging enclaves from any nation. Maybe establish a few outposts / mining enclaves on rockballs instead of requiring them to give up land on shirtsleeves worlds ?

I've always regarded New Zealand as effectively part of Australia in 2300 .... pretty much the situation now since there is unrestricted migration between the 2

As long as the space navy doesnt amount to more than say 3 frigates and a couple of fighters I see no problem with most nations having a navy. That said I personally prefer most minor nations (ie anyone without an official navy in the sourcebooks) to rely on a couple of armed merchant ships as their "navy"

 

[epicenter00]

I've never really liked rump China. So naturally, anything that involves its existence is going to be opposed by me. t bugged me when the Earth/Cybertech Sourcebook came out. It still bugs me.

It's a country that holds huge swathes of land, but it's all a worthless wasteland that's sparsely inhabited? I call Shennanigans. Everywhere else in the world has more or less pushed forwards socially and technologically, but this huge nation hasn't? Those mountains hold no rich resources to be exploited by 2300 technology? I can see tiny countries being hermit kingdoms, but not something the size of China. It might not be strong, but it'd do something interesting in 300 years as opposed to just mulch away in bucolic splendor. It might look like some Confucian landscape painting, but the moment someone finds resources worth exploiting in those mountains, Manchuria and/or Canton aren't going to leave it alone, even if it isn't Tantalum. If it's enlightened exploitation, it would result in the standard of living going up in "rump" China. If it's not, it'd be massive social upheaval from haves and have-nots, corporation exploitation, or outright invasion/annexation.

Personally, I'd simply divvy the country up between Manchuria and Canton. That way, you can rename either Canton or Manchuria into "China" and make things more interesting, especially if Canton claims the name "China" and starts to appeal to pan-Han-ism, as opposed to the more cosmopolitan Manchuria.

 

[general_tiu]

That might be the case 50 years after the game; Canton decides to include China in its territory on the condition from that it adopts the name China. It won't much be of a stretch since Canton is the spiritual descendant of the old Republic of China.

The new China [China & Canton] will adopt a flag like this. Totally Chinese but without bias to either side.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chinese-Army-Wuhan-Flag-1911-1928_dots18.svg

So what is it? Coup in China and begged Canton to join with them, the Cantonese accepting them because they [Canton] need to stand up to Manchuria, and needs China's resources? epicenter, you might be right on this one.

If Canton indeed reunited with China as China, Manchuria might scream that they are next soon.

It might inspire people in the Indian subcontinent for unification, too.

 

[epicenter00]

So what is it? Coup in China and begged Canton to join with them, the Cantonese accepting them because Canton need to stand up to Manchuria, and needs China's resources? epicenter, you might be right on this one.

I see it more along the lines that Canton and China never really hated each other - they get reasonably pretty well. In my 2300, given the "up to world war I" vibe of the world, I made China the Anschluss and Pan-Hanism the Volksdeutsche of the 2300 world. That is, there is a growing belief amongst many of the ethnic Han that they should all live together in one country (this makes Manchuria the Austro-Hungarian Empire of 2300, except Manchuria is still very strong - though they're not quite as large in land as they are in 2300 - I don't think Manchuria would hold Tibet, for instance).

Rump China would have been absorbed by a rebuilt Canton quite early in its history. By 2125 or so, there were calls by student demonstrators that Canton was sufficiently recovered and that it was time for Canton to help "China" to the north. Nothing of note really happened until Manchuria began moving in and simply seizing prime sites for mineral exploitation from the rump China, which was too weak and too poor to defend itself. Under the guise of "protecting" China, Canton moved in and took most of China. This was not a violent invasion - the Cantonese troops were often met with cheering crowds as they moved in (as opposed to the Manchus, who often had mixed-race units or even ethnic Russian units move in). Subsequently, Canton renamed itself China. Border tensions between Canton/China and Manchuria led to a number of low-level skirmishes for some decades (usually between units no larger than small squads of border guards) but by 2200 the border had long since been accepted by both sides.

The Central Asian War had quite a unexpected result on Earth. While Chinese leaders were considering some sort of punitive expedition into Manchuria or even siding French alliance, student demonstrations rocked Chinese universities and over the infosphere. The white devils were back again to slap down the Han people. Though the ethnic Han percentage of Manchuria was not even 50%, the Pan-Hanists had made their decision that Manchuria was at least somewhat Han enough to have sympathy. Not only that, the Chinese military was found to be sympathetic to Manchuria. As a result, the war had a number of "volunteer" units fighting on the side of the Manchus. While the Chinese volunteer units served valiantly, their military contribution to the war wasn't great. However, their political value was enormous in making the allies against Manchuria step a little more carefully lest China be brought into the war. To the Pan-Hanists, the French solicited Japanese aid to the alliance was the last straw. They saw it as the familiar "devils" getting together again - the guǐzi were at it again.

While Pan-Hanism, as a belief, crystallizes into its "modern 2300" form during the Central Asian War to the point where the French Empire notices it and "western" newspapers start writing about it, but was been around for centuries - ever since the Chinese split. The movement's own history traces itself back to the earliest (semi-mythical) Chinese dynasties thousands of years ago and thinks of the People's Republic of China as a "glorious Han republic" responsible for liberating China from foreign invaders (such are the abstractions and revisionism of looking at history 300 years past). The Post Twilight War split was seen by Pan-Hanists as a short-sighted political move by power-hungry men at the top, and not the wishes of the "Han people." While most of the time Pan-Hanism is a university student movement - fiery but restricted to a certain segment of the intelligentsia, it occasionally bursts forth. Like most racial/ethnic movements, exactly what defines a person as "Han" as a bit hazy, however, for young disaffected people (especially men), the movement's simple view of history and defense of hostility and aggression are appealing. Pan-Hanism views all of history as a great defense by the Han people against a culturally impoverished world continually coming to invade and enslave the Han people and take their treasures and inventions away from them. Silk, gunpower, the printing press, even pasta were all stolen by the rest of the world from them. They have suffered unjust invasions from the Mongols, the Russians, the Japanese, but they reserve a particular resentment for western Europeans.

If Canton indeed reunited with China as China, Manchuria might scream that they are next soon.

I don't think Manchuria is worried about invasion per se. They're more worried that the Han parts of their federation will want to split away and join China. For their part, the Han groups in Manchuria do occasionally like to play the "Pan-Hanism" card to get certain kinds of favors from the Manchurian government, always mindful of separatist feeling amongst in its polyglot nation.

It might inspire people in the Indian subcontinent for unification, too.

To my understanding, the India-China rivalry/hatred is nothing historical - it's very much a mid to late 20th century thing. I doubt anyone even remembers it by 2300.