I remember once “arguing” with a Chinese Gov’t cadre, who was in the Party before 1949. My argument was that China is surely more than just the CCP and Government. After all, Chinese say their nation has existed for 5000 years, while the CCP has been around at most, since 1921.
His argument was that the party, government and nation are one. He actually (unwittingly) used Christ’s parable of the grain of wheat - that it was necessary that the old grain died, but was transformed with the CCP, to produce a bountiful field of wheat.
[His argument was that the party, government and nation are one. ]
And this 5,000 year thing is also BS. The people currently on this planet have ancestors dating back pretty much since the first mammal crawled out of the ocean. That the current Chinese state claims credit for the serendipitous cave drawings of the first organized settlement that left archaeologically significant artifacts thousands of years ago is no reason to take that claim seriously.