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[That’s an interesting insight into Chinese culture. A eight hundred year track record is a eight hundred year track record, and not something to casually ignore.]

The thing about Chinese rulers isn’t that they think centuries ahead. In fact, their visions are much more constricted than those of Western rulers, because unlike in the West, their lives and the lives of their clans are always at risk if they lose power. And the Chinese propensity for successful coups mounted by rival elites and revolts started by the hoi polloi far exceeds that of any other civilization in recorded history.

What distinguishes Chinese rulers from others isn’t how far forward they look, but how far backwards they reach in looking for pitfalls and challenges that might lead to a disastrous end for them and their kin. Mao’s twin bibles during his successful insurrection against the ruling Nationalists were two works about peasant revolts that form half of China’s Four Classic Novels - the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Water Margin.

Xi Jinping is making a big deal about this not just for propaganda purposes. He’s also wary of domestic opponents, in and out of the Party, taking this as a portent of regime vulnerability, and making their individual moves. Both Xi and his potential challengers are all reading from the same historical playbook.

Individual revolts generally don’t have a huge chance of success. But China’s history isn’t of individual revolts. It’s of one large-scale failed revolt after another, each hammering away at the resources and loyalties of the regime’s supporters, while offering opportunities for advancement at the expense of the regime. Until the regime runs out of resources and loyal supporters, at which point it is toppled and its adherents and their kin are wiped out in a bloodbath.

The potential for a new cycle of revolts followed by regime collapse is why Xi Jinping worries about this disease, the way he worries about every aspect of Chinese society that might threaten his rule. The fact that it is now acknowledged as a very big deal means that potential Chinese rivals are now looking at challenging his rule. Big crises have traditionally been the equivalent of a dinner bell or the report of a starter’s gun for ambitious Chinese power contenders because they signal regime vulnerability. China is entering a period of potential regime collapse, and Xi knows it.