[nickcarraway]

On paper, yes, but look at history. China has never been good at projecting it’s power outside it’s borders.

[Zhang Fei]

[On paper, yes, but look at history. China has never been good at projecting it’s power outside it’s borders.]

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That’s false. China did not spontaneously come into being a continental-scale empire. 400 years ago, the Chinese empire was half its present size. The First Emperor’s ruling house reigned briefly over a territory 1/4 today’s China.

https://timemaps.com/history/china-2500bc/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires

The issue for Chinese empire builders, as with their counterparts across time and space, is wars, while exciting and ripe with the promise of lasting personal glory, were expensive. This meant squeezing the populations they ruled over. Men and resources were requisitioned at swordpoint. This often led to army mutinies and large scale popular revolts led by the dregs of society.

The end of Chinese ruling houses has often led to the extinction of anyone connected with them. Nonetheless, the relentless expansion of the Chinese state at the expense of the carcasses of numerous neighboring states in Northeast Asia suggests that the prospect of violent death and dynastic extinction has not deterred many Chinese conquerors.