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There’s this mistaken perception that China is a mass of obedient drones in thrall to whomever is chief at any given time. This is a clear case of who you’re gonna believe - the narrative or your lyin’ eyes. 2200 years ago, over a century before Spartacus, a jumped-up peasant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Gaozu_of_Han joined an uprising against the First Emperor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_Shi_Huang, whose idea of collectivism was that everyone should join together to help him unify the known world under his rule.

Were the rebels one big, happy family? No. They slaughtered each other even while fighting the ancien regime and continued this endeavor after the regime was toppled. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu%E2%80%93Han_Contention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Xin#Service_during_the_Western_Han_dynasty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peng_Yue#Death

Was the First Emperor’s ancien regime one big, happy family? No. There were multiple assassination attempts against him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_Shi_Huang#Third_attempted_assassination He died of poisoning, allegedly while trying out a potion that promised him eternal life. Or was he deliberately poisoned? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_Shi_Huang#Elixir_of_life And after the First Emperor’s death, his closest advisor, the head eunuch, killed *two* of his sons - the putative heir apparent *and* a (puppet) child emperor that this eunuch appointed as a successor to the imperial line. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhao_Gao#Coup_following_Qin_Shi_Huang‘s_death Did the regime’s remnants “unify” under this eunuch? No - they fought a known-down-drag-out war against each other even while fighting the rebels who were out for their heads.

China has always been a seething mass of individual ambition. Elite struggles for power have been part and parcel of historical chronicles outside of China. What’s unique about China, IMHO, is that the ambition goes all the way down to the lowliest peasant. As pointed out earlier, 2200 years ago, a jumped-up peasant joined a mass revolt, vaulted to the top by (1) playing a secondary role in defeating the ancien regime and (2) wiping out the players who played the primary role, then established a regime that lasted 400 years (with an interruption caused by an ambitious courtier who revolted and set himself up as emperor), thanks to his precaution of either forcibly retiring or killing the military commanders (each of whom had their own agendas, much like term-limited Roman consuls) who had brought him to power.

At the slightest opportunity, charismatic men possessed of organizational skills have repeatedly rallied large numbers to their banners and either established new regimes, or come within striking distance, doing great damage, and paving the way for the next challenger to finish the job. That is why Chinese rulers are never at ease - the principal lesson of Chinese history is that the smallest spark could set off a nationwide conflagration.

It is raw individual ambition, not collectivism, that sets the Chinese experience apart, no matter how much regime propaganda over thousands of years keeps trying to convince the population that they are mere cogs in a machine. Overwhelming regime power convinces the hoi polloi that they should observe the forms of obedience - by not overtly criticizing the regime or opposing it. But in the background, they are bribing officials for relief against tyrannical impositions, evading tax payments and the draft and generally skirting the law to the extent prudent. And when their moment comes - they join general risings and attempt to elevate themselves to the top ahead of everyone else around them.

The upshot of the previous post is that Chinese rulers are always on alert against challenges to their authority. And when I say challenges, I don’t mean in the verbal sense. I mean bottom-up revolts or coup attempts that end up in their deaths and the deaths of their entire clans. One of Mao’s wives ended up literally losing her head.

http://www.executedtoday.com/2012/11/14/1930-yang-kaihui-mao-zedong-wife/

Jack Ma is now rich enough ($57b) to finance Xi’s challengers with a small portion of his wealth. Xi must therefore cut him down to size, both to neuter the threat and as an exemplary measure against those who might be thinking of funding Xi’s rivals. One of Jack Ma’s publications, the English language South China Morning Post, whose audience is primarily American and British expats, cannot be accessed in China. That might provide an indication of some of the passive aggressive things Ma has been doing against Xi, in a world in which anything less than groveling submission is nothing short of lese majeste against Xi, the reigning King of China https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/02/politics/trump-xi-king-of-china-intl/index.html in all but name.