[Penner]

But for the future: I guess in the case of an actual bust up the coastal provinces would adopt a Tawainese-style military with big budget hardware, and try to fortify some geographical barriers (rivers, hills etc).

You still need troops on the ground, and the Chinese Communists have a lot of them.

[agere_contra]

You still need troops on the ground, and the Chinese Communists have a lot of them.

Um, I didn't say which side of the border the Communists would be on. By Communists I mean the Communists at the top of the tree. Communists have a way of turning into very rich people, and of shucking off ideology when it suits them.

If the coastal provinces have 90% of the wealth (for the sake of argument) then they can get 90% of the fighting power. They keep all the tanks, planes and the generals, plus all that lovely Loral technology. They get to cherrypick the internal provinces they want to keep, probably the ones with the hydro power. There's a balancing act to be sure, but I don't think any of the power brokers are going to be on the wrong side of it.