Mandarins, huh? I like MS too :)
I dont pretend to know who the civil servants of iran are... all i know is that is one messed up society, in ways that Mao never had to deal with i’m sure. Islam is the religion of death there is no rationality to it. I’m sure the folks in China are way above that.
Once heard it said by a historian that the Persian Civilization never recovered from the Mongol invasion. Not sure how to evaluate that statement, but it sure is intriguing to mull that one. What would the Shia branch of Islam become if it weren’t the bulwark against repeated Asiatic invasions?