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I disagree. As Aesop noted, “A tyrant needs no excuse.” However, he should have added the corollary that, “But they generally want some, anyway.”

The situation in China is an odd one. In many ways, while the central government seems to rule, much of this is illusion. The truth is that they are closer to an “anti-federalist” nation. What this means is that the regional authorities, including the military warlords, actually have more direct power than the national government, if not officially.

If you ask the typical “Chinese on the street”, throughout the nation, they rather like their central government. In the popular mind, it has raised the nation up from grinding subsistence poverty to a far more modern place.

The problem, however, or who get blamed for all their problems, are the regional governments. They are seen as corrupt, inefficient, greedy, stupid, and brutal. And in this respect, the Chinese people are correct.

What most irritates is that the regional governments have so much autonomy that they completely ignore the dictates of the central government. Of the 60,000+ annual major protests in China each year, the vast majority are efforts to inform the central government that the regional governments are breaking the central government’s rules.

The problem is that the central government does not take this at face value, but instead sees it as a threat to the central government. That, and they are aware that the only reason the regional governments behave at all is because they are rife with corruption. If the central government cracks down too much, the regional governments will cut them off entirely. Starve the central government into submission.

To make matters worse, the Chinese military is evolving into an almost hereditary organization, run by “princes”, who hold rank by birth rather than by training. Stupidly, these princes also have nuclear weapons at their disposal.