[arthurus]

“So the real intellectual problem is how do you exit communism?” The fall of Communism in China is really rather irrelevant to China. China has been ruled by absolute despots with the murderous effects of Mao for three millennia. When there is an interregnum- a Period of Warring States- it just breaks apart for a time into several murderous despotisms all with total control of even the lowest level of the society. I have read a lot of Chinese history in the last year and have come to realize that Mao was no aberration but rather another in a line of similar Chinese Emperors.

[mrsmith]

I’m sorry to reject someone so knowledgeable, but...
Pre nuke political science doesn’t apply.

A nuke-capable feudal regime is different. Comparisons to the past are ineffectual. Feudal regimes go as far as they can, and have no inherent limits.