The 3 Signs of a Dying Dynasty—and Why They Remind People of Xi’s China | Digging into China

Hi, I'm Dongshuang. Welcome to Digging into China, where we take a deep dive into what's really happening Every so often, an article appears in China and share some unique insights. on Chinese social media that strikes a nerve. It spreads from one account to another, gets discussed in private chat groups, and attracts the kind of attention that tells you something important. People are not merely reading the words on the screen, they are thinking about their own lives. Recently, one such article caught people's attention with a simple formula for the downfall of a dynasty. Too much control, too little money, and a loss of public support. The article's message was aimed at China's ancient rulers, but many readers had a more contemporary figure in mind. They couldn't help drawing comparisons with Xi Jinping's China. Of course, an article about the fall of ancient dynasties is not proof that today's Chinese government is heading towards the same fate. History rarely repeats itself in such neat, convenient patterns. But sometimes, an old story becomes popular because it gives people a language for describing things they are already experiencing. And that is what makes this article interesting. It raises a question worth exploring. What happens when a government keeps expanding its control while the economic resources and public confidence needed to sustain that control come under increasing pressure? To understand why this question resonates in China today, let's look at those three warning signs one by one. Start with the first, too much control. There is an old temptation in politics. When something goes wrong, the instinct is to bring it under tighter supervision. If a policy fails, create another committee. If a department performs poorly, add another layer of oversight. If officials make mistakes, strengthen discipline. And if people appear dissatisfied, find a way to manage the source of their dissatisfaction. Each individual measure may have a reasonable explanation. The problem emerges when the entire system begins to operate this way. More control means more procedures, more approvals, more reporting, and more people whose permission is needed before anything can happen. Eventually, the system becomes very good at demonstrating obedience but less capable of solving problems. This, of course, is not unique to China. It is a familiar danger in any highly centralized organization. But in a political system where loyalty to the top is especially important, the consequences can be particularly serious. Consider the evolution of decision-making under Xi Jinping. During his time in power, authority has become increasingly concentrated around the Communist Party's central leadership. With Xi occupying the dominant position, party commissions and leading bodies have assumed important coordinating roles in areas such as finance, national security, and economic policy. The distinction between party leadership and government administration matters here. The State Council, headed by the Premier, is formally responsible for administering the government. Yet, major policy decisions are increasingly framed within a political structure in which the Party's leadership takes precedence. In March 2024, the traditional annual press conference held by the premier at the National People's Congress was discontinued, a notable departure from a practice dating back to 1993. By itself, that change does not tell us everything about how decisions are made behind closed doors. But it became another visible symbol of the changing relationship between China's top political leadership and its government institutions. The broader question is not whether Xi personally approves every decision. No leader can realistically manage every detail of a country as large as China. The question is whether officials still have sufficient authority, confidence, and the room to make decisions within their own responsibilities. And here is where centralization can produce an unexpected result. The more power moves upward, the more cautious people below may become. If the political cost of making a mistake is high, an official may decide that doing nothing is safer than trying something new. If an economic policy fails, the official who implemented it may be blamed. If the official refuses to act, the consequences may be less immediately visible. Over time, the safest career strategy becomes avoiding responsibility. This helps explain the strange contrast that many people associate with the contemporary Chinese society. Intense competition outside the government, but the risk avoidance within parts of the bureaucracy. Ordinary people compete for jobs, customers, housing and educational opportunities. Businesses compete for survival in crowded markets. Yet, officials working within a rigid hierarchy may have powerful incentives to avoid decisions that could expose them to political risk. The result is a system in which society is told to move faster while the bureaucracy becomes increasingly careful about the moving at all. This is the paradox of excessive control. A government may gain great authority over individual decisions while gradually weakening the initiative and the flexibility required to govern effectively. But control is only the first part of the story. The second is money. Ancient rulers understood something that modern governments sometimes prefer to ignore. Political authority requires resources. Governments must pay officials, maintain infrastructure, support public service, defend their territory, and respond to emergencies. When revenue is plentiful, competing demands are easier to accommodate. When money becomes tight, every priority becomes a choice. China's financial situation is particularly interesting because it does not fit the simple image of a country that has run out of money. China remains a major industrial economy with enormous productive capacity. Its factories manufacture electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels, machinery, and advanced technological products. Its industrial base is formidable. Yet, industrial strength does not automatically translate into comfortable public finances at every level of government. For years, local governments relied heavily on land-related revenue, including proceeds from land-use rights transfers. The property downturn has weakened that source of income, just as many local governments face substantial debt obligations and continuing spending responsibilities. This creates a difficult financial squeeze. A local government may have fewer resources coming in while still needing to pay employees, maintaining roads, support public services, and meet its financial commitments. And this is where the second warning sign becomes more complicated. A government does not have to be literally bankrupt for fiscal pressure to become politically important. It only has to face increasingly difficult choices about where money goes, who bears the cost, and which obligations can be postponed. When financial pressure rises, authorities may intensify revenue collection, pursue unpaid taxes or contributions, sell assets, reduce certain expenditures, or seek additional borrowing. Some of these measures are legitimate administrative responses. Others may become controversial when businesses and households already feel squeezed. For an ordinary Chinese family, the experience is not expressed in the language of fiscal policy. It is expressed in more immediate questions. Will my income increase next year? Can my business survive another round of price cuts? Will the apartment I bought retain its value? Will my pension be sufficient when I retire? If I lose my job, how long can my savings support my family? These are not abstract questions about the national economy. They are questions about whether the future feels secure enough to justify spending, investing, and taking risks today. This distinction also helps explain why a country can spend enormous sums on strategic industries and military modernization while some local governments struggle to finance their obligations. National resources are not the same as local fiscal capacity, nor does a government allocate every available yuan according to the same priorities. The issue is therefore not simply whether China has money, it is how financial resources are distributed, which objectives receive priority, and whether the resulting allocation supports the economic security of ordinary people. A country can be rich in factories and still have households that feel financially insecure. It can be technologically advanced and still struggle to persuade consumers to spend more. It can possess its considerable national wealth while local administrations face increasingly difficult budget decisions. This is the second warning sign. Not necessarily an empty treasury, but a growing mismatch between resources, obligations, and expectations. And that brings us to the third, the loss of public confidence. This is probably the most difficult of the three to measure. In ancient China, a loss of confidence could eventually become visible through rebellions, regional uprisings, or the refusal of local elites to support the the central government. But modern societies do not necessarily express dissatisfaction in the same way. People can lose confidence without taking to the streets. They may decide not to start a business. They may postpone buying a home. They may save rather than spend. Young people may become less willing to accept the promise that hard work will reliably lead Did it lead to a better life? None of these behaviors by itself proves that people have rejected their government. Economic uncertainty, demographic change, and personal circumstances can all influence individual decisions. But taken together, such patterns can reveal something important about public expectations. When people believe tomorrow will be better than today, they are generally more willing to make long-term commitments. They buy homes, invest in business, raise families, and accept short-term sacrifices in the hope of future rewards. When that confidence weakens, their behavior changes, they become more cautious, they hold on to their savings, they avoid unnecessary risk, and the economy can become more difficult to revive because the very people policymakers hope will spend and invest are increasingly reluctant to do so. This is where the three warning signs begin to reinforce one another. Greater control can discourage initiative. Weaker initiatives can make economic problems harder to solve. Fiscal pressure can force governments and households into more defensive behavior. And if people feel that their sacrifices are not producing a more secure future, their confidence may decline further. The result is a cycle that can be difficult to break. But we should be careful here. A difficult economic cycle is not the same thing as an approaching political collapse. Governments can adapt, change policies, redistribute resources, and restore confidence. They can also maintain political stability for long periods despite serious economic and social pressure. The historical analogy identifies a potential problem, it does not tell us how the story The story must end. Consider the dynasties mentioned in the viral article. The late Tang experienced growing regional military autonomy, fiscal difficulties, and major rebellions. The Sui dynasty was undermined by costly campaigns, coercive policies, and widespread unrest. The Qing Dynasty faced mounting internal crises and external pressures over many decades before its eventual collapse. These histories offer useful comparisons, but they do not reveal one universal formula for the fall of a government. The Ming founding Emperor Hongwu abolished the office of chief councillor in 1380. Concentrating authority in imperial institutions, yet the Ming Dynasty continued for centuries. Its eventual collapse involved a much wider combination of political, military, fiscal, and environmental pressures. That is an important reminder. Centralization can create institutional weakness without immediately producing collapse. Fiscal problems can persist for years. Public dissatisfaction can grow without becoming an organized challenge to the government. History is less like a countdown clock and more like a series of choices. The consequences depend on how institutions respond to the pressures they face. Still, I think the viral article opens a more interesting discussion than whether Xi Jinping should recognize himself in the mirror of an ancient emperor. It raises a question about China's political tradition itself. For centuries, Chinese thinkers debated what made a ruler legitimate. One familiar idea was that the people could sustain a ruler but could also bring him down. The metaphor of water and a boat expressed this principle. Water carries the boat, but it can also overturn it. It is a powerful warning a ruler who ignores the people's welfare may eventually lose the support on which his authority depends. But there is a distinction between saying that a ruler should govern well for the people's benefit and saying that the people possesses the ultimate authority to choose how they are governed. The first is the traditional idea of people-oriented governance. The second is the modern principle of popular sovereignty. They are not the same. Under a traditional people-oriented model, the ruler is expected to care for the population because good government sustains order and legitimacy. Yet the people do not necessarily have a formal right to determine who rules them or how political power is organized. Under the principle of popular sovereignty, the people are not merely the beneficiaries of government. They are also the ultimate source of political authority. This distinction matters when we consider the reaction to an article warning about the fall of a dynasty. Some readers may interpret it as a criticism of Xi Jinping. Others may see it as a warning that the leadership should change course before its policies produce more serious problems. Still, others may regard it as an argument for preserving the political system through better economic management. The same words can serve different purposes for different audiences. That is the appeal of using the past to criticize the present. It allows a writer to raise uncomfortable questions without necessarily stating them directly. Readers make the connections themselves. But it also leaves an important question unanswered. What exactly is the writer hoping to preserve? Is the goal to help a ruler govern more effectively, to prevent the ruling party from losing power, to protect the country from instability, or to encourage a more fundamental reconsideration of how political authority should work? Those objectives can overlap, but they are not identical. This is where I find the discussion of Chinese intellectuals particularly revealing. Some intellectuals criticize specific policies while hoping the existing political system will correct its mistakes. Others advocate deeper institutional reforms. Still others believe that economic stability and political continuity should take priority over fundamental change. It would be unfair to place all of them in the same category. Nevertheless, Yes, there is a recurring tension in political debate. People may be willing to criticize the performance of a government while treating the existing structure of political authority as something that must remain beyond question. In that framework, the solution to a crisis is always to improve the ruler, correct the policy, discipline the officials, or restore the system to proper working order. The possibility that The reality that the system itself might need to change becomes much harder to discuss. This is not exclusively a Chinese problem. People everywhere can become attached to familiar institutions, particularly when they fear the uncertainty that change might bring. And there are legitimate reasons to worry about political instability. Institutional breakdown can impose enormous costs on ordinary people. But stability is not an answer to every question. A political system should not be judged only by whether it can preserve itself. We should also ask whether it can correct mistakes, respond to changing circumstances, protect people's interests, and provide credible ways to address public grievance. A system that adapts successfully may survive serious challenges. A system that treats every challenge as a threat to its authority may find it increasingly difficult to distinguish criticism that could help it from opposition that it wants to suppress. That is the deeper issue behind the viral article. The danger is not simply that a government might control too much, face physical pressure or lose some public confidence. Each of these problems can be addressed under the right circumstances. The more difficult question is whether the institutions responsible for solving those problems have enough flexibility to recognize their causes and change direction. Can officials report bad news without fear? Can local governments respond to local needs when their resources are constrained? Can economic policies be revised when they produce disappointing results? Can public concerns be addressed without automatically being treated as political challenges? These questions matter more than whether an ancient dynasty and a modern government I'm going to happen to share three characteristics. And they bring us back to the distinction between a ruling party, a state, and a nation. Political rhetoric often bundles them together, as if the survival of one necessary requires the permanent survival of the other. But a country is larger than its current government, and its people have interests that extend beyond the political fortunes of any particular leadership. A dynasty can fall while a civilization continues. A government can change while a country remains intact. Political institutions can be reformed without a nation disappearing. None of these outcomes is guaranteed to be peaceful or successful. But neither is the preservation of the existing order automatically the safest path for the future. That is why I would not read the viral article as a prediction that the Communist Party is about to collapse. There is not enough evidence to draw that conclusion, and history does not offer such an easy shortcut. I would read it instead as an invitation to examine the relationship between power, money, and public confidence. The three phrases in the viral article, Too Much Control, Too Little Money, and the Loss of Public Confidence, may be an oversimplification of Chinese history, but they capture a genuine political dilemma. Power can help a government act decisively. It can also make the government less responsive if too many decisions depend on too few people. Money allows a state to meet its obligations, but the ability to collect and spend the money does not guarantee that resources are being allocated effectively And public confidence can sustain a political system through difficult times. Yet confidence is not something that can be ordered into existence. It develops through people's experiences and their expectations of the future. Perhaps that is the most useful lesson to take from the old dynasty. And there is one final distinction worth remembering. A government may worry about the survival of its political order. But the people living under that order have a more immediate concern. They want to know whether their lives will get better. Those two concerns may sometimes point in the same direction. When they do not, the difference tells us a great deal about the political system in which they live. Thank you so much for watching. 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