The PLA is also a voluntary service organization. Technically China still has a conscription law, but in practice they have more than enough volunteers to fill the ranks and end up turning away some applicants.

> Probably the biggest thing is that China has cultural unity

China does not have more cultural unity, it simply has more of a stomach for suppressing minority or rebellious subcultures. See: Tibetans, Mongolians, Hong Kongers, Uyghurs.

In the more than 2000 years of history, the Chinese have demonstrated a willingness to assimilate, and oppress dissenting voices. Even the Mongolians (Song dynasty) and the Manchurian (Qing dynasty) rulers adopted those methods to maintain power during the consolidation phases.

The Tibetans are a great example. Both the Mongolian and Manchurian descended rulers had left Tibet as an autonomous region primarily because the rulers themselves were Buddhist. However, the Qing dynasty had asserted state power over the theocratic rule of the Tibetan lamas, including changing how the tulkas (such as the Dalai Lama) were identified and selected. That all happened in mid-1800s.

The contemporary assimilation of Tibet comes from well-used playbook the Chinese have employed:

  1. Suppression of the written language and standardizing on the same written script
  2. Suppression or assimilation of cultural symbols and ideas
  3. Imprisonment or subornment of cultural leaders (such as the monks and nuns, or if you read this whole drama: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorje_Shugden_controversy ... the main protest organization got shut down when allegations of funding from the Chinese intelligence apparatus came out)
  3. Colonization by assimilated groups
  4. Creation of economic and trade ties (such as the railway that was built all the way to Lhasa).

Every year, Tibet is less and less Tibet, and more and more Chinese.

You can actually see some of this going on, if less aggressively, in Africa. China, after all, have a rich history in developing and maintaining vassal states.

These are things the US is not willing to do. And I am not saying that it is ethical or moral. The result though is that China has far greater cultural unity than the US currently has.

> These are things the US is not willing to do

US government does not need to do this explicitly.

US culture outreach is effective and efficient. Prior to 2008 financial crisis, Chinese common wisdom places US superior to Chinese in every aspects. You can put Xi in that period, and see how ineffective his ambition can be implemented.

It was only after US culture outreaches have been intoxicated by self-righteousness and a chronicle ineffectiveness, think about the Arab Spring and the 2016 election debacle, and the TikTok deal, and the disastrous Covid response.

Government directed culture assimilation is always the least effective. That's used only when the civilian system is weak. In Mao's era, they dont need this, the civilian system is so effective in assimilating proactively across the whole nation. Think about the havoc by Mao. Mao can do that, because the society is utterly centered around his ideology. Precisely that the time, it was the government that is ineffective in counteract the population's attachment to a demi-god.

I don’t disagree with you, but I would add that the historical American model has been assimilation, not multiculturalism. It’s only fairly recently that we explicitly accept new immigrants maintaining their old cultures wholesale. I wonder if we’ll see a return to an assimilation model in the future, if competition with China sparks a new Cold War.

That's a good point. I forgotten about what happened with the Natives, as well as immigrants from Europe.

However, I don't think a cohesive will in the populus will emerge anytime soon. We have at least two major factions talking past each other here in the US (along with a lot of other points of contention: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/03/06/a-quick-battle-field-g...)

An interesting period to consider is that of the Ming dynasty. They were expansionist up until a point, and then they turned inwards. Recalled their expedition fleets. Expanded the Great Wall. They were shutting down steel foundaries at a time when the European colonialism was getting started. It reminds me (at least superficially) much of US today. A narrative of why the Ming turned inward has been subject to a lot of discussion, particularly since they had the economic and technological might to preempt the industrialization of Europe.

(But I think it is also histories like this gets the Chinese thinking about their perceived rightful place as the world's leading superpower).

> Mongolian and Manchurian descended rulers ... were Buddhist. However, the Qing dynasty...

Huh? First Manchuria equals Qing in my limited remembrance of imperial history. Second, the Manchurians were Buddhist?

I'll be more precise -- the Qing dynasty (Manchurian) emperor that asserted state power over theocratic power in Tibet was himself personally a Buddhist. This was from a paper I read -- it's a book review of Forging the Golden Urn ; the book is written by Max Oidtmann, and the review was written by Matthew Mosca, published in the Journal of Chinese Studies. In the review, it talked about the Qing emperor trying to assert state power without alienating the Hans. I don't know if all of Qing were Buddhist.

I am also not saying all of the ethnic Manchurians were Buddhists. I didn't get that deeply into the history.

I do know that the Mongolians greatly respected the tulkas of Tibet, with branches of the Tibetan Buddhis monastaries found in Mongolia. The search for reincarnations also extends out into Mongolia. The review mentioned that -- during the Song dynasty, the Mongolians let the Tibetans have enough autonomy to concern the Hans, and politically, they were seeing if the Qing emperors will do the same. The creation of the Golden Urn lottery system was a way to assert state power while also respecting the religious process in Tibet. (Whereas, in contrast, I think the Chinese selection of the Pachan Lama and control of the "tulka" was done as part of the cultural assimilation and oppression program by the Chinese). But yeah, the impetus for the Chinese conquest of Tibet in the twentieth century was centuries in the making.

Enlightening, but I glitched over "Manchurian [qua Qing] ...rulers had left Tibet as an autonomous region [but] had asserted state power over the theocratic rule," a seemingly contradictory assertion which I, as a speed reader, get mightily bogged down by. I suppose it's possible to preserve Tibetan sovereignty while also making a political declaration of state over church, but boy, it's a bit of a play action fake.

Yeah, it gets weird. The little I know about Korea and Okinawa were cultures greatly shaped by Ming dynasty practice of vassal states, and later, Japanese expansionism.

But the Han Chinese are the overwhelming majority (92%). They pay lip service to the 56 ethnic minorities but for the most part they are expected to act Chinese or are just tourist attractions. China is not going to have or allow problems like BLM to slow itself down internally.

Han Chinese were so mixed that it should be considered a cultural group, not western sense "race".

But people probably were so indulged in mainstream media's reporting that, this hardly register to anyone as significant.

The point still goes to China in terms of whether internal dissent is likely to flare up.