The idea is also captured in lots of western post-apocalyptic science fiction. The absence of a functioning government gives rise to local warlords. The "vacuum" is made up of weak semi-states that are usually horrific. Chinese history is full of periods of warlordism, too.

One of the things I found so bizarre as a liberal... I was against the Iraq war on the basis that it would create a power vacuum, which it did. When six years later, liberals lined up to applaud the Arab Spring, I was against American support for it for the same reason. Both of those things were sold to the American public as a form of liberation from dictatorship. In the former, we would supply democracy after overthrowing Hussein. In the latter, we would expect countries with no history of democracy and almost no independent civic institutions to do it for themselves. The goal is great, but it never seems to be reached. People here haven't mentioned the Iranian revolution which was the most vivid example in modern history of a sudden vacuum in a dictator's absence, with the presence of a drifting democracy movement, being filled by a bloodthirsty lunatic.