Thought that was true of Tito and Yugoslavia, but as we saw, once Tito was gone from the scene, the leadership was incapable of keeping Yugoslavia together.
“Thought that was true of Tito and Yugoslavia, but as we saw, once Tito was gone from the scene, the leadership was incapable of keeping Yugoslavia together.”
Yes, Yugoslavia stayed together because of a person, Tito. Once he was gone, Yugoslavia was gone.
The amazing thing with China is that it’s not based on a cult of a single person, post Mao. They’ve managed to keep it going for decades with different leaders - there is no cult of personality. I can’t even name who the current leader is.
The party has managed to institute a system for choosing leaders that maintains a continuity of policies, and keeps a leash on the president. I guess the elites of the party (central committee and politburo) maintain enough power in their hands to offset whatever power the president has, so that it doesn’t become a dictatorship of one person.
I’m not sure how all the levers of power are distributed, but so far one can’t argue with its success.
Good points all around - the diff between Yugoslavia and China is of course that China has been held together this way for centuries.
Maybe the world would be a better place if China was a dozen nations but the post imperial break up of China was not a pretty picture and before that we had the Taiping rebellion.
Here is a pretty accurate wiki article on China’s warlord era:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlord_Era
So we should be careful in what we wish for in cheering a Chinese break up (which may happen as their bubble economy burts).
Actually, Yugoslavia did hold together for a while following Tito’s death-mainly due to fears of a possible Soviet invasion should relations between Belgrade and Moscow deteriorate. When the Soviet Bloc ceases to be a possible threat, Yugoslavia ceased with it.