A Reflection from Imperial Rule to Modernity
In 《Guns, Germs, and Steel》 Jared Diamond explores the trajectories of human civilization, emphasizing the decisive role of geography, agriculture, and disease. Yet, when it comes to how political systems shape civilizational progress—particularly how China’s centralized imperial rule led to centuries of stagnation and regression—his analysis is curiously restrained, almost evasive. Is this because political institutions are not the ultimate determinant on a grand scale? Or were certain critiques softened in the Chinese translation? This question itself is a critical thread in the dialogue of civilizations
We must ask: If institutions, power structures, and intellectual ecosystems are not decisive, why did China—one of the earliest to transition to agrarian society, the earliest to forge a vast unified state—languish for the past 500 years, repeatedly faltering in the global tide of modernization? If the West’s rise was merely a fluke of the Age of Exploration, why did China, with Zheng He’s grand voyages, turn inward and seal its shores? Why, despite thriving global trade in the Song Dynasty, did China never step into capitalism? Why did the brilliance of the Tang and Song eras end in conquest by the Yuan? Why, after “leading for a millennium,” did China fall silent in the modern era?
This is no accident—it is the inevitable outcome of institutions.
China transitioned early from hunter-gatherer societies to agrarian civilization. Food surplus birthed population growth and social stratification, giving rise to a predatory ruling class that gradually institutionalized itself into a state. In Mesopotamia, geographic proximity fostered the growth of city-states from villages; in China, villages evolved into feudal states, culminating in the unification under the Qin. The Qin’s unification was the pinnacle of ancient political systems: it silenced dissent through book burnings and scholar purges, eradicated diversity through centralized power, and drowned all vitality under the weight of one imperial will. From then on, China’s dominant melody was set: unity, imperial authority, civil service exams, and cyclical repetition.
Unity obliterated diversity; imperial rule concentrated power, birthing a vast, legitimized predatory elite. These rulers initially courted public support with token benevolence, only to compete with the people for resources in the mid-term and treat them as adversaries in the end. They cloaked Confucianism as a tool to tame the masses, wielded Legalist doctrines to enforce control, and twisted the ancestral mandate of “revering heaven and cultivating virtue” into a mechanism for submission and obedience. Dynasties changed, but the framework endured—people were left to kneel before an endless parade of new and old faces, emperors, and leaders.
So-called “benevolent rule” was merely fertilizer before the harvest; so-called “wise emperors” were but a fleeting pause before tyranny.
From the soothing platitudes of Confucius and Mencius to the ruthless pragmatism of Shang Yang, the bureaucratic system swelled into a detached, self-reinforcing machine of reverse selection. As dynasties “matured,” political structures grew ever more extreme, crafting an illusion of natural selection that systematically extinguished dissent, creativity, and breakthroughs. Governance became exploitation, stability became control, and innovation became a threat. Ideas were suffocated, science was aborted, technology was discarded, and civilization was confined to the low ceiling of agrarian culture, cycling endlessly.
Thus, every “unification” reduced civilization’s dimensions, every “restoration” came at the cost of intellectual stagnation, and every “golden age” masked a society calcified and a spirit collectively asleep.
The reversal of technological supremacy between East and West 500 years ago was no fluke; China’s failure to discover the New World was not a matter of bad luck but an institutional incapacity.
Was China’s so-called “centuries of weakness” in the modern era truly a sudden mutation? Was it because the West was more cunning or malevolent? Was it simply because Empress Dowager Cixi wasn’t enlightened enough? If a decaying, closed-off Qing Dynasty had triumphed over a West armed with modern science, firearms, fleets, and global trade networks, would we now be living in a jungle age, shivering in rags or swinging from trees?
The West, despite its own eras of religious tyranny and medieval darkness, achieved a critical breakout: it built institutions grounded in the rule of law, decentralized power, and intellectual freedom; it granted individuals basic dignity and societies the space for diverse competition; it tolerated heretics, encouraged innovation, and restrained rulers. This allowed the West to escape the trap of civilizational involution, progressing from capitalism to the Industrial Revolution and onward to the Information Age.
China, however, remained ensnared in an institutional closed loop:
Emperor—Bureaucracy—Subjugation—Control—Reunification.
Unchanged for millennia, cycle after cycle. On the surface, it offered “stability”; in reality, it drained society’s vitality to the bone.
In history,this is not “destiny” or “national character”—it is the result of institutional choices.
Why, after nearly two centuries of “opening its eyes to the world,” does China still struggle to break free from this historical cycle? Why does power still run rampant, blurring right and wrong, inverting black and white, draining the people’s blood to feed a zombie empire?
Yuan Shikai hijacked the revolutionary fruits of generations of patriots; Mao Zedong, like a praying mante preying on its weakened foe, revived the poison of millennial autocracy in the veins of a modern state. Power is a drug—irresistible, addictive, ensnaring its wielders deeper and deeper. The nation and its people are thus trapped, looping endlessly in a labyrinth of time, unable to escape the cursed echo of history.
To break free from this trap, the future demands not a new “wise ruler,” not a more cunning propagandist leader, nor a more “enlightened” bureaucratic system. What we need is:
The awakening of individual consciousness;
The diversity and freedom of thought;
The strict limitation of power, not its glorification; demystified social organization;
An open, inclusive culture that respects natural reason and human dignity.
Only then can we climb the ladder of civilizational progress, rather than endlessly circling in a flood of power, defying civilization, reason, and humanity.
