Where will the future threat for China come from?

When I am looking at China's history, I see until the Qing dynasty, almost all the threats come from the north, the Xiongnu, the Mongols, Jurchen and others. Only until recently, the threat came from over the ocean.

But with the invention of modern firearms, do you think the people of the north, aka Mongols will ever have the chance to rise up again or posses any threats to China ever again? If yes or no, then who else might be a threat, what about Russia, India/Tibet, and maybe even people from South East Asia?

Of course I am talking about 200-1000 years into the future.

(please keep this discussion civil and purely technical)

I hope you are joking about the Mongols....

The city of Baotao in Inner Mongolia can beat Mongolia. On its own. The entire Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region would just be total overkill against Mongolia.

Anyway, it's not quite true - China had faced sea-borne threats before the 19th century - the wokou is a notable example unless you mean 500+ years by recently.

To be honest, 200-1000 is a long time off so as to make geopolitical speculation almost pointless. 200 years ago Napoleon was about to march on Russia and the gravest threat faced by the United States was internal cohesion, in China, foreign merchants were corralled in factories, and the Maratha were still contesting Company rule in India.

The former enemies of China did have mobility for raids to get hold of Chinese property. These raids allowed for the agglomeration of several raider groups until they had the most success by conquering regions, or even the whole of China.
Today the horse has lost any outstanding ability for military contributions, eliminating the traditional great threats from Central Asia.
The threat by an enemy on the coasts persists today, as in former times, but the UN system has done a lot to limit these either to regulated wars or crime, with little in between in scope and scale.
In our modern world, knowledge and information provide an increasing component of our wealth. At the same time storage and transfer of stored information reaches a new scale. The future will likely see increased transgression in this field with resulting loss of property and intentional destruction (Iran's nuclear program highlights such abilities). These information raids will replace the mounted raids of old and have the ability to destroy a nation's wealth by sapping of their ability to sell products on the international market.
Precursors were WWI and WWII. The Entente/Allies gained not as much in territory, as they gained by plundering the know-how of the defeated (WWI annuling all patent-protection claims of the Central Powers, while Nazi-Germany gained many advantages by plundering the intellectual property of occupied nations, like Dutch submarine snorkels, Czech-tanks and so on, making them the most formidable enemy). The backlash was that the defeated had to jump ahead in know-how and are now the economic powers Germany and Japan, with especially Japan being able to acquire global dominance in certain fields by cleverly combining espionage, application research and investments. Germany, by contrast, has rather been a loser in the espionage system and invested more into research of fundamentals than only applications, while often lacking the imagination to grasp the implications and economic potential. This nicely illustrates that the know-how threat can stiffle as well as enhance development and growth.

I didn't include Wokou because they were not really a threat per say that would take over China, they were not that organized, and their goal was to raid for profit. But I don't think they ever wanted to became the central government.

As for Mongolia, yes that is true, but remember after Han's campaign which defeated Xiongnu they probably felt the same way about the people from the north. But is there any possible way that for the nomadic people to rise up again in the future, or have technology totally negated their advantage in the past.

Because if it is true that China will never again face a threat from land, then this would mean a significant implication for the Chinese civilization. Because I don't see the people from across the ocean have any motivation to completely take over China. That means all you will have in the future is waves and waves of internal revolutions that overthrown the existing government and being replaced by another government from the Han people and just as big in size.

The greatest threat that China would face in the next 200 to 1000 years? Alien Invaders, of course!

Second to Aliens, the greatest threat China would face is the same greatest threat that China had faced throughout its history: itself. From Qin to Qing, China's dynasties fell not from foreign conquests, but from internal rebellions. The sole exception is the Song dynasty, which was actually conquered by the Mongols.

---------- Post added at 02:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:55 PM ----------

Preux said:

I hope you are joking about the Mongols....

The city of Baotao in Inner Mongolia can beat Mongolia. On its own. The entire Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region would just be total overkill against Mongolia.

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Heh, I checked out the numbers with Wikipedia:

Mongolia
- Land Area: 1.56 million square km
- Population: 2.75 million
- Ethnicity: 95% mongols
- GDP: $13.2 billion, $4,743 per capita

Inner Mongolia
- Land Area: 1.18 million square km
- Population: 24.7 million
- Ethnicity: 79% han, 17% mongols
- GDP: $219 billion, $8,854 per capita

And if we do a little math:

2.75 mil * 95% = 2.6 mil
24.7 mil * 17% = 4.2 mil

So there are actually 60% more ethnic mongolians in the Inner Mongolia province alone (nevermind ethnic mongolians elsewhere in China) than there are ethnic mongolians in the entire nation of (outer) Mongolia.

So what Preux said isn't much of an exaggeration...

The seaborne invasions did have a major impact on China. The goal of naval warfare is around sea lines of communication (SLoC) control in order to carry out profitable business. These profitable business can be pirate raids or narco submarines delivering their cargo. In case of China it were large narco-merchantmen.
Whether or not you occupy some or all land at the end of SLoC depends on many factors and the profits usually only increase marginally in comparison to staggering investments for transporting tools for controlling land by sea. European colonialism was a world transformation in order to create an infrastructure that in the future should make pay offs (including forced labour on export products as taxes). Decolonialization was the awakening from an increasingly expensive nightmare because the numbers of the colonized increased in face of the numbers of the colonizers, while also becoming more adept at understanding their overlords and thus capable of pushing their own interests.
Western power currently is naval power and someone without naval power is an economic underdog if he challenges the way of the West because he does not have much secure SLoC.
The maritime raids on China deeply disturbed the Chinese economy because trade by sea and living by the sea have always been most important for creating wealth and thus most people live there and most trade is by this route. The difference, between India and China for example. was whether the wealth of the nation was siphoned to someone else with more or less boots on the ground. Overall, the way China was handled, proved a lot more profitable than India for the British East Indian Company. Everyone is well aware of the massive destruction this caused and the pirate raids yielded only a little less destruction, by creating a deserted coast that in my opinion contributed to China lagging behind the naval powers of North-Western Europe.
WWII from a Chinese perspective was about fighting a naval invasion that fortunately had little strength in comparison to the other theaters on land. Later on, the Soviet Union could be a more capable enemy, replacing the former steppe threats.
Russia is currently far away from being a threat, but Uzbekistan, India, Pakistan and Russia still do have the power to become potential threats on land in the distant future.

Naval threats tend to be misunderstood and underrated because they didn't always require boots on the ground for the same objective as landlocked threats.

Potential instability on China's northern land border is with Russia, possibly over the rise of China, and increasing decrepit decay of the Russia economy and state, which is puny compared to China's, but over the long term horizon, Siberian forest, water, minerals, and natural resources would look tempting to the Chinese leadership once U.S. naval influence is evicted from East Asia. Of course, this may manifest in the form of demographic migration into Siberia from China to secure a de-facto economic sphere of influence, while annexation of Outer Manchuria/territories East of the Amur river would occur like 2100 (very long time), but that is the general trend. Russia losing her eastern territories, China regaining/gaining the Siberian riches. This may occur over an 200-500 year period. We'd be long dead by then

Phead128 said:

Potential instability on China's northern land border is with Russia, possibly over the rise of China, and increasing decrepit decay of the Russia economy and state, which is puny compared to China's, but over the long term horizon, Siberian forest, water, minerals, and natural resources would look tempting to the Chinese leadership once U.S. naval influence is evicted from East Asia. Of course, this may manifest in the form of demographic migration into Siberia from China to secure a de-facto economic sphere of influence, while annexation of Outer Manchuria/territories East of the Amur river would occur like 2100 (very long time), but that is the general trend. Russia losing her eastern territories, China regaining/gaining the Siberian riches. This may occur over an 200-500 year period. We'd be long dead by then

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OK, but this makes China a threat for Russia, not the other way round. Before doing an invasion one should remember that the economic riches of Siberia are most important for a country with lots of strategic and tactical nukes and a first strike doctrine.

Kurt said:

OK, but this makes China a threat for Russia, not the other way round. Before doing an invasion one should remember that the economic riches of Siberia are most important for a country with lots of strategic and tactical nukes and a first strike doctrine.

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Similar to the US-China detent after the Sino-Soviet Split over Siberian border region, I can see Russia engaging with the United States in an de-facto anti-Chinese "alliance", possibly using United States political and economic clout to force China to think of the consequences of indulging in monopolistic lust over Siberian riches; a region that could be a geopolitical game changer should China gain de-facto sphere of influence over it.

I think China would go the way of demographic expansion into Siberia over multiple generations, rather than outright annexation which would isolate China in the international community, and risk a war with a still formidable Russian military force (not to mention nukes flying everywhere).

By then, Russia would probably have sold Siberia to China for a good price.

Phead128 said:

Similar to the US-China detent after the Sino-Soviet Split over Siberian border region, I can see Russia engaging with the United States in an de-facto anti-Chinese "alliance", possibly using United States political and economic clout to force China to think of the consequences of indulging in monopolistic lust over Siberian riches; a region that could be a geopolitical game changer should China gain de-facto sphere of influence over it.

I think China would go the way of demographic expansion into Siberia over multiple generations, rather than outright annexation which would isolate China in the international community, and risk a war with a still formidable Russian military force (not to mention nukes flying everywhere).

By then, Russia would probably have sold Siberia to China for a good price.

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I would say that even in as little as 100 years, it would be far more profitable for China to start off-planet colonies than to try to annex a neighbor.