United Federation of China

**China**, officially the **United Federation of China**, was a sovereign state located in East Asia. It was the world's third most populous country, with a population of over 895 million just prior to its collapse. The UFC was a multi-party semi-presidential republic, and briefly attempted to adopt the Quantum Economic Model in the 2090s.

## History

Founded in 2058 shortly after the fall of the Communist Regime to internal strife and Japanese invasion, the United Federation of China was established by Social Democrats in mainland China, and the Nationalist Unity Society in Taiwan to combat Japanese and Turkish influence in China.

### **Founding**

In 2058, after a century of division and communist rule on the mainland, a Federation was established between mainland China and Taiwan. The People's Republic that preceded the Federation experienced three decades of instability beginning in the Great Reset, made worse by the Flood, and suffered from both internal rebellion and foreign influence. The persistent instability eventually led to revolution, civil war, and foreign invasion, first by Western powers in an attempt to secure international interests, and then by the Japanese. The western effort to prop up the Chinese economy and maintain international order proved too little and too late. Only the lack of an alternative regime prolonged the existence of the communist regime until World War III.

The establishment of a United China developed out of the United Front in Chongqing after the Japanese invasion of Beijing in July 2048. The United Front saw an informal alliance between Taiwan and the remnants of the People's Liberation Army based in Chongqing. 29 December 2054, representatives from Taiwan, and twenty-one provinces met in Beijing to form a provisional United Government.

### **Golden decade**

The new United China looked to have finally gotten over the millennia of cycles of growth, disparity, and revolution that had plagued Chinese civilization since its inception. The Federation shared in the prosperity of the post-war world, its economy bolstered by American investment and the return of its low lying coast-lands after the refreeze that let the Chinese rebuild their greatest cities. The flood had driven millions of Chinese inland, and driven a new kind of cultural revolution that spread the wealth and skills of the richer coastal areas to the poorer inland provinces. When the waters receded, and Shanghai was returned from the seas, the children of those pilgrims to the frontier returned to their parent's cities, and built an economic boom that returned China to its position as the economic heart of Asia, and the second largest economy on Earth.

### **Decline**

The population crisis of the Americans could not compare to that of China. Where the United States began to feel the stings of an inflated workforce made redundant by advances in robotics and automation by the late 2070s, China had been reeling from economic depression for most of the decade. When the gates opened for a new wave of colonists to Mars in 2081, was it any wonder that the Chinese saw the largest transfer of citizens to the American space colonies? Over half a billion people from China flooded to the colonies in the space of 20 years, abandoning their homeland for the promise of a better life in space. For those that stayed behind, a power vacuum was left by the elites that had fled. By 2096, many Chinese leaders sought to adopt the Quantum Economic Model that had freed the colonies from economic disaster. After several pilot programs in Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Nanning, the government began to move forward with plans to be the first nation on Earth to implement the colonial model. Unfortunately for the Chinese, the Mex-American Cold War intervened.

#### **Second Vietnam War**

*Main article: Second Vietnam War*

China was, together with Japan, America's strongest ally in Asia, and a critical ally in the Second Vietnam War. After the conflict ended, many Chinese soldiers returned home to not only find their economy still devoid of opportunities, but the United government delaying pensions for veterans. The whole situation was a powder keg, and Mexico was quick to exploit it for their own benefit. After making contacts with local regionalists, Mexican operatives quickly established separatists movements from within local Chinese Army regiments. With a little social engineering, all of Southern China was quickly in open revolt against the Federalist government in Beijing. The revolts in the South eventually became a coup d'état that forced the Americans to invade and pacify the Chinese capital. After a short, but costly civil war, some order began to be restored by 2108 and a provisional republic governed from American-run Shanghai had been propped up. Taiwan and Manchuria were in open rebellion, but not by Mexican sponsored revolutionaries, but revolts from local governments who refused to submit to a government so incapable of keeping the country in one piece.