Sectarian Violence in China, 2026-2051 (A Mighty Endeavour)

The period of sectarian violence in the People's Republic of China from 2026 to 2051 was a time during which anywhere from 78 to 124 million people died due to disease, starvation, and police-rioter violence. It resulted in the economic recovery of China from the Asian Crash of 2026 to be stalled by almost two decades and the formation of Tibet, the annexation of Hong Kong and Shenzhen into Taiwan and numerous others.

History
The Asian Crash of 2026 caused the economic collapse of China. Due to the bursting of multiple financial bubbles, including that of the housing, financial and electronics industries, Chinese companies collapsed en masse, with Xiaomi, Baidu, Alibaba and others either laying off massive amounts of workers or completely collapsing. This devastated the Chinese economy, with over 23 million people finding themselves unemployed in the first year. The Chinese government then artificially propped up Chinese companies in order to prevent further damage, initially stopping further rises in unemployment.

However, immediately after, municipal and provincial offices throughout China began reporting that they were unable to pay back off-balance-sheet debt, and Chinese billionaires and millionaires began escaping abroad, followed by what is often described as the total collapse of Chinese economic power. The Chinese government rolled back the Belt and Road Initiative after stalling on projects in early 2027, with media reports indicating internal chaos caused by massive amounts of unpaid debt. Finally, massive layoffs occurred at China's largest companies, with the government starting to seize assets from smaller companies supposedly suspected of engaging in 'illicit financial activity', causing 36 million people to be unemployed, and reducing the salaries of many workers to the point that at least 80 million people had to take additional jobs and lose their homes.

By 2028 the crisis had escalated to the point where every major Chinese industry was laying off anywhere from 25% to 45% of its domestic workers or simply moving overseas altogether. Tencent, among others, was one of the first to change its name and escape over the oceans to either the archipelagos of East Asia or to the United States (It is currently a subsidary of Activision Blizzard San Francisco, known as Phuture). Similarly, this began an international migration crisis, with Chinese diplomats at the UN demanding that Chinese citizens be allowed continued migration to the rest of Asia, although by 2031 only the United States and Canada was willing to take in migrants. In the meantime, spiking unemployment induced the First Tibetan War of Secession, with both ethnic Tibetans and Han Chinese participating; the Chinese government was unable to quell it and as thus Tibet came under a state of martial law.

In 2031 the United States proposed that Taiwan should be inducted into the United Nations under the official title of the Republic of Taiwan. Chinese representatives protested, with one - Chang En-Kai - actually walking over to the American table and severely injuring U.S Ambassador to the United Nations Frank T. Holland. Holland was evacuated, and the Chinese representatives were immediately suspended, upon which the representatives of Pakistan and Turkey left. Finally, the allowance of the Taiwanese President to talk at the UN convinced eight other members to leave unilaterally in what became known as the Walkout of '31.

With the occurrence of the Third World War, violence temporarily ceased as part of a nationalistic wave that swept over China. The Chinese economy also recovered slightly as part of the war economy; however, that soon faltered with the Indian bombing of agricultural centres in China, causing mass starvation and logistics problems that eventually resulted in the loss of the war. At the Pho Peace Negotiations, the Chinese Communist Party was able to secure its continued governance of the country, although unilaterally ceasing control over Tibet and Hong Kong; it refused to honour multiple other deals in the Treaty of Pho. A year later, President Xi died. A lack of solidified leadership meant that the CCP itself went into factional warfare that then proceedingly induced what is now known as the Year Without Order within China.

No consolidated leadership in existence forced the Chinese economy to suffer well into the 2040s, with mass unemployment skyrocketing to levels where one in every six Chinese Nationals was either unemployed or working in so-called 'paper jobs' - where civilians were forcibly made to accept work for rations, typically too little to sustain a family. This was exacerbated by the loss of multiple coastal financial centres due to sea level rise, which further pushed China into the red. The result was a rapidly decreasing overall population and one of the highest crime rates in the world, with entire sections of the country being rendered lawless due to a lack of law enforcement.

While negotiating the Andrews Agreement with the United States in 2042-2043, hoping to smooth relations and end the sanctions on China which it believed was the primary prohibitor of recovery, the Shanghai Shootings ended any American negotiation. Beijing further cut off relations with Taiwan and South Korea after Hong Kong's eventual secession (which Chinese diplomats begrudgingly recognised) and a wide-ranging secessionist movement in Guangzhou, Fujian, Xinjiang and others.

In 2046, a civil demonstration in Beijing formally forced moderate-turned-hardliner Gang Jun-wen to resign, paving the way for moderate President Wang Zhi-Wen to kickstart Chinese recovery. The passage of the Reform Act allowed for economic reforms and foreign funding to enter China, although Wang would soon be replaced by Zhang Yi-Zhe in a military coup, marking the beginning of Military Dictatorship in China.

Effects
The legacy of the era of Sectarian Violence, defined in China as the 'Age of Humiliation', has been profound on the future of Asia and the world as a whole. A large Chinese diaspora of 102 million people was displaced around the world, including in India, where they became the Mañcaḷ makkaḷ; and in the United States, where they mixed with a far wealthier Japanese diaspora and became part of the Toking Americans (so named for combining Tokyo and Beijing together in a single word). The largest of these is indeed the Mañcaḷ makkaḷ, who make up 48 million people. Other notable diaspora include the 11 million that fled to Japan, known as the Japanicised Chinese, as well as the 2 million that fled to Taiwanese Hong Kong, named the Escapees from Shenzhen.

Historian Walter A. Scott argues that the effects of the era directly led to Indian and Pakistani unity, arguably preventing what would have been a 'race war of epic proportions, only prevented by hatred for another group altogether'. Similarly, Hiro Shimada of Tokyo University has largely argued that the diaspora has become a 'symbol of a new era... an unstable era... one where empires are past their time', stating that the Chinese in Japan have become part of another society altogether and gave up what culture they had from China.

China has sustained lasting economic and demographic damage from the period. The Chinese population, before 2026, stood at 1.423 billion people; in 2051, it was estimated to be only 879 million, with the working-age population of China at an all-time low. Similarly, China as of 2087 has no post-WWIII population boom, and as such is projected to reduce to an estimated 840 million by 2100. Similarly, Chinese business ventures received lasting damage, and since 2043 the Chinese government has had no representatives in the World Trade Organisation; the last ambassador of the People's Republic of China to be posted to an Economic Forum, the Indian-Pacific Financial Discussion, was recalled in 2071. The Chinese economy dropped from a brief first in the world in 2025 to the 38th in 2087. As of 2087, regional trade makes up only 7.6% of the total Chinese economy, making it the third most economically isolated nation in the world, only behind Brazil (5.1%) and The Gambia (3.2%).

Similarly, the period also stunted Chinese ability to face the effects of global warming, with a two degree rise causing multiple crop failures over the years and also directly leading to the abandoning of the South-North Water Transfer Project, which caused flooding in major Chinese cities and the loss of major ports all across China, further preventing it from re-internationalising.