> Most governments in history were authoritarian and many were stable for hundreds of years.
There are currently two state level organisations over 1,000 years old, Japan’s Chrysanthemum Throne, aka the Imperial Household and the Holy See or Papacy. The only other state to break 1,000 years I’m aware of was the Most Serene Republic of Venice. State continuity is an extremely hard problem, and I don’t see much evidence that monarchies were stable. Succession disputes and civil wars are really common in republics, monarchies, empires, everything. Democracy’s virtue is in simulating a civil war by counting heads and facilitating an orderly and peaceful transfer of power between groups that detest each other. When the hate gets too much then you get a civil war.
Authoritarian governments have the problem that the Western bloc is implacably opposed to their existence and will take any opportunity to extinguish them. Look at what happened to Libya after Qaddafi cooperated and dismantled the chemical weapons programme and did that help him? Hell no. Hilary Clinton gloated over his death after she persuaded Obama to destroy the only Libya.
This is not the only time the US has opted to spread its values at the expense of countries that had no quarrel with it. The US sent the Flying Tigers to Burma well before Pearl Harbor, and knew perfectly well that the oil blockade of Japan was an existential threat to the Empire of Japan. Likewise the US got into WWI and WWII because it wanted to. The US was shipping aid and supplies to the U.K. The sibling of the Lusitania was hardly an unforeseen consequence of supporting one side in a war.
China is well aware of this, or at least the Politburo and the rest of the top level cadres in Zhongnanhai are. The West is inimical to their existence. Ditto the North Korean leadership. The US is totally untrustworthy as far as they’re concerned.
More broadly apart from the Holy See and Chrysanthemum Throne the countries that have gone the longest with continuity of government and sovereignty are the USA and U.K. The US is due for another civil war, people certainly hate each other enough and the UK’s claims to governmental continuity have a huge asterisk called the Glorious Revolution or Dutch invasion.
> There are currently two state level organisations over 1,000 years old, Japan’s Chrysanthemum Throne, aka the Imperial Household and the Holy See or Papacy.
The Holy See hasn't actually been either stable or a state level organization continuously for the last thousand years.
When wasn’t it? During the Avignon captivity it was at least as powerful as now. Between Italian unification and the Lateran Pact it had diplomats with the customary immunity, embassies and ability to make treaties. The Holy See has had rival claimants since 1,000 but the current pontiff derives in a direct line from that of 1,000 AD just as the current British government has a rock solid claim to continuity since the Glorious Revolution.
Well, it didn't even become a “state level organization” until the temporal dominions of the papacy became separate from the Holy Roman Empire in 1177, so even if you ignore both times the papal states were disestablished, it doesn't reach 1000 years.
> The Holy See has had rival claimants since 1,000 but the current pontiff derives in a direct line from that of 1,000 AD
Only in the sense that a convention later grew of describing a particular line through the period of two and then three competing lines of popes that were ended with a common replacement as “the” line of popes, but that's an after-the-fact rationalization, not actual continuity.
There are currently two state level organisations over 1,000 years old, Japan’s Chrysanthemum Throne, aka the Imperial Household and the Holy See or Papacy. The only other state to break 1,000 years I’m aware of was the Most Serene Republic of Venice. State continuity is an extremely hard problem, and I don’t see much evidence that monarchies were stable. Succession disputes and civil wars are really common in republics, monarchies, empires, everything. Democracy’s virtue is in simulating a civil war by counting heads and facilitating an orderly and peaceful transfer of power between groups that detest each other. When the hate gets too much then you get a civil war.
Authoritarian governments have the problem that the Western bloc is implacably opposed to their existence and will take any opportunity to extinguish them. Look at what happened to Libya after Qaddafi cooperated and dismantled the chemical weapons programme and did that help him? Hell no. Hilary Clinton gloated over his death after she persuaded Obama to destroy the only Libya.
This is not the only time the US has opted to spread its values at the expense of countries that had no quarrel with it. The US sent the Flying Tigers to Burma well before Pearl Harbor, and knew perfectly well that the oil blockade of Japan was an existential threat to the Empire of Japan. Likewise the US got into WWI and WWII because it wanted to. The US was shipping aid and supplies to the U.K. The sibling of the Lusitania was hardly an unforeseen consequence of supporting one side in a war.
China is well aware of this, or at least the Politburo and the rest of the top level cadres in Zhongnanhai are. The West is inimical to their existence. Ditto the North Korean leadership. The US is totally untrustworthy as far as they’re concerned.
More broadly apart from the Holy See and Chrysanthemum Throne the countries that have gone the longest with continuity of government and sovereignty are the USA and U.K. The US is due for another civil war, people certainly hate each other enough and the UK’s claims to governmental continuity have a huge asterisk called the Glorious Revolution or Dutch invasion.