Eric: The Empire's Achilles' Heel: Authority and Face

Every central empire has an Achilles' heel; if pressed, ever a seemingly immovable giant will collapse with a crash.

Therefore, every empire uses various means to cover and protect it: displaying powerful armies, inventing complex rituals, constructing imposing buildings...

China is no different.

It has fallen into crisis: the downward spiral of the two major problems of population and debt is almost irreversible. In this sense, the late-communist period has indeed arrived. But if one sits idly waiting for the tide to turn, the CCP still has many tools to prolong its life or even drag things out until new technologies bring about a change in the situation.

Therefore, please discard various abstract theories and pick up common sense: to overthrow the CCP, a new political-military group must be formed to strike the empire's Achilles' heel, break the deadlock, and leverage change.

I previously mentioned that if dissidents concentrate their resources on the right path, the CCP could be overthrown in at most thirty years. Many feel this number is too optimistic; in fact, this number is conservative.

As long as continuous pressure is applied to the empire's Achilles' heel, the effect will exceed your expectations.

This Achilles' heel is the empire's authority.

In plain language: face.

That small plane that crashed into the China Zun, regardless of how the official announcements downplayed its nature, was still a slap in the face to the empire's noble face before the whole world.

What the opposition must do is to deliver even heavier slaps.

Whether it is crossing the border to occupy a government building or an outpost, even if they withdraw immediately after the attack or the occupation fails, it is still a slap in the face. Not to mention that there are more types of actions that can achieve the same or stronger effects.

Failure of the action is irrelevant; what matters is making the empire lose face. Just as Sun Yat-sen's ten uprisings, even though they all failed, they could thoroughly trample the empire's authority into the mud, giving various factions, including Yuan Shikai, the courage to act differently from then on.

Face is the life of the empire.

The larger the empire, the less it is maintained by force, and more by authority and face; its importance is even greater than that of finance. Many empires' finances were already overburdened, yet they lingered on, maintaining a surface stability by relying on the remaining prestige of their authority. But once a sudden event tears off that intimidating mask, the empire will quickly fall into the dust of chaos and disintegration.

This is the ultimate art of rebellion; mastering it allows dissidents to look down upon any empire. A powerful army cannot eliminate this Achilles' heel; on the contrary, when the empire's authority is broken, their own generals will become enemies.

So, what is the method that makes the empire lose face the most and can most effectively destroy its authority?

It is simple: aim for the true pillar of the empire's authority—the armed police and military.

Any action that can reveal and mock the incompetence of the armed police and military is the ultimate contempt and blow to the empire's authority.