There’s a simple reason why all the “emperor” labels and analogies being thrown around Twitter are unreasonable: most Chinese emperors neither held unchecked power, nor lacked a succession plan. Prior to the Qing, bureaucrats imposed considerable checks on the emperor’s power, …

… so much so, in fact, that it bogged down the state more often than not. During the Qing, Manchu emperors gained more control over the state, but the state’s control over society at large shrunk dramatically, and local self-governance was the norm. …

In either era, there were usually institutionalized succession plans. So say what you will about China’s current political situation, but it’s not an “natural extension” of its imperial history. In fact, we’ve almost never had anything like this in the imperial past.

As a rule, one should never draw a straight line between a premodern state that lacked coercive powers over local communities and a modern state that wields enormous control over individual activities—arguably more control than any other state in human history. Just saying.