Jehoshua hasn't said that the Mandate of Heaven is irrelevant, merely, that the concept has less force in this timeline than it does OTL, not because there's some POD hundreds of years ago that EQ has forgot to mention, but because China has spent about century or so divided among nations, particularly between the Ascendants/China, UK/Guangxi, and Japan.
Yes, particularly considering there is no power which could realistically claim the mandate (Red Army is losing ground, Guangxi and Japan are themselves, and the Ascendants are old remnants long bereft of lordship)
@Jehoshua: Like others, I really don't think that as a non-history-heavy Australian you have the perspective to understand the absurd nationalism of the Old World.
That's not to say that it invalidates your argument. I personally disagree with it, but that's a whole other matter, and I have no sources on hand with which to actually back up that disagreement.
Just saying that I don't think you can understand just how crazy nationalism can get in the Old States.
Perhaps I can not understand it, but you can't say Im not history heavy considering my area of study is international relations/history (mostly modern)
No, I am frustrated because you are speaking out of ignorance, and assume all humans think like Europeans in their values, identity, cultural outlook. You are ascribing European narratives to what is currently going on in China, you have done this repeatedly, and you have not been listening to the chorus of comments telling you you're wrong.
It's not about face, it's about assuming the European narrative about legitimacy and identity is universal, when the Chinese have their own narratives about political legitimacy, narratives that you keep dismissing in order to impose a framing that has zero applicability in the situation.
I'm not assuming all humans think like Europeans, or share their cultural outlook, and I am not ascribing a European narrative to what's going on in China. I'm simply making what I think is a commonsensical point that with China divided, and with no power present that can claim the mandate over the whole country, then its foolish to say that unifying agency cannot possibly, ever, in ten thousand lifetimes emerge from Guangxi, even if it turns away from British influence (since I am not contesting you that its Britishness is problematic) OR that China in CI is identical to China OTL in its society as you seem to be saying. That's not making a claim that European legitimacy narratives and identity constructs are universal, indeed I'm not even applying a European narrative to China (I'm not applying liberal univeralism, European style nationalism or discounting traditional chinese sources of legitimacy), I'm simply saying that assuming its the same as OTL China in every little social detail is awfully simplistic considering the numerous ruptures (Ascendant persecution of Han Chinese and adoption of a Christian heresy as the organising principle of their state in rejection of traditional practices, European policy during their period of conquest linguistically probably favouring regional languages, Japanese policies including ethnic cleansing and colonisation which have severely altered the natural population in both size and ethnic distribution) that have occurred there as Quisani has noted much more eloquently than I, and the period of time where division has entrenched itself. (you can't say the Han or traditionalists would have good memories of or look favourably towards the ascendants, indeed they are even less traditionally Chinese than Guangxi in many ways.)
China and its people simply have been beaten down over and over, relentlessly, for a century in CI, much much more than it ever was IRL, you can't reasonably say that this has had no consequences for the society of the people there whatsoever.
