Mandarinate

The Mandarinate is the dominant power in the dystopian cyberpunk future world of the late 21st century in the Interface Zero roleplaying game by the Pinnacle Entertainment Group.

The Mandarinate plays a role on the global stage and within China like that of the British Empire, the Roman Republic, or the United States at their best and with all their flaws. It is a force for peace and prosperity within its own dominion, and when it expands many welcome it's rule or assimilate and grow to become loyal citizens. On the other hand there are those whom fear China because of its success and those who refuse to assimilate.

Origin
In 2020, the Chinese Communist Party which had been responsible for creating a situation in which millions of young men were doomed to have no wives, a Bachelor generations, was overthrown by a revolution of those men. They were led by the "New Mandarins", the bureaucrats of China, who went on to create a meritocratic bureaucratic state. It was a successful revolution that happened during a time of global crisis due to environmental disasters caused by climate change (e.g. rising sea levels), the withdrawal of America's military forces from their overseas bases, and rising geopolitical tensions due to the return of inter-state wars.

Bachelor Wars
In 2024, a border incident resulted in China going to war against unified Korea which fell in two weeks. The occupation of Korea was done with a light touch by the Chinese having learned from history. Afterwards, the Chinese invaded Mongolia and the various countries of mainland Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos). In each case there was only token resistance against China and they quickly fell. What happened is that most of the population in those countries together with those nations' business interests wanted their countries to be annexed by China. As it was a growing economic, technological, and military power in an increasingly chaotic world, they decided to hitch their wagon to that of China's. Once the Chinese took over, the locals cheerfully prosecuted the corrupt elite in their countries. Taiwan by that time was already part of China, as it had been annexed years before the establishment of the Mandarinate. Singapore joined the Mandarinate without being invaded by China.

2030 Crisis
In 2030, the Chinese Mandarinate nearly doubled in size because of a global crisis. In the previous year, the world experience its first nuclear wars. First the Islamic nuclear powers (Iran and Pakistan) went to war with Israel. In the exchange which followed, the major cities of several Muslim nations were destroyed and so was most of Israel. The second nuclear war happened days later because India thought that Pakistan had spent all of its nuclear weapons and therefore they could take advantage of the situation to resolve their decades long on and off war with Pakistan. To their horror they quickly discovered that Pakistan still had tactical nukes which decimated India's invading forces. Another nuclear exchange occurred, and within 24 hours, India had lost both Delhi and Madras and Pakistan was done as a nation.

Today
China is currently Earth's leading space power, who landed the first humans on Mars in 2043. They are also the world leaders in numerous fields of technology and science. The closest economic and geopolitical rivals is the Eurasian Union and Brazil, since the United States fragmented into multiple rival states after their seccond civil war in the 2060s. Chinese occupation forces were withdrawn from Korea in 2040 and eventually they were withdrawn from all their other "conquests" except in Siberia where they are still facing a Russian insurgency who unlike the Southeast Asians were not happy when China invaded their country.

Government
The Mandarin government has 35 Ministries, who are in constant competition with each other both at the local level and at the national level.Within each region there is a council with representatives from each of the ministries and this is also the case at the national level. These councils mediate the disputes between the ministries. The best among it's citizens are chosen at childhood to join one of the ministries, resulting that in China the government is a meritocracy run by China's brightest. Those who join the bureaucracy become either functionaries (the lowest rank), junior Mandarins, or senior Mandarins (who are the brightest and most talented).

Society
To prevent the problem of overpopulation and of a new generation of bachelors, the state has implemented a population control policy in which the families are each assigned a gender quota based on the societal and demographic needs of China. In addition, China has created a caste of genderless eunuchs who have been engineered to lose their gender puberty once they hit puberty, thereby also helping curb population growth.

Cities throughout China are as modern as any elsewhere on Earth. What sets them apart is that by policy there are districts where you can live in which the architecture and living styles preserve the previous eras making their cities a combination of a 21st century fast-paced, bleeding cutting-edge metropolis and a historical imperial set piece. In the countryside, the old ways are preserved and those among its citizens who are unable to contribute to China in other ways serve China by living and working as peasants.

Economy
China has industries as modern as those of its rivals, as well as a number of megacorporations that are globally competitive. The largest and most powerful of the Chinese megacorporations would be Global Promise, Inc', which is likely also the largest company in the world. It's a publicly-traded company which is a world leader in androids, military equipment, and heavy industry. Publicly it's goals are in synch with that of China, but secretly it is attempting to become the most powerful organization in the world. It has ties to several of the criminal Triad syndicates. The Mandarinate so far is unaware of the world domination aspirations of Golden Promise, Inc.

The countryside on the other hand looks like ancient China. It's rural citizenry live in small towns and villages, making their living working as farmers using traditional farming technology, methods, and techniques. Which reduces the environmental damage, permitting the restoration of the environment, and therefore resulting in a beautiful countryside. In Thailand little of its industry remains as most of it has been turned into farmland, becoming a breadbasket of China.

Technology
The Mandarinate possesses advanced technology, which is comparable or superior to which most of the world possesses, including;


 * Nanotechnology
 * Interplanetary Spacecraft
 * Power Armor
 * Genetic Engineering
 * Mecha
 * Directed Energy Weeapons (Lasers and Particle Beams)
 * Rail Guns
 * Gyro Rocket Firearms
 * VTOL Vehicles
 * Cybernetics
 * Androids
 * Hybrid Humans (spliced with animal DNA)
 * Simulacra (vat-grown humans)

Alternate Version
In the reboot of Interface Zero, everything described so far is the same except for the timeline in which certain events happened decades later and how the fall of Russia happened. Which was due to a crisis brought about not by a nuclear war but by a computer virus that brought down the economy of the Eurasian Union resulting in the loss of jobs for a big chunk of its population, affecting Russia and then leading to its invasion by China.