China has been struggling to balance centralization and fragmentation – that is, control and uncertainty – throughout its long history of rising and falling dynasties, domestic decay, and foreign invasion. While the open, meritocratic selection of “scholar-officials” helped to sustain China’s closed dynastic governance structure for more than 2,000 years, it could not offset the system’s growing fragility under the Qing Dynasty, as territorial gains increased the empire’s population from 150 million to 450 million.