&quot;I believe the China is the longest surviving political entity.&quot;<p>By my standards, what we today call China dates to the 1949 Communist revolution. For China to be able to claim continuity, the other side would have had to have won. &quot;Polities located vaguely in the Chinese landmass area&quot; is not an institution.<p>&quot;China has caught up in many many ways and starting to out innovate even the US. And they&#x27;re just getting started.&quot;<p>I&#x27;m not seeing a lot of evidence of innovation. What I see is a Communist country doing what Communist countries do, living off of the innovation of others while pouring a lot of effort into PR that confuses credulous Westerners who really want to believe. I believe the Chinese people are capable of innovating, but until they structure their society differently, it isn&#x27;t going to happen. It is an interesting question as to whether the Chinese people could tolerate and&#x2F;or adjust to a truly high-innovation culture, but that&#x27;s a PhD-thesis-sized topic.