A constitutional storm in a teacup brewed in Malaysia in June when the ruler of the state of Johor, Sultan Ibrahim Ismail, articulated a litany of complaints against the federal government, and warned that the people of his state might decide to secede from Malaysia if the central government continued to treat Johor like a “stepchild”. Johor is one of the country’s 13 states and three federal territories. The modern nation of Malaysia was established 59 years ago as a federation of the territories of Malaya (i.e. the 11 states in the Malay Peninsula), British North Borneo (renamed Sabah), Sarawak and Singapore. Singapore was famously ejected two years later from Malaysia in 1965. Unlike unitary states such as Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines, where their central governments exercise supreme authority over the entire country, nations like the United States, Australia and Malaysia are organised as federations, with constituent states electing their own state governments and enjoying varying degrees of autonomy. For most part of its history, China has been a highly centralised unitary state where its central government – be it imperial, republican or socialist – wields extensive powers over the provinces and other local administrative units. The authority of all local government officials, even the “autonomous” ones past and present, is derived from their appointment or recognition by the central government. This high degree of centralisation was established in 221BC with the founding of the Qin dynasty, when the Chinese nation was reorganised as an empire with the emperor at the apex of the political order, in whose name all officials were appointed and all policies implemented. All local administrative units of the empire were directly controlled by and answerable to the central government. Even during periods when China was fragmented into mutually hostile states and warlord regimes, each of these polities was a centralised unitary state in and of itself. Ancient Chinese porn served various purposes, including fire prevention Federation as a political concept has been alien to the Chinese psyche for over 2,000 years. The closest China came to being a federal nation was during the Zhou dynasty (circa 1046BC-256BC). King Wu, the first king of the Zhou dynasty, granted noble titles and territories to the members of his family and his close associates, whose descendants would inherit the titles and lands in perpetuity. In return, these feudal lords recognised the king’s “Mandate of Heaven” to rule over them. The king periodically received tributes from his lords and could demand military assistance from them if necessary, either to repel attacks from non-Chinese peoples at the kingdom’s frontiers or to punish errant lords. Otherwise, the king left the lords alone to run their territories as they saw fit. A lesson for Christians, Muslims and Jews from China’s major religions This “federal” system gradually broke down as the familial and personal relationships between the kings and the regional dynasties diluted over generations. In time, the feudal states grew in political and military might, overshadowing the Zhou king who was tolerated as their symbolic sovereign, a precarious situation that, remarkably, continued for the next five centuries. The killing of the last Zhou king in 256BC by the invading forces of the state of Qin, which went on to unify China as an empire 35 years later, was almost a non-event. Some argue that present-day China is in fact a “federacy” or an “asymmetrical federation” because the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau enjoy considerably more autonomy than other provinces and regions. Of course, there’s also the thorny question of how Taiwan would fit into the picture.