Very good point ! Its interesting to note that even during the Warring States period when China was made up of different 'kingdoms' and had many barons, lords, the concept of a China was always there. I mean, even after say 秦始皇 passed away, each succedding Dynasty always aimed to nurture the traditional borders of the Empire. Each emperor refer to himself as 天子 (for our friends who cannot understand Kanji, this means "Son of Heaven"), a title each Emperor always referred to himself.
Chinese Dynasty may collapse, but the Chinese civilization never collapsed. In fact, it even conquered even foreign barbarians such as the Mongols and the Manchu, who eventually were Sinified. China, as an entity and scope, is vast. China is not just a nation state, China is the idea , the progenitor of East Asian culture and the sages that helped form and cultivate other East Asian neighbors such as those in Japan, and Korea.
Foreigners who think that "China will collapse" are wrong. China cannot collapse, and will never collapse. The idea of China is as old as Human history itself. In fact, "CHINA" is older than Christianity, Islam, Judaism. China as living continuous civilization did what many classical empires could not; and that is withstand foreign influence and subjugation. Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, Holy Roman Empire, British Empire, Ottoman Empire, Russian Empire, etc etc, all collapsed in the sands of time. China has never collapsed. It has retained its traditional entity , more or less.
And as a nation that is over 1.4 Billion strong. They will continue to exist, 5 thousand years from now.
