You're getting knee-jerk downvotes, but I think your reply is more thoughtful than some are giving you credit for. My original comment more or less agrees with you. However, I'd also temper it by saying that one of the downsides of a highly central government is that it falls prey to the negatives of the "Eye of Sauron". This means that where the relatively few people at the top can focus, and for however long they can focus, incredible things can be accomplished -- sometimes far in excess of what might otherwise be expected.
But due to the lack of a distributed or delegated authority, it greatly limits how many important topics can be focused on at once as the apparatus of government is designed around pleasing the core power holders, who can only focus on a few things at a time. This results in massive efforts like raising armies or building spaceships or whatnot being possible, but efforts that aren't worth the time of the central power keepers (e.g. minding hobbits) fall entirely off the radar.
If the Chinese government can ever arrive at a good solution to local, delegated authority (and I'm not hopeful it will), these smaller issues can be attended to. But as a practical matter they simply get ignored until they become national problems with national priorities.
But due to the lack of a distributed or delegated authority, it greatly limits how many important topics can be focused on at once as the apparatus of government is designed around pleasing the core power holders, who can only focus on a few things at a time. This results in massive efforts like raising armies or building spaceships or whatnot being possible, but efforts that aren't worth the time of the central power keepers (e.g. minding hobbits) fall entirely off the radar.
If the Chinese government can ever arrive at a good solution to local, delegated authority (and I'm not hopeful it will), these smaller issues can be attended to. But as a practical matter they simply get ignored until they become national problems with national priorities.