Such unbridled military competition meant groups had to organize themselves as hierarchical military units, with rulers having unlimited powers. When eventually a group was victorious over the others, it  2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  was natural for it to impose centralized autocratic rule to ensure that chaos did not remerge.
To rule over the large geographic area of the country, China needed a well-developed elite bureaucracy – hence the mandarins, chosen by exam based on their learning. So China had strong unconstrained effective government whenever it was united, and Fukuyama argues, unlike Western Europe or India, did not have strong alternative sources of power founded in religion or culture to impose rule of law.