The Myrmidon Plague needs its own entry.
…
Empire Transformed
China had been undergoing a renaissance in the 2070s. Its final dynasty had weathered extremely rocky demographic and economic half-collapses two decades in the middle of the century, and was the second country after the old United States to exploit the Tomb Worlds in the post-Contact era. In 2059 they hit paydirt: a research/salvage team found a medical device that could double as a safe exowomb. Better and better, it could be duplicated, if not understood. Full production of the repurposed alientech was put in place by 2061, ostensibly to redress China’s demographic imbalance and increase family sizes.
A good deal of this was actually done, but in 2076 the ruling regime revealed that the dynasty had also surreptitiously constructed enough exowombs to create an army. The soldiers were raised communally under circumstances that did not encourage proper socialization, were not especially well trained or equipped, and no older than fifteen years old — but there were a lot of them, and the ruling regime used them over the next decade to conquer from Kamchatka to Singapore. The smaller island nations were likewise invaded; larger ones like Japan and Australia retained more independence, but were forced to fully and permanently align their economies with China’s.
By 2099 Greater China was firmly in control of east Asia, and was engaging in a program of involuntary transportation that rivaled the USNA’s. There is some suggestion in the records that the regime attempted to direct most of its transportees away from Jefferson; if this is true, it was unsuccessful. The regime also increased the number of exowomb-bred soldiers, using them more and more as soldiers, police, and first responders. This policy eventually caused the collapse/transformation of the Great Power into the South East Defensive Association after the Myrmidon Plague of 2116, as central authority finally and seemingly-permanently dissolved into a welter of squabbling, sovereign successor states.