China's projected unity and internal coercion

Is China less internally unified than it often appears?

It can be; military divisions have sometimes been sent into coal-mining regions to manage internal problems.

China should not be treated as a perfectly unified political actor. The example given is the deployment of military divisions into coal-mining regions to deal with internal problems. Domestic order can require significant coercive capacity even when the state projects cohesion externally. This is a brief illustration rather than a comprehensive measure of Chinese political stability.