In terms of politics, it's better to think of China and India (and, omigosh, Africa!) not as countries in the European sense (Africa is a continent with 54 countries), but more like the USA. They have lots native cultures hidden or destroyed by colonialism, lots of languages, and a divided people.
Before moving to Asia, I didn't think about this much. But the US tends to treat China like we treat Belgium. It's a country over there where they do things, and the news usually defaults to talking about just the capital.
That's because China is less unified than the USA and that takes TALENT.
The USA is a natural 53-part scuffle that regularly fractures along political stress points into an all out brawl. The USA has over 350 languages, over 574 native nations plus the immigrants, and the average American understands that. But we tend to view other countries as unified.
They are not.
I'm not sure where I was going with this... but since China is in the news again, please stop treating it like the Switzerland of Asia. That's the wrong mental approach to China.
Korea is fairly unified. The majority of the population are survivors (or descendants of) the last major invasion that ended in 1945(-ish). There's two major dialects of Korean and a general unity of heritage because it's a small country and defended itself well.
China is not like Korea.