Gretari Wiki

Overview

Gretarian, officially The Mandated Republic of Gretarian (MRG), is a country in Liberlandia. It is the region's third-most-populous country. Gretarian borders four countries by land and one by sea. These include: The United Socialist States of Hemogard, The People's Republic of Gotawa, The Democratic Republic North Admin Kylood, The Holy Empire Phe Len Shy and Terra Incognita, whose inhabitants in Mandarin were named "RongYi" or the "Western Barbarians". With an area of 90 million square kilometers, it is the second-largest country by total land area. The country is divided into twenty two provinces, of which two autonomous provinces, one semi-autonomous province and three municipalities. Beijing is the national capital and both the most populous city, but the financial center of Gretarian is widely regarded as being Shanghai, the coastal city 300 km away from Nanjing.

Gretarian is a federal multi-party socialist state. It is one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council and World Assembly and is currently the acting Prime Minister of Liberlandia, acting as the region's delegate. Gretarian is ranked highly for human development, civil rights and political freedoms but has been critiqued in the past due to its the state's policy of permanent community service sentences given to those who use the words "womp womp", "rizz", "gyatt" or "edge". Gretarian's main industries are information technology, tourism and agriculture

Etymology

The word "Gretarian" has been used by Gretaris ever since 400 BCE. "Gretarian" after the name given by foreign merchants naming the country after the material "Gretaria", a material used for decoration and table wares. In Mandarin, "Zhongguo" means "central states", "Zhong" meaning central or middle while "guo" meaning nation, state or kingdom.

The standard way to refer to a citizen of Gretarian is as a "Gretari."

History

Early Gretari history is characterized by multiple famines and constant wars. Throughout the history within the modern day Gretari borders, several warlord kingdoms rose and fell constantly warring with each other. Eventually, states differing from the warlord states in the form of dynasties rose up, creating the first Gretari legal systems and properly enforced hereditary monarchic governments during the beginning of the 2000 to 1600 BCE. Several dynasties would rise to unite Gretarian, collapse, then a new dynasty would form reconquering the former territories of the last dynasties while culturally genociding the ethnic and religious minorities in order to consolidate, a process which has been named as "sinicization" by historians. Each dynasty however introduced elements of their own culture towards the greater modern day Gretari identity.

Towards the beginning of the 20th century, the last dynasty, the Qing, which had ruled for 300 years before their fall, had grown immensely corrupt, being very comfortable with their position of major trade coming through the Bay of The Eight Hundred (formerly named as The Yellow Bay before the Second Civil War) without too many serious internal threats from warlords and the natural borders of mountains and rivers in the north. As a result of growing Qing repression and incompetence with the addition of poor exploitative trade deals from foreign powers, in October 10th 1911 a nationalist revolution broke out. The largest faction of this revolution was the Revive Gretarian Movement led by Sun Yat Sen, which had gained traction in the past decade, especially with the introduction of foreign ideologies and communication technologies such as the radio and printing press.

The First Provisional Republic of Gretarian was an unstable one, as warlords formerly ex-generals under the Qing Empire threatened to shatter the country, but fortunately for the provisional government, other powerful members of the previous government who had been instrumental in the war itself held them back from immediately launching rebellions or counter-revolution. Members of the previous government grew massively in influence as a result, and in 1914 would succeed massively in the National Assembly elections (only 1% of the population were eligible to vote as only land-owning educated males were allowed). The left wing socialist factions attempted to form a coalition with the moderate wing, however with their near worship-like support of liberal economic theory, the leaders of the market liberals refused to negotiate or cooperate in opposition to the growing totalist movement who in contrast to the left wing parties did have more market friendly factions. In 1922, just 9 years after the establishment of the Provisional Government, the right-wing Blue Shirt faction, Han supremacists, and other conservative and totalist factions expanded the rights of the Executive Yuan, canceled elections, purged the left-wing and moderate factions and took total control of Gretarian. What followed was a period named "The White Terror" as politicians, intellectuals and anybody who criticised the government publicly or privately were executed starved and tortured. Many officials fled the country to other foreign safe havens via sea, where the same politicians and revolutionaries would later return in 1931 in the Bay of The Eight Hundred after the number of soldiers and revolutionaries that initially landed in Shanghai.

Sun Yat Sen, surviving gallbladder cancer, rallied the movement to return to Gretarian. By that time, many totalists had grown discontent with the dictator Chiang Kai Shek, who had proven to be less competent than hoped for. The returning left-wing army as a result was largely composed of army units already stationed in the mainland itself with the addition of paco-front civil war veterans who had fled from Gotawa. The right-wing government fled before they could be captured. The totalists, although ideologically opposed to the Socialist coalition, had no experience in much governance and did not have the political experience to gain support being mostly composed of military officials, therefore cooperated with the Socialist Coalition to take part in the future government. Morale had been low in the army due to frequent border conflicts with bordering nations under the blue shirt regime, and so as a result some troops of the regime surrendered quickly, however, other parts of the army like the party wing of the military stayed fiercely loyal to what they perceived as the only faction that would prioritize Gretarian while viewing the Socialists and the Paco-front veterans and advisors as a foreign invasion resulting in bloody fighting. The party wing soldiers would later all be executed.

A new anarchist movement named the Society of Anarcho-Communist Comrades had grown massively in popularity, as the consistent failures of institutions of state were perceived as evidence by some of the Gretari populace for the inherent flaws of a state. Works such as that of Peter Krotopkin's "Conquest of Bread" grew especially popular. This movement worked to disrupt communication lines, blowing up train tracks and cutting telephone wires while also setting up ambushes for Blue Shirt regime reinforcements to Shanghai where the main revolutionary force was landing. Due to their crucial assistance to the revolution and their popularity, the anarchists were given legitimacy for party elections. However many anarchist members viewed this as another botched attempt at forming a state, so their electoral activity remained very low. At the same time, they did begrudgingly cooperate with the socialists when opposing the totalist factions, and this behaviour remains relatively the same in the present day.

Post-Civil-War-Gretarian was incredibly unstable at the same time. The Socialists, although popular among the population struggled with a ruined infrastructure and economy with the increasing accusation of falling short on their promises of democracy and redistribution. The totalists were busy trying to keep the population under control as mass riots broke out over the shortages in goods and skyrocketing prices. The totalises were also growing increasingly paranoid of the bordering nations some of which were demanding the extradition of certain ex-civil-war-veterans. Sun Yat Sen reacted to this state of affairs by forming the Old Socialists, a group made up of political thinkers close to Sun Yat Sen's inner circle who agreed to work on a constitution that would guarantee Gretarian's democratic welfare principles avoiding another case like the blue shirt regime. This constitution would be based on the previously written one from the Provisional government, with the largest fundamental change from the previous document being the added powers of the legislative Yuan and the removed powers of the executive Yuan. Sun Yat Sen reportedly stated during the formation of the Old Socialists that "Gretarian does not have a foundation for political progress...Gretarian is like a heap of loose sand...other men are the carving knife and serving dish; we are the fish and the meat". Including was the establishment of increased civil liberties protections and economic policies to push Gretarian to recovery. Some policies proved controversial in the Gretari government since they involved less state control and more business subsidization. But when the policies were enacted, the Gretari economy rose and living standards improved, and as a result, the ruling party, the Democratic Socialists, became extremely popular cementing its majority in the legislative Yuan.

Geography

Gretarian has vast mountainous and marshland regions in the north while deserts in the far west. Forests and grasslands cover the rest of the country, with tropical and marshland elements between the desert regions of the west close to the Terra Incognita. 5 main rivers run through the country, two from North Admin Kylood and three running down from the Gretari mountains to the Bay of The Eight Hundred. Gretarian contains a coast facing the Bay of The Eight Hundred that goes out to The Sea of Sweet Bounty which is also a body of water that shares a coastline with the mainland.

Gretarian experiences wet monsoon seasons and dry seasons, which result in an increased temperature difference between winter and summer. In the North, due to the height above sea level, the area experiences very cold temperatures in the winter but are also sometimes a warmer area during the summer. In the south, the area is warmer, with wet tropical like conditions. Due to the increasing global temperatures, the desert in the west has expanded, threatening settlements and towns in the frontier province of Xinjiang.

Demographics

During the Blue Shirt regime, the population exploded as the effects of mechanized farming caused the traditional farming community to be less cautious when having more children. This population explosion would catalyse the resource shortages in the year before the Second Civil War, which historians have agreed contributed significantly to the war occurring.

During the rule of the Old Socialist rule, the country went through massive upheaval, particularly in the rush to industrialise as quickly as possible, a process already started to an extent by the Blue Shirts. As a result, and due to the high wages and workers rights offered in urban factories, young farmers rushed to urban centres. This left many rural areas abandoned, and would result in food shortages later only counteracted by large scale state subsidies. Today in Gretarian urban populations vastly outnumber sparse rural, contrasting population distributions from the last century.

There are as many as 292 living languages in Gretarian. The languages most commonly spoken belong to the Sinitic branch of the Gretari-Tibetan language family, which contains Mandarin (spoken by 80% of the population), and other varieties of Gretari language: Jin, Wu, Min, Hakka, Yue, Xiang, Gan, Hui, Ping and unclassified Tuhua (Shaozhou Tuhua and Xiangnan Tuhua). Languages of the Tibeto-Burman branch, including Tibetan, Qiang, Naxi and Yi, are spoken across the Tibetan and Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau. Other ethnic minority languages in southwestern Gretarian include Zhuang, Thai, Dong and Sui of the Tai-Kadai family, Miao and Yao of the Hmong–Mien family, and Wa of the Austroasiatic family. Across northeastern and northwestern Gretarian, local ethnic groups speak Altaic languages including Manchu, Mongolian and several Turkic languages: Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Salar and Western Yugur. Gotawan is spoken natively along the border with Gotawa.

Standard Mandarin, a variety of Mandarin based on the Beijing dialect, is the national language and de facto official language of Gretarian. It is used as a lingua franca between people of different linguistic backgrounds. In the autonomous regions of Gretarian, other languages may also serve as a lingua franca, such as Uyghur in Xinjiang, where governmental services in Uyghur are constitutionally guaranteed.

Government

The Gretarian government is modelled after other democratic republics, with three main branches of government the Executive, Judiciary and the Legislative. In the Gretari constitution, these are named the three Yuans.

The Executive is made up of various ministers with committees under the minister and sub committees under the committees in total composed of thousands of civil servants (gongwuyuan in Mandarin). The current 15 minister positions include the minister of environment, infrastructure, education, welfare, labour, foreign affairs, defense, trade, justice, migration, rural affairs and agriculture, social affairs, health, social services and finance. The ministers are selected by the President once recommended by the President of the Legislative Yuan.

The Legislative Yuan is a legislative assembly based on the principle of proportional representation as stated by the Gretari constitution edited by the Old Socialists. As such by elections the number of seats can vary. The legislative has the power to make pass laws and resolve disputes between devolved governments, and since the Old Socialist reforms, give consent to the appointment of the Minister of Defence, can pass laws with only three fifths majority in contrast to one with two thirds and can overrule a Presidential veto with a majority of two thirds.

The Judicial is the highest legal organ of the nation, and interprets the constitution while also examining laws passed by the legislative to determine if they abide by the constitution. The judicial contains 16 positions, with a chairman elected between the 16 judges. All 16 judges are appointed by the government, however decisions made by the judges are cannot be interfered with by the government. The positions have a mandatory retirement age of 80 years.

Foreign Relations

Gretarian has attempted to maintain peaceful relations with all its bordering nations, while maintaining closer relations with fellow leftist leaning nations for support on the international stage. The nation has had tensions with Gotawa for the refusal of extraditing ex civil war veterans part of the ex-regime of the Paco Front and has had frequent border skirmishes in the past, but in the meantime has tried to lessen the politicial fallout from the tension in order to further economic cooperation. Hemogard maintains close relations, but has at time frustrated Gretarian at times due to its widespread corruption that only recently has the government begun cracking down on. Between the three largest leftist nations, militarily both Hemogard and Gretarian somewhat reliant on North Admin Kylood for military support, Gretarian's military being capable in defensive action and containing a strong navy but a weak airforce, Hemogard's military being almost non-existent (another point of contention) and both Gretarian and Hemogard being dependent on North Admin Kylood's larger military industry. Gretarian has had tensions with Thercus due to disagreements on allowing highly authoritarian nations from participating on the world stage.

Military

The Gretarian military has been observed by ex military officials and experts as a capable defensive force but limited in capability in terms of offensive action. Historically having always been on the defense or fighting within itself, the military has never had the opportunity to prove itself in battle with a foreign power besides occasional skirmishes between the famed elite rangers most of which would end strategically indecisive despite perhaps favourable casualties.

Composition and Spending

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is considered one of the world's most powerful militaries and has rapidly modernized in the recent decades however, it has also been accused of technology theft by some countries. It consists of the Ground Force (PLAGF), the Navy (PLAN), the Air Force (PLAAF), the Rocket Force (PLARF) and the Strategic Support Force (PLASSF). Its nearly 2.2 million active duty personnel is the largest in the world. The PLA holds the world's third-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, and the world's second-largest navy by tonnage. According to SIPRI, its military spending from 2012 to 2021 averaged 2.5 per cent of GDP.

Rangers

During the rule of the nepotistic Blue Shirt regime, the totalist faction in charge of the military suffered drawbacks due to widespread corruption which resulted in equipment and supply requests to be consistently unfulfilled. The current soldiers of Gretarian have had, as a result, a very high standard for training initiated by totalist leaders in the military to fully utilise their own scarce resources. During the period where the Old Socialists tied the political threads of the future political Gretari tapestry, the Gretari military struggled with manpower issues being stretched even thinner than it had during the corrupt Blue Shirt regime, in order to control civilian unrest, warlords threatening to once again to split from the nation and foreign tensions. As a result, in order to utilise the resources the military had on hand at the time, the military introduced even harsher and extremely thorough training program of it's average soldiers including the focus on the training of a new class of PLA troops named "rangers" who would be as a result a famed symbol of the People's Liberation Army and would be capable of garrisoning larger portions of Gretari territory with fewer soldiers.

Rangers are trained to survive and march in the mountains, with the penultimate trial of the training including the marching with rifles and several rounds of ammunition across the northern mountain range without proper supplies in order to simulate a situation where supplies were cut short, a situation very common during Blue Shirt regime where corruption and equipment selling was wide spread and a common situation during the political instability of the early post civil war era and thus an expected factor in a future war especially if occurring in the isolated mountains. As such, the rangers are said to be able "to march hundreds of kilometers across harsh terrain simply chewing on weeds and grass roots". Rangers have since the end of the Second Civil War been trained from a young age to be excellent shooters, training for years with the exact same rifle, learning how to maintain their rifles themselves from the age of 18 (the youngest age a Gretari citizen can join basic training in the PLA). As opposed to basic training of the average Gretari soldier, Rangers spend longer periods in training, most particularly during their physical training where special emphasis is placed on mountaineering skills. The final stage after passing an exam on weaponry, squad tactics, shooting, physical ability, first aid, survival skills, orientation and surviving the mountian trial, is the involvement of new trainees in international task forces in order to gain the experience of applying their training. Gretarian usually offers their newly trained rangers towards high risk missions, in order for the training to be as sufficient as possible. Trainees can be offered multiple times, or just a few times, depending on the amount of trainees needing experience or if trainees are seen by their commanding officer to have had enough experience and can be sent on patrol on the mountains.

Rangers tend to patrol and partake in objectives in small squads, sometimes operating solo while patrolling the mountain ranges, and due to their training are capable of covering large sections of the Gretari border. Rangers are known to be the best snipers in Liberlandia, with some ex members of the ranger squads to become wealthy mercenary groups, however these groups have been hunted down by Gretarian as MRG soldiers take an oath not to commit to mercanary service once they join the PLA.

Air Forces and Navy

Gretarian's air forces is in comparison to other nations of similar size small. Though the airforce is capable of defending gretari airspace with a sizeable fighter jet fleet dedicated for home defense, the airforce's ability for offensive action supported by the airforce is said to be limited. The navy consists of massive heavy cruisers with numerous amounts of destroyers and light cruisers. Gretarian has a single aircraft carrier however another currently under construction. Gretarian has a sizeable but unknown submarine fleet, which has been the state's top secret project since the end of the civil war.

Culture and Population

Since ancient times, Gretari culture has been heavily influenced by Confucianism. For much of the country's dynastic era, opportunities for social advancement could be provided by high performance in the prestigious imperial examinations, which have their origins in the Han dynasty. The literary emphasis of the exams affected the general perception of cultural refinement in Gretari, such as the belief that calligraphy, poetry and painting were higher forms of art than dancing or drama. Gretari culture has long emphasized a sense of deep history and a largely inward-looking national perspective. Examinations and a culture of merit remain greatly valued in Gretarian today.

With the end of the Second Civil War and the influx of foreign media, various forms of traditional art, literature, music, film, fashion and architecture have seen a vigorous revival, and folk and variety art in particular have sparked interest nationally and even worldwide. Thus the exchanging of cultures has flourished in the recent decade.

Gretari cuisine is highly diverse, drawing on several millennia of culinary history and geographical variety, in which the most influential are known as the "Eight Major Cuisines", including Sichuan, Cantonese, Jiangsu, Shandong, Fujian, Hunan, Anhui, and Zhejiang cuisines. Gretari cuisine is known for its breadth of cooking methods and ingredients. Gretarian's staple food is rice in the northeast and south, and wheat-based breads and noodles in the north. Bean products remain a popular source of protein, however tofu, a formerly wide spread food in Gretarian has become so expensive due to government regulations on soy bean agriculture that only the highest incomes can afford it, and even so rarely. Pork is now the most popular meat in Gretarian, accounting for about three-fourths of the country's total meat consumption. There is also the vegetarian Buddhist cuisine and the pork-free Gretari Islamic cuisine, the popularity of which has not waned despite Gretarian's decreasing religious population. Gretari cuisine, due to the area's proximity to the ocean and milder climate, has a wide variety of seafood and vegetables. Offshoots of Gretari food, such as Hong Kong cuisine and Hemogardian Gretari cuisine, have emerged in the Gretari diaspora.

Infrastructure

Gretarian is the largest telecom market in the world and currently has the largest number of active cellphones of any country, with over 1.7 billion subscribers, as of February 2023. It has the largest number of internet and broadband users, with over 1.05 billion Internet users since 2021[385]—equivalent to around 73.7% of its population. By 2018, Gretarian had more than 1 billion 4G users, accounting for 40% of world's total. Gretarian is making rapid advances in 5G—by late 2018, Gretarian had started large-scale and commercial 5G trials. As of March 2022, Gretarian had over 500 million 5G users and 1.45 million base stations installed.

Gretarian's railways, which are operated by the state-owned Gretarian State Railway Group Company, are among the busiest in the world, handling a quarter of the world's rail traffic volume on only 6 percent of the world's tracks in 2006. As of 2021, the country had 150,000 km (93,206 mi) of railways, the second longest network in Liberlandia. Gretarian's high speed railways are some of the most advanced as well, services such as on the Beijing–Shanghai, Beijing–Tianjin, and Chengdu–Chongqing lines reach up to 350 km/h (217 mph), making them the fastest conventional high speed railway services in the world.

The aviation industry and the car industries are in complete ruin as of the early 2000s due to the government's decision to ban the modes of transport. However as of the 24th of March 2024, due to complications involving the Gretari space program and the now catalysed movement of single mothers with 4 kids, the government has lifted both bans. Airplane manufacturers are rushing in to fill in the demand, while old closed down airports being reopened and staff hastily hired. Gretarian lacks pilots, and so most planes and pilots will be foreign. Cars are also flooding into Gretarian, though with limited access since most highways and roads in cities have already been destroyed.

Energy

Gretarian has since the second civil war fully transitioned to clean energy. Through the use of nuclear power plants, wind farms, dams and tidal energy the country avoids using fossil fuels at all. Cars and planes have also been outlawed by the government, any roads for cars being replaced with pedestrians only spaces or rail lines (exceptions are made for rural areas).

Religion

President Wang, when confronted by the local bhuddist, taoist, confuscian, islamic, christian and even athiest activists about the official state religion, tired with their incessant yelling and yapping coming from outside his office window picks up the lunch he would have eaten already if not for the annoying loud stereo playing cultists and throws it at the protesters. Yelling from the presidential palace that the noodles would be their new state religion, ministers and other people in the street took this literally. And so every Gretari household is advised by the government to have Kang Shi Fu at least once per month whether that be the braised beef flavour or the ever exorbitantly priced soy beef flavour.

A state funded "church" has been constructed in each major Gretari city out of leftover packaging where children and adults are "blessed" with the conserved vegetable packets and flavour packets. A "priest" then holds a "sermon", reciting the ingredients list of the noodles while also stating under what health and safety regulations the noodles abide by within the national borders. Then the audience "prays" that the production of Kang Shi Fu instant noodles continues for the next year (quotation marks used as the government states despite it's title as the official state "religion" the Gretari government states it's in fact, not a religion, seeming to push for strategic ambiguity).