The Malay-Indian War had its roots in the Chinese Civil Wars of the 2020s and 2030s. Rapid economic growth in China during the early twenty-first century caused a growing wealth gap, massive economic inequalities between provinces, and a fragile political situation. Starting with the secessions of Xinjiang and Tibet in 2025, a number of local regions and provinces in China declared their independence. Furthermore, even in regions nominally controlled by the national government, there was a surge in local autonomy (many have paralleled this development to the fall of the Han dynasty in the third century). By the year 2040, the Chinese Central Government was little more than a figment of the past.