China has problems beneath their rapid GDP growth (from Strategypage):
Police records have been leaked, showing a large and rapid increase in the number of public demonstrations against the government. There were only 8,700 such incidents in 1993, but the number increased to 32,000 in 1999, 50,000 in 2002 and some 60,000 last year. Most of the unrest has to do with unemployment and corruption among government officials.
And it is even worse than these numbers indicate:
Not only have the outburst been growing in number, but also in size. In the late 1990s, the average demonstration had ten or fewer people. By 2003, the average demonstration contained 53 people. Groups numbering in the hundreds and thousands are becoming more common (more than ten percent now involve over a hundred people.)
With a deteriorating home front, the Chinese could launch a foreign adventure even if they thought their chances of victory were small. If domestic unrest looks like it could boil out of control, even a small chance to save their bacon--even at the risk of war with America--might seem like the rational solution to their dilemma.
I wouldn't relax on the assumption that the Chinese communists don't want to ruin their Olympic pageant. Some things--like the primacy of the communist party in China--are more important in Peking.
