Where Will the Dead Cat Bounce?

If China is weakening from its peak, it is still powerful and will be for decades or centuries. Even internal convulsions may only be a gap in China's global reach. How will China try to make the most of its power if it is declining? Projecting an image of continuing power will perhaps be key to keeping a lid on its people who are denied ever-expanding economic opportunities as the price of accepting the Chinese Communist Party monopoly on power.

 

China's population has peaked. That is perhaps a warning sign of broader problems. Have we passed Peak China's military and economic power, with suppressed discontent only hidden and impotent for now?

Probably. But that change will likely take time to have a noticeable effect. Even a relatively weakening China may be able to defeat smaller neighbors isolated long enough to avoid foreign intervention. 

And that discontent might take decades to harm China--if it erupts. And what comes after Xi's system? Do we have to choose?

The vast majority of attention remains on Taiwan as China's potential target, as a IISS report states:

China remains the "leading long-term challenge" to the existing international order and there is no evidence that Russia’s faltering invasion of Ukraine has changed Beijing’s thinking around "the timescale or methodology" for any potential attack on Taiwan[.]

That's my judgment. China's rulers just don't learn what we try to teach them. On the other hand, I have no idea if China is close to invading Taiwan or just wants to create that threat in the minds of Taiwan and its friends to demoralize and discourage them over time.

Perhaps China simply doesn't want to risk war with America and its allies and will look at targets more likely to be isolated at least in part from potential powerful allies. North Korea could be a target. Myanmar (Burma) could be a target. India could be a target. 

Or Russia. If China has peaked, I thought Russia makes a logical target:

If China tries to salvage something from their peak of power and strikes America, America needs to avoid giving China the option of crippling American power in the western Pacific to clear the decks for a war against a local target that might cement Chinese gains in a peace treaty before China's relative decline is clear.

Does a suddenly weakened Russia with its Potemkin military exposed in Ukraine create an opportunity for China? Or does a weakened Russia that has alienated the West give China more time to think about the Russia Question?

When Russia invaded Ukraine, China perhaps thought it could benefit by weakening NATO and the West with a display of raw power it could not stop. As Russia faceplants, China finds it can benefit from Russia's exposed and growing weakness. 

That's what I've been saying. And rather than wonder what China might demand from Russia to help it recover--which is one possibility--that author above wonders what I wonder--will China find it can benefit more from Russia as a target rather than as an ally or even a vassal?

That initial author judges the problems caused by Xi's tightened control are likely long-term issues:

However, for now, there seems little threat to the CCP. Despite its corruption and inefficiencies, the Party continues to rule largely unopposed — watchful and often vengeful, but not fearing for its immediate future. Such was the tsarist system of Nicholas I. His success in staving off change helped ensure cataclysmic transformation just over a half-century after his death. The lessons for Xi Jinping could not be clearer.

Does Xi know the true trajectory?  Or will he make decisions based on a mirage of power? And if Xi know the truth, can he leverage that purported long-term planning ability of Chinese rulers to correct the problem? Or will he be content to maintain the illusion of continued Chinese power so he can peacefully die in his bed after 40 years as emperor of a 21st Century Middle Kingdom?

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.