What Path Secures CCP Power?

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a monopoly of power in China. It will do what it takes to maintain that monopoly. Does that mean China will go to war for legitimacy or that it will accept slower growth at home combined with greater oppression while avoiding war?

This makes sense given that economic growth was a means to generate legitimacy for the CCP's monopoly on power as party fervor waned among the people: 

China’s ongoing economic slowdown is partly the result of its failure to implement crucial structural reforms that would have enabled it to escape the middle-income trap. While previous Chinese leaders saw economic prosperity as the key to maintaining popular support, Xi Jinping has prioritized political control over growth. 

Party rule is the only objective. If slow economic growth and greater control can provide that, that is probably considered safer than greater growth and less political control.

Also, I wasn't as gullible as the China cheerleaders of a decade ago noted in the article. Compare my take in that post on China's path to supposed economic dominance with the initial author's take:

With the US economy outperforming expectations and the Chinese economy slowing, Goldman Sachs and others now estimate that China’s GDP may not catch up with that of the US until 2035, if ever. And even if it does, it would likely be only temporary. China’s GDP is now projected to peak around mid-century, after which its shrinking labor force will offset any productivity gains.

I've worried China's rulers would risk losing a war if it kept their power secure. But as China's growth has faltered before building a good military that matches the illusion of their shiny new weapons, maybe China will accept not taking Taiwan as a price of avoiding a more likely defeat. 

I guess it depends on what China's leaders believe. Surely, Russia's invasion error at least raised the issue even if China believes it could do better than those steppe barbarians. Although part of the Russian faceplant was due to waging a parade rather than assuming a real war from the start.

But regardless of the reality and what Xi believes the reality is, could more aggressive Chinese military leaders--even lower down the chain--make the decision to go to war? 

It doesn't help that our military looks like it took a woke shot at its own foot.

We may want to hope that Xi's path of using force on his own people works well enough to provide arguments for keeping the shiny military in the holster. 

NOTE: The image was made from DALL-E. 

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.

NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.