Xi’s incessant calls for “combat readiness” may mean that he actually doubts that Chinese military forces are ready for real combat. Its navy, after all, is brand new and inexperienced, while the air force is greatly inferior in its technology, mostly relying on Soviet jet engines, radar-evading “stealth” that is not really stealthy, and inferior missiles. But more importantly, Xi’s intense bellicosity and intense calls for “the rejuvenation of the Chinese people” suggests motives that we cannot even imagine. No, not Taiwan, which China could have had for the asking by merely treating Hong Kong’s freedoms with demonstrative respect, making “one country, two systems” very attractive to the Taiwanese.
» There is no China. There is only Xi. He is a dictator. He is isolated. He is obsessed. Kill the bastard !
Wang Yi is but a lackey. China is corrupt and weak. Dump Ukraine and destroy China ! «
Edward N. Luttwak, July 18, 2023
» Know your enemy. He will win who knows why to fight how to fight when to fight and when not to fight. «
Sun Tzu, The Art of War.
Much more likely is his personal sense of shame that China’s history is a long sequence of defeats at the hands of badly outnumbered invaders — the Turkic, Mongol and Manchurian Jurchen tribes-people, and then the Japanese who might still be there if they had not attacked the US. As with Mussolini, then, Xi’s real aim may well be to turn his unwarlike people into warriors.
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