There are two great truths about China that the world had better pay serious attention to because the policies developed right now by the nations of the free world will decide whether China will conquer the world or succumb to its own hubris. 

The first truth is, there seems to be no question that China wants to replace the United States as the global power and dominate the world. The second truth is that its economy and infrastructure are crumbling, and its population is suffering from massive floods, famine, disease, oppression, and a national policy of gross mismanagement.

Is President Xi Jinping leading China to ruin?

Leading the World

Xi Jinping has made no secret of his opinion that the ‘sleeping giant of China’ has, in his words, “awoken” and that his dreams of global dominance are about to be fulfilled. China’s next target is likely to be Taiwan, even though the democratic island nation is not the least bit interested in China’s plan to conquer it. Although Xi has spoken about a “peaceful reunification” with the small island nation, the people of Taiwan know better. They were not sleeping when they heard Xi say, “Taiwan independence separatism is the biggest obstacle to achieving the reunification of the motherland, and the most serious hidden danger to national rejuvenation.” 

“Peaceful reunification” is just a figure of speech, one that depends on the speaker’s understanding of the word “peaceful.” In the case of Hong Kong, “peaceful” meant the imposition of a police state, brutal takedowns of peaceful protesters, and imprisonment for anyone who disagreed with official CCP policy. And it will mean no less for Taiwan should Xi have his way.

Taiwan is a democratic state that was never a part of China, so the CCP is ignoring history and taking a different approach. In early October 2021, within a 4-day period, China unleashed a tsunami of at least 149 jet fighters and bombers over the little island nation in a show of massive airpower that was intended to intimidate. It was the most significant incursion into Taiwanese airspace that China has ever carried out. It was a trial run for war. 

Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told Australia’s ABC network, “If China is going to launch a war against Taiwan, we will fight to the end, and that is our commitment.” 

This is a confrontation that has the potential for expanding rapidly, with Japan’s commitment to supporting Taiwan again a Chinese invasion, and, perhaps, the involvement of Australia and, perhaps, a reluctant United States, although American policy regarding Taiwan is still far from clear. 

Globally, China’s ambitions are already in motion. The CCP has been systematically taking over ports and natural resources in Africa, South America, the Middle East, and beyond. And internally, the country’s ambitions have been supported by the brutal commercialization of a huge internal workforce manned by millions of human slaves who have provided cheap labor for China’s export industries. At the same time, soulless corporate giants ignore the human rights abuses that support their production and the global sales of their products. For them, slave labor is simply part of the cost of doing business with China. In the meantime, China is positioning itself to take over the world.  

But . . .

Even as China is pulling out all the stops to achieve its global ambitions, the CCP has serious internal problems that they have been trying to hide from the world and even from their own people. 

The looming failure of the Chinese real estate sector (which represents 25% of the Chinese economy), and a public debt that stands at 270% of the GDP, and the economic picture seems unlikely to be secret for long.

Critical food shortages and expected winter famine were spawned by the torrential, record-breaking spring and summer rains that flooded vast swaths of China’s farmlands, destroyed millions of acres of crops, and drowned millions of pigs, chickens, and ducks, all mainstays in the Chinese diet. These losses have halted the production and distribution of food throughout the country. The rains also led to the collapse of the very dams that were meant to regulate the annual flooding that is common in China. 

And it doesn’t stop there. As a result of the relentless rains, 40% of China’s coal mines, the country’s primary source of energy, are completely flooded, and it will take, they say, three months to a year before they can be pumped out, repaired, and resume coal production. It will be a long, cold winter for the Chinese people. 

Additionally, the COVID-19 virus, which was created in a Wuhan lab as a bio-weapon and released to the world, is now wreaking havoc in China. Intelligence sources report that a new strain, called COVID-19 Type B, and the highly lethal Nipa virus, have now infected at least 30% of the Chinese people. That’s 400 million people now afflicted with the CCP’s own poisons. As a result, 24 of China’s 31 provinces and its capital, Peking, have been locked down, and people in many areas have been locked in their homes, their doors sealed by the government. When the teachers showed signs of the virus in one Peking school, the entire school itself was locked down, with teachers and children sealed inside. 

China on the brink

Power shortages, higher raw materials costs, decreasing domestic demand, the fear of winter famine, the highest production costs in years, and disease running wild have all added to China’s woes and the misery that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is imposing on the Chinese people. It’s the story that China does not want us to hear.  

Xi’s insatiable quest for personal power and recognition have put an insufferable burden on the Chinese people, and there are growing signs that his continuing imposition of bad policy on a suffering population has kindled resistance both within the CCP and the population at large. There are even reports of open rebellion in a number of provinces. 

The years of corruption and the application of unfair and illegal practices against its trading partners – such as bribery and the theft of intellectual property  – have left a deep wound on China’s economic dreams. These practices were not only allowed, but they were also encouraged and supported by the CCP, who let them run rampant in order to achieve an economic advantage over the U.S. As a result, China’s economy is now more like a house of cards than a solid economic platform. 

China’s economy may be in far worse trouble than the CCP is willing to admit, and there is reason to believe that, ultimately, Xi’s government may not be able to support the global expansion and dominance that he dreams of, and his government will fall. 

The question today is whether the CCP’s massive global expansion plans can survive under the weight of its failing economy, and there is no easy answer to that. But there is a real possibility that the Chinese government’s wanton disregard for its population, its irresponsible governance of 1.4 billion people under a deeply flawed socialist framework, its short-sighted economic policies, and its reckless expansion dreams will, in the end, lead to its downfall.

Image: Reuters