Not if, but when.
https://www.newsweek.com/xi-jinping-preparing-china-war-opinion-1819587Xi Jinping Is Preparing China for War
GORDON G. CHANG , AUTHOR, COMMENTATOR
ON 8/14/23 AT 11:26 AM EDT
In unprecedented moves, Chinese ruler Xi Jinping replaced the senior leadership of China's Rocket Force, which is responsible for almost all of China's 400 or so nuclear warheads. These personnel changes are part of what is almost certainly the most ominous development of this time. It looks like Xi is contemplating using or at least threatening to use his most destructive weapons. In other words, China is planning to go to war.
Xi sacked Rocket Force commander, Li Yuchao, and its political commissar, Xu Zhongbo. Neither has been seen in public since. Li's deputy, Liu Guangbin, has also disappeared, along with Zhang Zhenzhong, a former deputy. At about the same time, Wu Guohua, deputy commander of the Rocket Force, reportedly took his own life in early July.
Periodically there have been suicides of senior Chinese military officers, but the simultaneous removal of the top two officers of the Rocket Force is unprecedented. Also unprecedented are the replacements coming from other branches. The new Rocket Force commander, Wang Houbin, is from the Chinese navy, and the new commissar, Xu Xisheng, moved over from the country's air force.
American observers seem to believe that the sweeping purge was designed to target widespread corruption in the senior ranks of the People's Liberation Army. Chris Buckley of the New York Times, for example, called the personnel changes "an unexplained shake-up that suggests suspicions of graft or other misconduct."
Yet, this explanation is partial at best. "Almost all the senior generals had good reputations before their promotion," said a well-placed source speaking anonymously to Hong Kong's South China Morning Post. Indeed, while the PLA's senior officer corps is known to be thoroughly corrupt, Xi Jinping has during his decade-long rule generally tolerated corruption among supporters.
It's less likely that corruption was the reason behind the purge in the Rocket Force upheaval than a convenient excuse. The more likely explanation for the purge lies elsewhere: From the beginning of this year, Xi Jinping has been purging the military of officers opposed to going to war—because he's preparing for one.
Xi Jinping these days often talks about war, and his regime is fast preparing for one. The C*******t Party is implementing the largest military buildup since the Second World War. It's simultaneously trying to sanctions-proof the country, stockpile grain and other commodities, survey America for strikes and sabotage, and mobilize China's civilians for battle. The military indoctrination of children begins during the first years of school.
And why would Xi Jinping opt for going into battle? China is failing fast, and Xi is being blamed. His Maoist-inspired policies, which favor state enterprises over private and foreign businesses, are making severe problems even worse. Especially troubling is Xi relentless cutting of China's links with other countries.
"China is in trouble," said Biden correctly last week at a political event in Utah. Xi's only way out is to rally the Chinese people with an external crisis.
Chinese doctrine is to threaten the use of nuclear weapons to prevent the United States and others from coming to the aid of Taiwan or other targets. During Xi's rule, Beijing has periodically made unprovoked threats to k**l Americans by the hundreds of millions and, beginning in 2021, Japanese and Australians as well. Moreover, China has also warned it will nuke Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing considers its 34th province.
In short, Xi needs obedient Rocket Force officers to execute orders to launch nuclear weapons, especially if the initial stages of a war do not go well for Chinese attackers. As Richard Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center told me, "At a time when Xi is preparing for war, his changes in the PLA high command reflect his demand for senior officers who will obey war commands."
That so many have been purged reflects disobedience in the ranks expressed as a reluctance to go to war. The regime handed down a death sentence this year to former Air Force General Liu Yazhou due to his continued opposition to an invasion of Taiwan, and he is not alone. "The image that Xi Jinping is firmly in command of the C*******t Party is belied by increasing evidence of instability in the ranks of China's military leadership," said Charles Burton of the Ottawa-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute. "The extraordinary purge of both the commander and political commissar of the Rocket Force suggests there is serious discontent within China's military with Xi Jinping."
Burton, a former Canadian diplomat posted in Beijing, points to Xi's failing domestic and foreign policies, especially the "cratering economy." "They have got some problems," said President Joe Biden about China earlier this month. "That's not good, because when bad folks have problems, they do bad things."
Bad things like starting wars.
It is not clear that Xi has succeeded in taming the People's Liberation Army. "Whether the Chinese military will remain loyal to Xi if he orders an invasion of Taiwan, which could well fail disastrously for China, is now very much in question," says Burton.
There is, however, one thing we know: China is "a ticking time bomb," as Biden said. And now the world has to wonder whether that device is a nuke.
Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China and China Is Going to War. Follow him on Twitter @GordonGChang.