Forget China’s economy, ‘it’s national security, stupid’

President Xi Jinping and his gang of Xicophants are obsessed with destroying democracy in Taiwan. Their object is to absorb the island into the Communist Party of China’s greater sphere of influence and control the East and South China Seas.

Peaceful reunification now looks like a distant dream, so the Party’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army, has been told to “prepare for war.” Even if that means a superpower conflict with the United States and its allies.

Yet heightened tension comes at a time when the world’s second-largest economy is hooked up to life support as growth stagnates and shrivels. 

“There is one factor that would almost certainly bring the economy to a halt: confrontation over Taiwan,” Rana Mitter, an expert on US-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School, said.

“Any military confrontation in the region would crash supply chains, lead investors to flee, and result in huge mutual sanctions between China and its Western business partners,” he wrote in a commentary for The Observer, which is part of The Guardian media group, at the weekend.  

Control freaks:

• Part of the problem is the Party’s fixation with national security.
• It is embedded into the DNA of the economy and China’s foreign policy.
• It also courses through the veins of Comrade Xi and is used to muzzle CCP critics.

The country’s economic problems are rooted in politics.

Li Yuan of The New York Times

Delve deeper: “Economic realities don’t rule out conflict. But a middle-class Chinese professional waking up in the morning wants financial security, a cheaper mortgage, a secure pension and subsidized healthcare,” Mitter said.

Between the lines: But a “nationalistic war that impacts their lifestyle would be deeply unpopular,” he pointed out. It would also plunge China’s neighbors into the sort of turmoil not seen since the Cold War of the 20th century.

Big picture: Still, the Taiwan question dominates the group thinking in Xi’s cabal along with his infatuation with secrecy and security. Everything else takes a back seat, even the economy and the new 31-point plan to boost business confidence.   

The bottom line: “By now it’s obvious that the country’s economic problems are rooted in politics. If the Party adheres to the political agenda of Xi, its promises on paper will remain just words,” Li Yuan said in her New World column for The New York Times at the weekend.

China Factor comment: When it comes to national security and the Chinese economy, it really is a no-brainer. “It’s national security, stupid.”