, Columnist
War Over Taiwan Is the Last Thing a Slumping China Needs
The country’s dire economic challenges make a conflict in the near future less likely, not more.
Not on the march.
Photographer: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images
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President Joe Biden sparked headlines last weekend when he challenged the idea that China’s current economic slowdown might encourage the regime to speed up plans for a takeover of Taiwan. His judgment flew in the face of much conventional wisdom. It’s also correct.
Popular theories about how China, facing the prospect of prolonged stagnation, will be tempted to lash out may make intuitive sense. But they are based on thin empirical evidence and a misunderstanding of the strategic calculations of the Chinese Communist Party and its dominant leader, President Xi Jinping.