Die beunruhigenden Auswirkungen von Xis militärischer Säuberung: Warum seine Ungeduld gegenüber chinesischen Kommandeuren US-Politiker beunruhigen sollte

[Excerpt from essay by Christopher Johnson, President and CEO of China Strategies Group, Senior Fellow at the Asia Society’s Center for China Analysis, and former Senior China Analyst at the CIA.]

The purges are a signal of Xi’s renewed commitment to that ambition. His success in forcing U.S. President Donald Trump into a truce last year validated his political and economic program, giving Xi the assurance that now is the time to double down on his vision. This time, however, his approach will not repeat the brash “wolf warrior” diplomacy and declarations (“The East is rising and the West is declining” and others) of his early years, which precipitated a global immune response.

Instead, he will focus on his internal projects of building a fortress economy and assuring that the PLA can deliver if military action becomes unavoidable. Those daunting challenges will leave him wanting stability with Washington in the immediate term but make him, and China, an even more formidable competitor by the end of this decade and beyond.