Americans concerned about Communist China’s growing strength on the world stage should also beware Beijing’s domestic weakness, as regimes often use such pretexts to manufacture global crises in attempts to hide their failings.

The People’s Liberation Army this week is extending what was supposed to be a temporary military exercise around Free China; Beijing is officially declaring ownership of the Taiwan Strait that divides Communist China from the self-governing island. 

Beijing “has used the drills in its military playbook to prepare for the invasion of Taiwan,” Taipei’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu, told reporters today.  

Last week the PLA showed off its newest war toy, the DF-17 hypersonic missile, which it said is designed to sink aircraft carriers. Separately it is exercising hits against submarines. Such preparations for attacks against the U.S. Navy’s top assets are designed to send a message.

As Beijing’s foreign ministry’s spokesman, Wang Wenbin, said yesterday, one of the drills’ objectives is to deter Taipei from harboring any illusion that it could “rely on America for independence.” 

Washington is denying Beijing’s contention that Speaker Pelosi’s visit at Taipei last week was the cause of the PLA’s military maneuvering. “The crisis, you know, across the Strait, is essentially a manufactured one by Beijing,” President Biden’s under secretary of defense, Colin Kahl, told reporters yesterday.

Beijing “is trying to coerce Taiwan, clearly they’re trying to coerce the international community, and all I’ll say is we’re not going to take the bait and it’s not going to work,” Mr. Kahl added.   

Mrs. Pelosi is pointing a finger directly at the Communist Party’s chairman, Xi Jinping. “I think that he is in a fragile place,” Mrs. Pelosi said on MSNBC this morning. Mr. Xi “has problems with his economy. He is acting like a scared bully,” she said, linking the current crisis to Mr. Xi’s expected recoronation as chairman. 

Extending Mr. Xi’s chairmanship for a third five-year term at this fall’s 20th meeting of the Communist Party will happen even as China’s economy is showing persistent signs of weakness. 

Factory production unexpectedly contracted last month, prompting Beijing’s politburo to signal that the country is likely to miss its target of 5.5 percent annual growth in gross domestic product. 

A foreign diplomat who has long served in China told the Sun that even such reduced goals reflect poorly on the actual GDP. China’s economic statistics are based on data supplied by regional party bosses, who habitually exaggerate to impress higher-ups. Numbers are further padded up as they make their way up the bureaucratic ladder; by the time they reach Beijing, data are presumed widely inflated. 

The most pressing economic crisis involves real estate. Provincial governments have long depended on revenue from land sales to finance their expenditures, but inept developers often miss construction deadlines. Over the weekend one such megadeveloper, the China Evergrande Group, failed to deliver a promised $300 billion restructuring plan.

As a result, irate homeowners are refusing to make mortgage payments, creating an avalanche of failures that extend to banks and local governments, leading to growing public resentment. The real estate crisis has depressed the domestic economy and eroded public trust in Beijing’s leadership. 

That is not to say that Mr. Xi’s re-crowning prospects are in peril. While his hold over the party is strong enough, even the most powerful autocrat must bow to the public at times. Diverting attention from social and economic woes with nationalist militarism is a long-honed strategy of strongmen. 

Mr. Xi’s declared intention to annex Free China during his tenure, if necessary by force, has sharpened as Beijing’s poor handling of the Covid pandemic and the economy became more evident. 

Beijing officials insist that Mrs. Pelosi’s Taipei visit prompted their dress rehearsal for a military takeover of Taiwan. At Taipei, officials counter that the drills’ scope shows they were planned long before news of Mrs. Pelosi’s trip leaked to the press late last month. 

“China has been preparing for such military buildup for a long time, way before Speaker Pelosi decided to visit Taiwan,” Taipei’s top envoy at Washington, Bi-khim Hsiao, told PBS this week. “The scope and the range of the current exercises do demonstrate that this has long been in the coming.”

Mr. Xi may not invade Free China before the Communist Party meets this fall. Yet, the growth of his military at a time America is nominally shrinking defense budgets may convince him that adventurism in Asia and beyond could be relatively cost-free. China’s domestic weakness makes him an ever more dangerous figure.