Xi Can Turn to Global Stage Without Fear of Contradiction at Home

Xi Jinping begins an unprecedented third term as Chinese Communist Party boss with a mandate not only to bend the economy to his own will but also to make his moves on the international chessboard without fear of contradiction at home.It’s clear from all the statement-making and appointments to the central committee of the party that economic concerns take immediate priority, but Mr. Xi also has a renewed license to act as he sees fit, beginning with Taiwan.That doesn’t mean — now that his power is more absolute than ever — that he’s about to order an invasion of Taiwan any more than he’s going to have his air force and navy fire on American warships cruising the South China Sea, which he sees as a Chinese lake. It does mean, however, that he has the option whenever he decides the timing is right, and he’s cleaned up the political chaos at home via “self-revolution.” Mr. Xi’s third term came with no time wasted on so much as a show of a pro forma election or even a deep-throated unanimous acclamation.The third term — for five-years — emboldens him to run his regime as he wishes, repressing foes, real and imagined, and rooting out not only corruption but any signs of dissidence or even mild dissent. What he’s done to Hong Kong, the once free-wheeling post-colonial enclave on the southeastern coast, or to the Uyghurs in Xinjiang Province, stand as lessons for his rule everywhere.Assuming he’s getting what he wants at home, we can also assume he’ll flex his muscles more firmly than ever around China’s periphery and beyond. We can imagine him asking himself how great it would be, in his terms, if he were the leader who finally took back Taiwan, bringing that obstreperous off-shore province into the fold where it belongs after those corrupt Qing dynasty rulers sold our Chinese soul to the British, the Americans, the Japanese, and everyone else who wanted to exploit and conquer us?We may not have to wait long before Mr. Xi increases the pressure on Taiwan, challenging President Biden to make good on the “commitment” that he’s promised the island’s capitalist, democratic government. The Americans are selling hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of arms to Taiwan.No American troops — not even advisers — are on Taiwan to show their recipients of all these arms how to use them, and Mr. Biden is probably less inclined to go to war for Taiwan than he is for Ukraine.Before Mr. Xi moves seriously against Taiwan, going further than all previous leaders, including Mao, had dared, he may first want to deepen his diplomatic invasion of the South Pacific.China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, has gone island-hopping where American forces won some of their bloodiest victories over the Japanese during World War II, a.k.a., the Pacific War. Mr. Wang and other Chinese emissaries would like to draw these far-flung, disparate island nations into their net while the Americans look the other way, forgetting about their real significance as potential allies against Chinese expansionism and outer defense for America.The Chinese have long since extended their writ around Southeast Asia, cozying up to Myanmar with port expansion and then around the Indian subcontinent to Pakistan, where they’ve built a port at Gwadar on the Arabian Sea, anchoring the overland route they’ve constructed across the high Himalayas.Chinese aid extends to the Middle East and Africa, building and managing ports, including the eastern Mediterranean port of Haifa, where the Sixth Fleet goes calling in support of America’s Israeli ally.One can’t credit Xi Jinping with China’s spectacular expansionist tendencies, which began long before his rise to power, but he will surely build on them, daring Washington and Tokyo, to challenge his own forces.This contest will extend to the Korean peninsula, where Mr. Xi faces the delicate, difficult game of maneuvering North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, showing he’s behind him in his fantasy of realizing his grandfather Kim Il-sung’s dream of conquering South Korea. Playing on tensions may be a little complicated while restraining Mr. Kim from risking a second Korean War by firing his artillery across the Demilitarized Zone into the South, much less unleashing his vaunted tactical nuclear warheads.Mr. Xi and Kim Jong-un agree on one thing: their support of President Putin’s war on Ukraine. They share with Mr. Putin the mystique of conquering territory they think is rightfully theirs — Taiwan for Mr. Xi, South Korea for Mr. Kim, Ukraine for Mr. Putin.That’s enough for Mr. Xi to sublimate the instinctive Chinese suspicion of Russia, the other great far eastern power — not that long ago at odds with Mao’s China all along their common Siberian border.

Xi Can Turn to Global Stage Without Fear of Contradiction at Home

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