China’s Aggressive Tactics Aim to Bolster the Communist Party’s Legitimacy
China has faced two disasters in 2020—the coronavirus and historic floods—which exposed its fragilities and created internal unrest. Its response to both was the same: escalating aggression against its neighbors. China’s economic and military power made these provocations possible, but its need to suppress internal divisions made them necessary.
Jakob Urda is a Masters Student at Georgetown University and research specialist at a technology consultancy. He has previously worked at the Chicago Project on Security and Threats and studied in the Institute for the Study of War’s War Studies Program.
Dan Blumenthal is the director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of the forthcoming book The China Nightmare: the Grand Ambitions of a Decaying State (AEI Press, November 17, 2020).