Op-Ed: China is not invincible, nor is its path to dominance preordained

This article originally appeared in Washington Times on March 15, 2023

In some quarters of the professional foreign policy establishment, a notion is taking hold that a rising China is destined to become the world’s dominant power and that the best hope for America is to “manage national decline.”

This view is heartily endorsed by Chinese President Xi Jinping. In a 2021 speech celebrating the centennial of the Chinese Communist Party, Mr. Xi boasted of how the party had “transformed the future of the Chinese people and nation.” Now, “China’s national rejuvenation has become a historical inevitability,” he said.

For all of Mr. Xi’s chest-thumping, however, China is not invincible, nor is its path to dominance preordained. Mr. Xi might be on the verge of making a strategic mistake that could cost him his dictatorship, and that path to self-destruction goes right through the Kremlin.

Read full op-ed in Washington Times