It’s possible, even probable, that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was, by late July, well advanced along a path to intervene, if necessary, in China’s leadership.
It could be a low-profile coup designed as a stabilizing operation, a coup intended to keep CCP Chairman Xi Jinping as a figurehead, and a coup that could eventually see China broken into regional factions.
It would likely be an intervention—discreet or overt—ostensibly to save China from collapse.
It may evolve into a move to “save China” instead of saving the CCP’s instrument, the People’s Republic of China (which differs from China as a historical geopolitical entity). The prospect now exists that mainland China’s next generation of leadership could be a military government, with or without the “cover” of ostensible CCP continuation.
It could be many things. The only thing clear about it was the gathering momentum within the PLA and opposition elements within the CCP—much of it around the Jiang Zemin faction—to stop Mr. Xi before he could bring down the CCP house of cards. And the clarity of that fundamental reality that a coup could occur (in some form) meant that Mr. Xi himself would almost certainly attempt preemptive maneuvers to retain power, as he had done by eliminating rival after rival over the preceding decade.
Indeed, those preemptive maneuvers were already underway by Mr. Xi. The dismissal of the two senior commanders of the strategic Rocket Force in June was a case in point. Even more, the death of former CCP leader Jiang Zemin on Nov. 30, 2022, meant that the “Jiang Zemin faction” was now possibly even more amorphous than when Mr. Jiang was alive as a symbol of rejection of “Xi thought.”
Dictatorships, or narrowly based autocracies, drive overt factions underground but don’t eliminate them.
Mr. Xi’s rivals within the Party have been galvanizing, and the split with at least parts of the PLA was becoming more apparent by mid-2023. A sense of paranoia seemed evident within the Xi camp, or at least factional warfare, as evidenced by the hasty removal of Foreign Minister Qin Gang on July 25. Mr. Qin was appointed only in December 2022 and made a state councilor in March 2023. Significantly, this nuanced situation saw Mr. Qin retain the more senior post of state councilor.
Meanwhile, the option for an internal or international war involving China was, by late July, rapidly being imposed by circumstances—albeit circumstances of his own making—upon Mr. Xi. Every day, the facades were slipping, which only recently had portrayed Mr. Xi as the unrivaled power of China.
Every day, the myth was shattered that the Chinese economy he dominated was still vibrant and, indeed, that it was the “second largest economy in the world.” It may never have been that, even using the questionable methodology of gross domestic product calculations to ascertain economic dynamism.
In any event, given that the emperor was daily being portrayed as being without clothes, it would be necessary to have a “war of diversion” to enable Mr. Xi to remain in power. Indeed, only massively (and perhaps impossibly) escalated internal population control or population diversion could keep him in power.
Under the “new total war” doctrine, Mr. Xi now employed a troika of front-line operations against the Chinese population: the propaganda department, the statistical bureau, and the cyberspace administration.
With the coordinated action of these three, the Chinese population was being held in check between the messages sent from the CCP and the reality the Chinese people could see with their own eyes and feel with their empty stomachs, a difference portrayed by Beijing as being between “macro data” (fictitious) and “micro perceptions.”
How different the view of today is from that of a mere decade ago when the global air of complacency and contentment convinced a vast majority that the perpetuation of the brief linear trajectory of economic and technological growth was unshakeable, that China would continue its economic and strategic rise, and that all economies were tied to the rise of the Chinese economy.
Today, there is an anxious wait for the first shot to break the peace, a shot awaited around the world, given the integration of the Chinese economy with the global economy. Where, today, is there optimism?
That first shot has already been fired, but it was a shot of a different type of war—a “new total war”—which was not, until the denouement, kinetic. But, as always, it was the prelude that determined the outcome. And, often, the resort to kinetics—to formal military conflict—was only undertaken by the disadvantaged side when the strategic outcome had been largely determined.
For some, “the coming war” was thought to have begun between the West, functioning through Ukraine, and Russia, but this was a sideshow—which was very valuable to China. It distracted Western states, particularly the United States, from deploying military assets to the Indo-Pacific and spending more of its defense budget on capabilities to contain China. There was some question as to whether there was some planning or encouragement from Beijing to see the Ukraine–Russia war begin and continue.
What is the premise, then, for the belief that the PLA was considering intervention in the government to preserve the CCP, or China itself, or merely to preserve its own options?
1. The PLA clearly recognized the reality that Mr. Xi’s insistence on a war to take control of Taiwan and end the existence of the Republic of China (ROC) was fraught with existential danger to the CCP and China.
It was clear, well before mid-2023, that an attack on Taiwan would automatically bring Japan into conflict with China. The Japanese government had made that clear. It was almost certain, too, that a war by the Chinese regime on the ROC would leave China vulnerable on its southwestern flank, on the Tibetan Plateau, to an attack by India. This would involve India moving westward across the Pakistani-controlled zone of Azad Kashmir to cut off China’s land bridge to the Indian Ocean across the Karakoram mountains and down to the Pakistani Baluch port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea.
At that point, Vietnam and South Korea would also become engaged against China, and so, probably, would Australia and the Philippines. The PLA has kept expanding its understanding of these probabilities and has attempted to prepare for what would be essentially an unmanageable matrix of threats on all fronts.
It would be even more disastrous if the PLA weren’t united in its operations, and there was evidence that, by mid-2023, this disunity existed, or at least that the PLA could not, in all conscience, allow Mr. Xi to commence major wars merely to save his leadership position.
2. The PLA recognized that its extensive and diverse force was not entirely, or blindly, loyal to Mr. Xi and that it was, therefore, a divided force. Some of the disloyalty to Mr. Xi was based on the loyalty some elements retained to other members of the CCP, particularly the Jiang Zemin faction.
Some elements of the PLA were undoubtedly zealous, in much the same way that many younger elements of the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces were to the myth (rather than the reality) of the emperor at the end stages of World War II. In the latter stages of the war, the more pragmatic professionals of the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces were more concerned about the “death before dishonor” zealots than they were about surrendering to the Allies.
3. Many in the PLA recognize that their forces are largely untested, and starting a major war via the Taiwan attack route was not the ideal way to understand weaknesses in structure, doctrine, technology, and command and control within the PLA.
Moreover, PLA equipment was overwhelmingly in a questionable maintenance and performance condition. Its carrier battle groups (which could number three within the next year or so) are ideal for power projection but not for sustained combat against a peer or near-peer adversary (even Taiwan), and can only be serviced in Dalian, in China’s northern Liaoning Province, which is difficult for the vessels to reach in times of threat.
The Dalian shipyard would be a prime initial target of Taiwanese, Japanese, and U.S. forces in times of kinetic conflict. The PLA Navy’s submarine fleet also significantly undermatches that of the United States and further undermatches the combined U.S., Taiwanese, Japanese, South Korean, and Australian fleets.
4. The PLA may approve (as it presently seems to do) the escalated use by the Xi administration of enhanced strategic cyber operations against domestic and international populations, using different approaches for each target.
Indeed, the PLA could favor artificial intelligence-enhanced cyber operations designed to strategically degrade opposition infrastructure so that foreign powers could ill-afford to respond to, or pressure, China.
At a public level, China’s functions continue “as normal,” as do the actions of states and economies interacting with the country. The PLA Navy continues, for example, its plans to develop logistical lines and facilities outside the near abroad, and into the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. The ongoing PLA Navy development of facilities—perhaps up to carrier porting status—at Ream in Cambodia may never see a meaningful PLA Navy carrier deployment. And even if it sees a carrier visit, could it provide full support and repair capabilities to a carrier task force?
The pressures confronting Mr. Xi, then, remain unresolved. If he were to attack Taiwan, assuming the PLA could be persuaded to undertake it, he would almost certainly wish to do so during the tenure of U.S. President Joe Biden, given that almost any possible successor to Mr. Biden in the 2024 U.S. presidential election would respond vigorously to the prospect of a Chinese attack on Taiwan; perhaps more vigorously than the Biden White House.
General Secretary Xi has also staked much on his disapproval of the present Taiwan government as it also prepares to face elections on Jan. 13, 2024. But would the ROC election deadline be a trigger for Mr. Xi? Possibly not, given that there is a widespread misperception in Beijing that the replacement of President Tsai Ing-wen (Democratic Progressive Party) by a Kuomintang (Nationalist) president might give Mr. Xi a fig-leaf excuse not to invade.
The immediate future is fraught with uncertainties and emotionally based decisions at all levels of Chinese society and governance. But none of the options are ideal for Mr. Xi, the Chinese people, or the global economy.
