For example, it is totally unclear to me how China is exhibiting "geopolitical restraint" or is more credible/predictable about anything while its diplomats regularly & aggressively insist Taiwan belongs to them & 73-year old Xi Jinping is completely purging the military of any opposition.
What is more predictable about China's security policy, exactly, in a world where 73-year old Xi Jinping is consolidating personalist control over the military?
this is a useful comparison but actually way undershoots the extent of the purges in China by only counting the officially gone and excluding the much larger category of disappeared, which adds about another 69 senior officers since 2023.
chinapower.csis.org/china-pla-mi...
chinapower.csis.org
Analysis of a groundbreaking dataset shows that purges within China’s military are far more extensive than previously understood.
Yes, but again the real thing to take away from this isn't that we're now a competitive authoritarian regime, but that everyone claiming 🇨🇳 is more reliable/a better partner/better able to make credible commitments international cooperation, etc. is also deluding themselves.
bsky.app/profile/mcop...
Remarkable indeed.
Benjamin Braun
A thought-provoking comparison of recent military purges, China vs U.S. purge-comparison.vercel.app
