Chinese President Xi Jinping is displayed on a screen as performers dance at a gala show ahead of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing.
Huizhong Wu, File/AP Photo

If an economically weak Xi continues to intensify his already aggressive foreign policy, many expect Taiwan to be the target. Xi reiterated last week that China “will never promise to renounce the use of force” to ensure “reunification” with Taiwan.

The Biden administration already sees the danger increasing. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned last week that “Beijing was determined to pursue reunification on a much faster timeline.” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday echoed that concern two days later by suggesting that Xi’s timetable to invade Taiwan had advanced to “a 2022 window or potentially a 2023 window.”

Still, Lonnie Henley, a former U.S. intelligence officer specializing in China’s military, argued that an attack on Taiwan carries so much risk that Xi would be unlikely to take that step no matter how bad domestic woes get.

“Any conflict over Taiwan would represent an existential threat to the CCP regime, so it’s the last thing a beleaguered Xi would look to as a distraction from domestic troubles … so no, I don’t buy the ‘wag the dog’ theory,” said Henley, who now lectures at The George Washington University.

But Xi’s record of trampling CCP tradition to boost his power and his avowal of a hawkish vision of “national rejuvenation” linked to defending China’s “territorial integrity” doesn’t preclude Xi using military force even when there are major risks.

“Xi is a known risk-taker and seems highly confident — if misguided — in both his judgment and the weakness of his opponents,” said Robert Haddick, a former contractor at U.S. Special Operations Command and a visiting senior fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, Air & Space Forces Association. “Few expected Vladimir Putin to be so irrational as to actually invade Ukraine, but he obviously did. Why not Xi too?”