Explainer - Is China a threat? - By C harles Parton

Nor is the threat primarily one of war, a lthough that is a possibility o ver Taiwan, even if a n unlikely o ne.2 T he t hreat which the CCP p oses to f ree and o pen countries is – in the w ords of t he ‘refresh’ of the I ntegrated Review – ‘systemic’. [...] GPE13 M arch 2023 Or i n the words of a d ocument to be studied b y all C CP cadres, p ut out in A pril 2022 by t he Oce of the C entral National S ecurity Commission and the Central Propaganda Department: Hostile forces persistently seek to ferment [ sic] a ‘Colour R evolution’ within our s tate, v ainly a ttempting t o subvert the leadership of the C hinese C ommunist P arty and the socialist i. [...] A ccording to t he People’s Daily , the C CP’s paper: In the face of m ajor changes unseen in a century, G eneral Secretary X i Jinping has a far-sighted v ision: ‘ System c ompetition is an i mportant a spect of c omprehensive national power competition, a nd the dominant position of a system is an important d ominant position f or a country to w in the strategic initiative.’ 7 Qu Qingshan, the P. [...] As Xi himself s aid in a speech in 2018: Socialism with Chinese c haracteristics is becoming the banner o f the development of scientific socialism in the 21st century and the mainstay of the revitalisation o f world socialism. [...] More than the m ilitary diculties of invasion, t he economic c onsequences for the PRC are w hat m ake i nvasion or blockade most unlikely i n the f oreseeable future: the c ratering of t he Chinese economy would lead to m ass u nemployment, r iots against the C CP and possibly its overthrow.1 3 In sum, the CCP t ries to use intimidation t hrough m ilitary threat t o achieve its a ims.