During the imperial era, China grew by a factor of four from the first to final dynasty, representing a pattern of imperial overstretch that Chinese Communist Party officials have concealed from Western counterparts during diplomatic exchanges like early Kissinger-Nixon talks.

Xi Jinping links the Belt and Road Initiative to a broader vision called 'community of common Destiny For All Mankind,' which represents a Marxist vision of the world and the future that the CCP is trying to build globally.

Hal Brands and Michael Beckley's book 'Danger Zone' argues that while China faces long-term economic and demographic headwinds and may be a declining power, this makes China more dangerous in the short term, not less, because declining powers are more prone to risky military action.

Xi Jinping characterized the Belt and Road Initiative as the centerpiece of his foreign policy and wrote it into the Constitution; from 2013-2016 it received astronomical funding for hard infrastructure, but has since been retooled and scaled down, now focusing on green energy and other sectors while declining in scale.

China's aggressive behavior in the South China Sea toward the Philippines through the Chinese Coast Guard has been reckless and dangerous, and has paradoxically strengthened the US-Philippines alliance by forcing the Philippines to seek American military support for protection.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, China may have perceived an opportunity to expand influence as Western economies and societies were harder hit earlier than China; wolf warrior diplomacy during this period reflected a calculation that China had more relative power to deploy.

The CCP's goal is to make the world safe for its tyranny and unsafe for freedom and democracy, not to achieve total world domination like Nazi Germany; this strategy involves discrete influence operations that are difficult to discern and often aims at soft control rather than hard conquest.

In 2010, Yang Jiechi, China's foreign minister, told a counterpart in Singapore at an ASEAN Summit that 'China is a big country, other nations are small countries, and that's just a fact,' a statement that encapsulates CCP statecraft and reflects the hierarchical nature of Chinese diplomacy.

The Biden administration is too optimistic about long-term Chinese decline trends and bases policy partially on that optimism; while Biden's China policy has some positive elements, this optimism should not be the basis of policy, and the US and allies cannot afford to 'sleep on this' and must find ways to actively weaken the CCP's ability to exert global influence and control.

Xi Jinping is preparing China for war quite possibly over Taiwan, as evidenced by steps to allow rapid reserve mobilization, construction of bomb shelters throughout the country, food rationing and storage for crisis, and other indicators typical of regimes preparing for war.

Taiwan represents the most vibrant democracy in the Indo-Pacific and certainly in East Asia; at this point in 2024, American policymakers should not find it difficult to choose between supporting the CCP (a revisionist entity seeking to make the world unsafe for democracy) and supporting Taiwan.

Western failure to deter Vladimir Putin from annexing Crimea in 2014 and invading Ukraine in 2022 established a precedent that creates urgency around Taiwan; if China successfully takes Taiwan, it will not stop there and will continue territorial expansion in its near-abroad, making Taiwan deterrence a critical defining priority of transatlantic statecraft.

The US alliance system, built on commercial power and free trade rather than territorial conquest following the Spanish-American War, represents a unique model where the US believes freedom and liberty are good for all nations and engages them as true partners rather than as principal-and-subsidiary relationships.

Xi Jinping performs 'wolf warrior diplomacy' and acts undiplomatic enough to be offensive to host countries, such as with Europe, Australia, and the Philippines, inadvertently turning countries that could be neutral or allied with China into adversaries through overly aggressive behavior.

Policymakers should assume the CCP will remain a highly resilient political entity despite long-term demographic and economic trends; the CCP has proven its ability to make difficult adjustments and subsume potential challengers (like businessmen under Deng Xiaoping's reforms) into the party structure, and should not be expected to decline without external pressure.

The CCP's interest in territorial expansion extends to map of the Qing Dynasty boundaries, the Sino-Indian border (where they demonstrate aggressiveness), territory lost to Russia in the 19th century in the Far Northeast, and cross-border settlements in Bhutan; if Taiwan falls, Mongolia will not fare well given China's pattern of expansionist behavior throughout imperial history.

Western recognition of dependence on China as a problem is limited to economic and public health contexts (like COVID), but lacks the shared understanding that this represents a systems competition that could be existential to democracy itself.

Xi Jinping's rise to power in 2012-2013 further locked in Chinese strategic calculations of American decline and Western weakness, intensifying commitment to assertive foreign policy.

Most Western China analysts start their analysis around 1949 when Mao founded the People's Republic, occasionally incorporating the 'century of humiliation' from the 19th century, but they overlook the most crucial element: China's continuous imperial era from 221 BC onwards.

The Belt and Road Initiative was never primarily an economic venture; it has not made significant money for Beijing despite being presented as solving China's unemployment and overcapacity problems, and its core function is geopolitical rather than commercial.