The PRC is not willing to sacrifice Beijing or Shanghai just because the United States is erecting barriers to invading Taiwan, making nuclear escalation extremely unlikely over the Taiwan issue.

The One-Child Policy, beginning in 1980, combined with a cultural preference for sons over daughters, resulted in a massive gender imbalance where the ratio of male to female births increased from 1.05 boys per girl (normal) in 1980 to 1.21 boys per girl by 2002, creating what is now 35 million surplus marriage-aged men in 2021 who are unlikely to have children.

From 1959 to 1961, China experienced the Great Famine, primarily caused by the Great Leap Forward campaign launched in the previous year, which replaced effective agricultural methods with ineffective ones and led to an estimated 15 to 55 million deaths from starvation and malnutrition.

Unlike the United States, which maintains population growth despite a fertility rate of 1.67 through immigration, China's population actually declined in 2023 by a couple hundred thousand because would-be immigrants are not eager to obtain passports from an autocratic government.

Taiwan observed the handover of Hong Kong from British to Chinese control in 1997 and Macau from Portugal in 1999, and the island is not eager to join that club, which has reduced enthusiasm for mainland reunification under the PRC's banner.

Russia has had major military plans coinciding with its May 9 Victory Day celebrations for years, with rumors of imminent military action, yet these rumors have consistently gone nowhere year after year.

Modern military power is largely a function of money; having more cash allows a state to build more advanced weapons, which can then be used to coerce rivals.

Taiwan's social identity has shifted dramatically, with 61.7% of citizens identifying as strictly Taiwanese by 2023 versus just 2.4% identifying as strictly Chinese, compared to 1992 when 25.5% identified as Chinese and only 17.6% as Taiwanese.

In 1981, Chinese citizens living in extreme poverty (under $2.15 per day) accounted for almost 92% of the population; by the end of the millennium, that figure had dropped to 46%; and by 2017, it had descended to almost nothing.

In 1981, the United States accounted for more than 21% of global GDP in terms of purchasing power parity, while China was only a fraction over 2%; by 2017, they had flip-flopped, with China becoming the world's largest economy.

During the Obama years, a rising China was a central concern in Washington, with worry that China might one day use its power to reshape the world, leading to questions about what needed to be done in the present to stop it.

The Obama Administration lacked a simple solution to the China challenge and was constrained by the legacies of Afghanistan and Iraq, so the official reorientation to China within the U.S. government had to wait until the Trump administration.

The Trump administration formalized a China-focused strategy through the 2018 National Defense Strategy, with Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby as the chief architect, and the Biden administration's policy regarding China did not substantively change despite returning attention to Russia.

China was not blessed with a post-WWII baby boom; instead, the country was cursed with the continuation of its civil war, which meant more casualties and loss of life before any demographic recovery could begin.

In response to rapid post-WWII population growth, the CCP launched the 'Later, Longer, Fewer' campaign in the early 1970s, promoting later marriage, longer times between children, and fewer children overall, which ultimately proved insufficient to control growth and gave way to the One-Child Policy by decade's end.

As industrialized countries experience economic growth, women enter the labor force, the opportunity cost of having children increases, and fertility rates decline, creating a pattern where China's fertility rate fell from 6.3 births per woman in 1968 to 1.18 in recent years.

The Strait of Malacca narrows to less than three kilometers at its narrowest point, making it a prime location for staging a blockade, and the U.S. Navy regularly patrols these waters, making blockade credible.

Taiwan has a population of 23 million, while China has a population of 1.4 billion, but despite China's overwhelming numerical advantage, successfully capturing Taiwan would require one of the world's largest military mobilizations in history.

The Taiwan Strait ranges between 140 and 220 kilometers wide and is infamous for being one of the worst places to navigate in the world, with winter high winds and rough seas, summer fog and monsoon seasons, limiting PLA invasion planners to only April or October for reliable operations.

If the PLA attempts an air bridge invasion (using aircraft rather than naval transport), history from the Battle of Hostomel Airport at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine shows that defenders can sabotage runways, invalidating the entire strategy and allowing the country to survive without falling to invaders.