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John, a former CIA analyst and China director on Biden's National Security Council, walks through what Xi Jinping's consolidation of power means for China's military leadership, Taiwan strategy, and the broader US-China relationship. The conversation treats Xi's purges of the PLA—particularly his early decapitation of figures like Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong—not as symptoms of weakness but as methodical moves that have made organized opposition to him structurally impossible. The discussion ranges across how Xi seized the military first as a high-risk gambit to dominate the entire system, why his Taiwan calculus centers on economic cataclysm rather than chip access, and how both superpowers are stumbling toward decline—less a race between a dynamic and failing power than a contest between two dysfunctional systems managing their respective pathologies.
The conversation distinguishes Xi's governing style from his predecessors: more risk-tolerant and ruthlessly focused, yet calculating enough to see Taiwan invasion as a last resort that could undo the party's legitimacy since Mao. It addresses how China's post-Liberation-Day rhetoric pivoted quickly to dialogue, how Beijing played the recent trade cycle by leveraging rare earths and America's lower pain tolerance, and why cultivating relationships with potential Chinese successors actually harms those figures by making them vulnerable to charges of Western sympathy. John also describes what China analysis actually looks like inside intelligence work—less regression analysis than moral imagination and disciplined mental modeling—and explains why the future of Chinese elite conflict will be fractiousness among Xi's own acolytes competing for succession rather than organized factional resistance. The broader claim threading through is that neither side wants catastrophic war even as accidental collisions remain plausible, and that meaningful concessions on Taiwan or technology would not fundamentally alter the structural drivers keeping the two powers at odds.
Xi Jinping has consolidated unprecedented personal power through early, swift purges of the military and party elite, creating a system where succession planning is deferred and internal factional competition will intensify as he ages, while his Taiwan policy has stalled despite initial diplomatic success and his approach to US competition is more calculated and patient than commonly understood.
- Xi purged more Central Military Commission members than Mao by going after 'made men' like Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong early, signaling to rivals that backing him was the only rational choice
- The succession problem is acute: Xi has populated his inner circle with lifelong associates, leaving no obvious heir and creating pressure among these aging allies to position their protégés before the succession moment arrives
- Xi's Taiwan policy shifted from soft economic integration to coercion after Tsai's 2016 election, but this approach has failed to move the island closer to Beijing, leaving him facing a potential reckoning in his fourth term
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US-China competition is best understood not as a race between a dynamic and a declining power but as a contest between two profoundly dysfunctional superpowers—China riddled with corruption and real-estate-sector pathologies, the US unable to pay its bills or maintain infrastructure—where the question is which side can cope better with its maladies as both stumble toward the finish line.
“yes, US and China are both superpowers, but they're both really dysfunctional in really profound ways”
Xi himself demonstrated the 'capable but not threatening' needle when, as the newly designated heir apparent, he took the hot-potato Shanghai party secretary job after the Chen Liangyu corruption scandal and did just enough to show he was serious about anti-corruption without pissing off the wrong people—a striking contrast to how hard he went after everyone once he had full power.
“she went into Shanghai as party secretary after becoming the heir apparent at a time where they had just gone through a major corruption scandal”
China-watching from inside the intelligence community is a humanistic rather than social-scientific enterprise: rather than regression analysis, it requires moral imagination, reading mountains of text, and disciplined effort to see the world from Xi's desk by setting aside one's priors as a Western liberal—and the analytical rigor lies in building an a priori mental model with explicit signposts (what you'd expect to see if a coup were coming) before interpreting incoming evidence, rather than retrofitting interpretations onto the latest reporting.
“this was not a social scientific enterprise, right? I wasn't thinking about this in terms of some kind of regression analysis... it's much more humanistic in my mind and it requires a lot more of moral imagination.”
TSMC and access to Taiwanese chips rank very low in Xi's Taiwan decision calculus because he has confidence China will figure out chips over time and would simply scuttle the fabs if he invaded; what genuinely gives him pause is the broader economic cataclysm, since a full-scale invasion would gamble everything the party has achieved since Mao's death and could undo the party's legitimacy.
“the chips and TSMC, I think actually ranks very low on Xi's priorities when it comes to this, even though he's got this techno-industrial fetish. I think he has enough confidence that China will figure it out over time.”
The window for an anti-Xi coup passed long ago: any backlash would have had to materialize during his first term when he was taking down 'made men,' and once he did that it became a bad game-theory problem where conspiring against him risks being sold out by your co-conspirator; the real future dynamic is therefore not Xi versus a rival constituency but fractiousness among his own acolytes competing for positions.
“If there was going to be a backlash against him, it would have had to materialize much earlier, like when he was going after the monkeys instead of the chickens”
Counterintuitively, Xi's dominance gives him more flexibility to de-escalate than a weaker leader: because he is so powerful he does not need to placate nationalists or cover his political flanks (unlike Hu Jintao), so in a crisis he can tell the PLA to settle down—as evidenced by China's inflammatory post-Liberation-Day rhetoric quickly giving way to a summit path within six months.
“especially in this moment where Xi Jinping's so powerful and so dominant in system... I don't really think he necessarily has to cover his political flanks in the way of Hu Jintao would have”
Power in the Chinese system tends to be monistic and naturally centralizes; following Aristotle (via Alice Miller), oligarchies are subject to both centripetal and centrifugal forces, and the natural correction to drift like the Hu Jintao era is for centripetal forces to reassert themselves and demand a unifying leader.
“power in that system tends to be monistic anyway. It tend There's a tendency for it to centralize.”
The bipartisan commission that evaluates the National Defense Strategy used stark language about China, stating that despite the Pentagon naming China the 'pacing challenge' for two NDSs, China's military continues to outpace the US in a growing number of domains and has 'negated the US military's advantages in the Western Pacific.'
“the Pentagon uh for the last two NDSs has said that China is the pacing challenge for the US military, but the but China's military continues to outpace the United States in a growing number of domains.”
The PLA fundamentally differs from a Western apolitical military because China lacks the cultural tradition and structural mechanisms (civilian Secretary of Defense, civilians in the Office of the Secretary of Defense) for civilian control; moreover, the PLA's self-conception is that it conquered China for the CCP, making it analogous to an armed wing of a political party whose original raison d'être is to keep that party in power.
“China has none of that. Right? And I think that's a really stark stark difference, right? So, they don't have the at same kind of checks and acculturation”
The CCP system tolerates far less chaos and visible violence than Putin's Russia: where Russia features people falling out of windows, Navalny on social media, and assassination squads abroad, China would have squashed a Navalny-type figure twenty years ago and keeps purges quiet 'in the family,' and its democratic-subversion activities abroad are an order of magnitude more conservative than Russia's.
“there's just a level of chaos in that system and violence that the CCP just doesn't tolerate.”
During Trump's first trade war, China responded carefully with limited countermeasures, seeking to show pushback while avoiding escalation or major concessions (the 'no escalation, no concessions' paradigm); during Biden, China gave remarkably muted responses to significant competitive actions like the October 2022 chip export controls.
“they wanted countermeasures and the paradigm was no escalation, no concessions, right? Um they wanted to do enough to show that they they were pushing back, but and at the same time, you know, try to make as few meaningful concessions as possible”
The PLA purges under Xi reflect his consolidation of power rather than weakness, because from day one he has been laser-focused on suborning the military to himself, using anti-corruption as the key instrumental lever, and the people purged so far have been disposable figures outside his true inner circle whom he can make and break at will.
“from practically day one in Xi's tenure in office, he has been laser focused on ensuring that the PLA is under his thumb, right? And the anti-corruption campaign has been an important tool of it.”
Xi's Taiwan policy has reached an intellectual dead end: the early Hu-Jintao-era Marxian approach (assuming economic integration would draw Taiwan into China's orbit like an apple falling off a tree) bore fruit through the 2015 Ma-Xi handshake, but after Tsai's election Xi pivoted to coercion, which combined with the Hong Kong crackdown has only pushed Taiwan politically further away.
“if we change the economic structure, the political superstructure will change, right? So as China's economic clout goes and economic ties with Taiwan become closer, Taiwan is just eventually going to come into China's orbit. It's going to fall like an apple off a tree”
China conducts foreign policy with a certain parochialism—it cares deeply about Russia as a strategic partner and about avoiding negative incentives, but cares little about the specific outcome in Ukraine, which itself limits the support it would extend; full all-in support (North Korean-style troops, fighter jets, war-footing drone production) was never in the cards because it wouldn't serve China's interests.
“Does China care what happens in Ukraine? Not especially. Which is also an in of itself a limiting factor”
A trusted inner-circle successor poses a dilemma because those Xi trusts are themselves old (with similar health risks and rival-attracting prominence), so he will likely need a much younger figure—'whippersnappers'—who must perform a delicate dance of appearing capable but not so distinguished, handsome, vigorous, or popular as to overshadow Xi, constrained further by the Xi Jinping Thought ideological cage.
“what's the benefit of handing it handing the man over the mantle to somebody who's just 5 years younger than you and could also have similar health problems”
Xi did not merely inherit an opening created by Hu-Jintao-era malaise but exercised unique agency, taking a 'crowbar' to an opening that existed because of party drift and an appetite for greater central control.
“I think there was an opening. I think there was an appetite for greater central control. There was a sense of drift in in the in the party. But I think Xi took a crowbar to that opening.”
Xi targeted the PLA first because as a princeling he understood the military is central to political power; rather than treating it as the last redoubt to shore up his position (as post-Deng leaders did), he attacked it first as a high-risk, high-reward move: mastering the military would let him dominate the entire system.
“Xi said this is going to be the place that I start because if I can it's high risk but it's high reward. If I can figure this out, I will dominate the system because I will have suborned the PLA to my will.”
The notion that the PLA has been 'professionalizing' over the past 20 years is misleading; the party does not want a Huntingtonian apolitical, politically neutral military, and Xi has explicitly emphasized that the PLA is the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party as its primary mission, squashing any nascent debate about a national or state military.
“from the party's perspective, they don't want a professional PLA in the sense that Samuel Huntington would have would have called this, right? That it's apolitically apolitical and politically neutral.”
Even remarkable concessions on the two chief sources of friction—Taiwan and technology competition—would not meaningfully attenuate the structural drivers of US-China competition; the current détente is more of a ceasefire than a deeper rapprochement, and good vibes from a summit would risk reviving illusory talk of détente.
“you can give pretty remarkable concessions on the two chief sources of two of the chief sources of friction in the relationship on Taiwan and on technology competition and still not really have any meaningful attenuation of the the structural drivers of of the competition”
The only meaningful bridge between the civilian party and the military is Xi Jinping himself; the PLA is so politically salient that the nexus is closely guarded, which is why no other civilians sit on the Central Military Commission and why Xi appears in uniform rather than civilian garb when with the CMC.
“the only the only real meaningful bridge from the civilian side of the party to the military is Xi Jinping himself.”
Xi will not name a successor or heir apparent until he gets into his fourth term, and even then faces the perennial dilemma of building a successor up enough to stand on their own two feet without becoming a threat; this could push Xi to a 'second line' that produces a fractious Mao-era-style environment of oblique guidance.
“does he name a successor? I don't think he will until he gets into his fourth term, right? Or some kind of heir apparent.”
The US has very little agency over China's internal succession dynamics; to the extent America is a factor it is seen in luminous structural terms as the avatar of declining-but-dangerous late finance capitalism, and counterintuitively, cultivating relationships with key Chinese figures actually harms their prospects because Western access becomes baggage making them vulnerable to charges of being too sympathetic to the United States.
“I think for the most part very very little. I mean, never mind, you know, having an impact on them. I think it's very hard for a lot of people even even to see into them”
An accidental US-China collision is plausible and perhaps inevitable given how much steel and aircraft operate in close proximity, but it is unlikely to lead to cataclysmic war because both leaderships would have to actually want escalation; if neither side wants war, even a deadly incident can be de-escalated, as the India-Pakistan and Quemoy-Matsu precedents show that nuclear-armed powers can climb the escalation ladder and then get off it.
“I worry about the risk of some kind of accident... That to me strikes me as totally plausible... But does that necessarily lead to, you know, to some kind of cataclysmic conflict? I think you're right. I think objectively it's harder to see that.”
China's support for Russia in the Ukraine war has been consequential but limited; while Wang Yi made an impolitic remark that China's support would be much more visible if it were truly robust, the actual material support China has provided (mostly older equipment) would not have been decisive in changing the war's outcome if even dramatically increased.
“Their support has been consequential, right? And and there's been other US officials who have who have who have said this on the record, right? So I don't I don't I think it's real and I don't I don't think it's I don't think it's trivial.”
The PLA's military modernization over the past decades has fundamentally changed the military balance in the Western Pacific, with China negating U.S. military advantages in the region according to a recent bipartisan Pentagon commission; however, this deterrent effect is not primarily about enabling an invasion of Taiwan but about preventing U.S. intervention.
“China is the pacing challenge for the US military, but the but China's military continues to outpace the United States in a growing number of domains. And there's actually one line in there, too, where it says they've negated the US military's advantages in the Western Pacific.”
There is no codified line of succession in Chinese politics—unlike the US president-to-vice-president chain—and for most of Xi's tenure the vice presidency has been a sinecure for a retired official not even on the Politburo Standing Committee, so Xi's sudden death would throw the question of who gets power wide open.
“there is no line of succession in Chinese politics like we have in the United States. It's not like you go from the president to the vice president... There's there's nothing like that that's codified.”
Potential successors without real PLA connections (like Hua Guofeng, Zhao Ziyang, and Hu Yaobang historically) failed to stick; because Xi is preventing any party figure from developing those military connections, it will be very hard for any future successor to consolidate.
“the the potential successors who don't have real PLA connections, like like Hua and Zhao and Hu, um they they stick around.”
The only meaningful bridge from the civilian side of the CCP to the PLA is Xi Jinping himself; there are no other civilians on the Central Military Commission, and Xi appears in uniform (not civilian dress) when present at CMC meetings, emphasizing the party-military relationship rather than civilian control.
“the only real meaningful bridge from the civilian side of the party to the military is Xi Jinping himself... really that nexus with the with the PLA because it's so politically salient is so closely guarded. That's why there's no other civilians on the Central Military Commission even when she is hanging out with the Central Military Commission of the PLA, he's in a uniform. He's not in civilian garb, right?”
The PLA has not been to war since the late 1970s conflict with Vietnam and some minor 1980s skirmishes, creating a generational gap where very few current high commanders have combat experience or have been 'shot at in anger'; Xi places a premium on selecting officers who have that experience because he believes hardship and having been tempered by conflict are essential qualities for military leadership.
“The PLA hasn't been to war since its war with Vietnam in the late '70s and then maybe, you know, some skirmishes throughout the '80s. And it hasn't seen blood, it hasn't been shot at in anger.”
In a sudden-death succession crisis, conflict among the leadership would probably be bounded rather than chaotic, because—as with Tiananmen—elites who lack their own power base share a strong incentive to preserve the system and prevent any contender from reaching out to public constituencies as Zhao Ziyang did, lest the whole system unravel.
“they still have a sense that this needs to be bound because if this gets out of control and kind of leaves the corridors of power and you have people doing what Zhao Ziyang did and reaching out to constituencies in the public, then things could could really unravel”
China's restrained response to US export controls during the Biden administration (e.g., the muted reaction to the October 2022 controls) was partly because parallel high-level diplomacy backstopped and constrained Chinese retaliation; when trade war 2.0 and Liberation Day came without that diplomatic cushion, China responded forcefully and immediately because it had spent four years methodically preparing countermeasures and was 'locked and loaded.'
“we dropped the the first big export controls, right? It was in October of 2022. And the reaction was very muted.”
When Xi reaches his fourth term staring down age 80 with the DPP still in power, he may have a deeper rethink of Taiwan policy; given his proven proclivity to shake up dynamics when frustrated (as in Hong Kong), he could give the more coercive options discussed in Washington a long and hard look—though this does not mean an appetite for a full-scale 'million-man swim' invasion.
“what happens when Xi gets to his fourth term? Right? And he's staring down the barrel of 80... if the DPP is still in power, does he does he have to have a deeper rethink?”
Xi values military leaders who have actually seen combat and been shot at in anger; given that the PLA hasn't fought a war since Vietnam in the late 1970s, the pool of such experienced people is tiny, so he places a premium on the few in the high command who participated in that fighting—comporting with his preference for people who have suffered and been hardened.
“the PLA hasn't been to war since its war with Vietnam in the late '70s... it hasn't seen blood, it hasn't been shot at in anger. And so, given how small the pool is of people with that experience, there are people in the high command... who are involved in the in that fighting.”
Beijing's 2022 response to the Pelosi visit was a manufactured crisis: China chose to react by lobbing missiles over Taiwan, and the response was qualitatively similar to the 1990s despite dramatic military modernization, raising the question of whether Beijing's leadership genuinely failed to understand US separation of powers (mirror-imaging) or whether it was a convenient pretext to pressure the US and establish a new normal in the strait.
“this was this was kind of a manufactured crisis on Beijing's part, right? I mean, they chose to they reacted this way, but they also chose to react this way.”
Time is on Beijing's side in trade negotiations: as the Trump administration approaches the midterms it will want something to show for a prolonged negotiation, leading Trump to negotiate against himself and get antsy for a deal (as happened with 'phase one' in trade war 1.0), and the publicly committed summit and two further engagements only hand China more runway to run out the shot clock.
“time is actually on Beijing's side in this negotiation. I think it's one of the chief assets they have aside from these countermeasures.”
Tariffs in trade wars 1.0 and 2.0 hurt particular Chinese firms and sectors but did not have a big macroeconomic impact on China, and the Trump administration's misdiagnosis—an exaggerated sense of China's economic fragility fed by 'peak China' real-estate narratives—led it to expect a muted Chinese response and underestimate Beijing's methodical four-year preparation.
“it had an effect on particular firms or particular sectors. Didn't necessarily have a big macroeconomic impact on China.”
Xi has more appetite for economic pain than the US does because he won't face voters complaining about an expensive Christmas, which is the decisive factor (more than the menu of available tools) in why the US lacks economic escalation dominance over China.
“I think he's got I think he's got more appetite for pain than we do. He's not going to have voters who are going to start complaining about an expensive Christmas.”
China's military modernization serves a dual purpose: not only preparation for actual conflict but also deterring US intervention by signaling that any Taiwan contingency will not be a 1996-style cakewalk, because China now has real capabilities to hold US assets in jeopardy in the Western Pacific.
“there's an aspect of it of wanting to be prepared for an actual conflict, but I think there's also an element of deterring the United States”
Xi will be disinclined to move to the 'second line' (the late Deng model) and will instead try to push off dealing with succession, leaning toward the Mao model, because he has two historical examples of succession going badly, a cult of personality, and a belief that he is indispensable—making a voluntary step-back a low-probability event absent real health issues.
“him moving to the second line strikes me as a very low probability event absent real health issues.”
By going after the top of the network (Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, who controlled all general officer promotions) rather than nibbling around the edges, Xi executed a 'decapitation move' that terrified everyone in the PLA, since all officers owed their promotions to that network, instantly conferring enormous authority.
“they all would have owed their promotions at some level to Xu Caihou, even if they didn't have a direct nexus with him.”
Xi has a much greater appetite for risk than predecessors like Hu Jintao or Jiang Zemin, but not Putin's penchant for outright violence and gambling; Xi is more methodical and takes calculated risks rather than gambling on the roulette table, making an overnight pivot to a Putin-style invasion far-fetched given his decade-plus track record.
“He has a much greater appetite for risk than others in the Chinese system... but that's, you know, in the big scheme of things, that's a low bar to clear”
Xi's preferred Taiwan approach in the meantime is coercion designed to demoralize Taiwan over time and keep up a drumbeat of pressure, hoping the foundations of Taiwan's polity crumble, reserving 'blunt force trauma' (invasion) as the option of last resort given its costs.
“what he'd rather do, my you know, my thought is what his approach is in the meantime, it's coercive and it's just kind of to demoralize Taiwan over time”
US tactical efforts to entice Russia or China away from each other don't matter much because the Russia-China entente is baked into Xi's worldview from the start of his tenure (his first state visit was to Moscow); the war in Ukraine intensified and accelerated a pre-existing alignment, and Xi feels he made the right strategic bet to keep Putin from losing.
“Xi's first state visit after becoming general secretary and president was to Moscow and to meet with Putin”
Xi Jinping has purged comparable numbers of Central Military Commission members to Mao Zedong, depending on how you count, and this places him on pace with or potentially exceeding Mao's purges of the high command.
“Xi has now purged more members of the Central Military Commission than Mao ever did... it depends on how you count, and we spent a lot of time looking on this. But I think he's he's on pace right now to have numbers that are comparable”
The US can still hold strategic-security and nuclear-doctrine dialogues with Russia (which continued until the war's outbreak) but finds getting the PLA to discuss anything adjacent nearly impossible, despite four decades of closer US-China people-to-people and commercial ties; this is partly because the US and USSR shared a Cold War nuclear scare that built familiarity, whereas China, never having had a nuclear scare, doesn't take these issues as seriously and feels its great-power status from other dimensions.
“the strategic security dialogue that we had with the Russians about really sensitive issues about nuclear weapons and nuclear doctrine, those continued until pretty much the outbreak of the war... getting the PLA to talk about anything even remotely to adjacent to that is almost like fantastical”
One methodological discipline in analyzing Chinese politics is establishing 'signposts' ahead of time—'if a coup against Xi were happening, what would I expect to see?'—rather than retrofitting explanations after observing events; this prevents chasing viral YouTube videos (e.g., from Epoch Times) and imposing narrative on fragmentary evidence.
“you want to have some kind of a priori notion of what's going on and then you know, be to be intellectually honest, you know, just do basic things like lay out signposts. Like, okay, like if there is going to be a coup against Xi or if Xi was losing power in the system, these are the things that I would expect to see. And having that in in in place ahead of time so that you can start to to sort the evidence as it comes in, right? Rather than saying like, I saw this wild video on YouTube from the Epoch Times that there's clearly going to be a coup”
Xi has now purged more members of the Central Military Commission than Mao ever did.
“Xi has now purged more members of the Central Military Commission than Mao ever did.”
The Minister of National Defense is no longer even on the CMC or is a state councilor ('a glorified errand boy'); this means that the crucial crisis communication channel would have to go through Xi directly, and that any serious military crisis would immediately become a political problem requiring top-level leadership involvement.
“the crucial channel, right? They're not going You're not going to be able to figure it out on your own between the Joint Staff and the Minister of National Defense who, oh by the way, is not even in the CMC anymore. He's not even a state councilor, right? You know, he's like, you know, that this point, you know, that's like it's like talking to a glorified errand boy, you know.”
Half of the former uniformed members of the PLA leadership have been removed or are missing.
“half of the unifor- former members of the PLA are removed or missing.”
The second Taiwan Strait crisis (late 1950s) saw China shell Taiwanese islands on alternating days while Mao told Khrushchev to relax, creating a controlled escalation where Beijing managed the pace and intensity of military action as a political instrument; this demonstrates Beijing's ability to conduct limited military operations without accidental escalation.
“when you go back to the '50s, like the Quemoy and Matsu crisis, right? Where uh I think it was in the second one, if I recall correctly, where the Chinese were shelling Taiwan on alternating days, right? Uh and Mao was telling everybody to settle down and and you know, scaring the bejesus out of Khrushchev because he's like, 'It's fine. It's fine.'”
Xi's speed in moving against retired senior figures right away was strategically decisive: by targeting already-retired elders early, he changed everyone else's calculus, since mid-ranking and senior officers had to decide which horse to back—the retired guys or the young, vigorous leader who would make all decisions for the next 10-20 years.
“It was a blitzkrieg, number one, so speed was definitely one of his big advantages.”
Beijing obtained tariff relief and a side deal essentially 'on the cheap': it merely returned to the status quo ante before Liberation Day by pulling back its own measures, yet ended up as one of only two countries (alongside close ally the UK) with a tariff-relief side deal, an impressive diplomatic feat that avoided the grand anti-China coalition on unfair practices.
“the only two countries at that point that the United States had some kind of side deal with for tariff relief was our closest ally, the United Kingdom, and our nominal chief rival, China.”
Xi's first state visit after becoming leader was to Moscow to meet Putin, signaling early that Xi wanted to put a premium on that relationship; they have met 40+ times and publicly called each other 'best friends,' though this image may or may not be authentic, the War in Ukraine intensified an entente that was already underway.
“Xi's first state visit after becoming general secretary and president was to Moscow and to meet with Putin, right? And so I think that was a very clear signal early on that he wanted to put a premium on this relationship, right? And of course there's the stat that in the years since then they've met like 40-plus something times.”
Russia is more chaotic and violent than China in its internal politics and foreign operations; Putin has allowed public opposition (Navalny), eliminated internal rivals through violence and poisoning, and conducted assassination operations abroad; the CCP, by contrast, keeps purges and eliminations quiet, does not tolerate the same level of public opposition, and does not conduct assassination operations abroad at the scale Russia does.
“Putin is obviously also a very personalistic autocrat but there is you know as As observer from the outside very casual observer of Russian politics, there's just a level of chaos in that system and violence that the CCP just doesn't tolerate. Right? Like even watching what happened with with Navalny and and and watching that horrible tragedy, all I could think as a China watcher was they would have squashed this guy like 20 years ago.”
Xi Jinping's Taiwan policy achieved its high-water mark with the November 2015 Singapore handshake between Xi and Ma Ying-jeou, the first meeting between the heads of the CCP and ROC since Mao's 1946 meeting with Chiang Kai-shek; after Tsai Ing-wen's election in 2016, the policy shifted to coercion and has achieved no progress despite more than a decade of implementation.
“Xi's Taiwan policy, picking up on the Hu Jintao administration's policy, was actually really bearing some fruit... the big culminating event would have been 10 years ago when Xi Jinping shook shook hands with then Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou in Singapore, right?... it was also ended up being a high water mark for his Taiwan policy. You know, and of course he had to deal with Tsai Ing-wen and the DPP ever ever since then pretty much.”
China may view the 2001 EP-3 incident as an effective model of crisis management rather than a cautionary tale: by holding the pilots for more than ten days and extracting an apology, Beijing could conclude that going dark and being opaque actually enhances its leverage and makes the Americans more cautious and eager to reach out.
“from from the Chinese side, they saw that as an effective model of crisis management, right?... They were able to hold onto the pilots, right? For for uh for more than 10 days”
By populating the Politburo Standing Committee with his old friends ('Xi's frat house'), Xi created an information problem for succession: he lacks personal relationships with the 50-something cohort from which a successor must come, so he will have to rely on his proteges' proteges ('bridge friends'), and because his inner-circle figures don't all like each other, they will jockey to position their own proteges, creating a frothier and more fraught political environment than the third term.
“this is kind of the downside of Xi having populated the whole Politburo Standing Committees with his whole old buddies, right? Like, I've jokingly called this Xi's frat house”
Xi has created a 'Henry VIII problem' for himself: where Henry VIII obsessed his whole life over succession, Xi has done the opposite—procrastinating on the question while destroying the Deng-era system that, however imperfectly, provided a peaceful mechanism for transferring power, leaving him without a settled way to hand over power.
“he's kind of created a Henry the VIII problem for himself. Whereas, Henry the VIII spent all his whole life obsessed with who was going to succeed him. Xi has done the opposite.”
The U.S. cannot drive a wedge between Russia and China because their strategic interests are too deeply aligned and the triangular dynamic (viewing the U.S. as the common threat) is baked into both leaders' worldviews; tactical efforts to entice one side away from the other are essentially futile.
“I think the key challenge then is, you know, is I don't think it's really possible to to drive a wedge between the two of them just given how they see their a deep alignment of their strategic interest.”
Both the US and China are profoundly dysfunctional in different ways—the US struggles to pay bills or maintain infrastructure; China has endemic corruption and a broken real estate sector; the competition between them is not about which is more dynamic but about which can better manage its maladies, like 'two older people' approaching the finish line on walkers.
“both US and China are both superpowers, but they're both really dysfunctional in really profound ways, right? Like China obviously has its own deep pathologies with corruption... real estate sector... And I think just a, you know, not as a partisan statement, but as kind of an objective observation, like our our system is not functioning the way it should... we struggle to pay our bills on time, and we don't make the repairs we need to to our infrastructure... Sometimes it gets framed in terms of what side is more dynamic, but I think it's really about It's like two older people who have a lot of maladies, and the question is who can cope better with their maladies.”
China achieved a remarkable diplomatic victory by securing a bilateral tariff relief agreement with the US while no coalition of US allies agreed to similar terms; the only countries with US side deals were Britain (closest ally) and China (chief rival), suggesting that China negotiated with far greater skill and extracted maximum concessions while offering minimal concessions in return (just pulling back measures imposed after Liberation Day).
“after that agreement, rather than having this kind of, you know, grand coalition that was going to focus on China's unfair non-market practices, right? Which, you know, probably has some merit to it. Instead, the only two countries at that point that the United States had some kind of side deal with for tariff relief was our closest ally, the United Kingdom, and our nominal chief rival, China. Right? I mean, from China Beijing's perspective, that that that's kind of an amazing feat of diplomacy. And what did they pay for this, right? All they did was go back to status quo ante before Liberation Day. All they did was pull back the measures that they had imposed.”
Xi Jinping is now in his 70s, is overweight, is a smoker or former smoker, and has been governing the world's largest country for the past dozen years, making him subject to normal patterns of age-related decline; combined with the emotional exhaustion of operating in a fractious political environment and regularly purging people, Xi must be experiencing cumulative fatigue.
“This is the guy who's now in his 70s. I mean, he's obviously overweight, and he's got an incredible Yeah. Smoker, uh maybe former smoker, and you know, he's been doing this impossible job of governing the world's largest country for the last dozen or so years, right? Like he's he's got to be tired, right?”
If Xi dies suddenly with no named successor, there is no constitutional line of succession in Chinese politics (unlike the US system); the VP is often a sinecure for a retired official not even on the Politburo Standing Committee, leaving the door open to whoever can best position themselves among the top leadership.
“there is no line of succession in Chinese politics like we have in the United States. It's not like you go from the president to the vice president, right? To to the speaker of the house. There's there's nothing like that that's codified. In fact, you know, for most of Xi's tenure the vice president is is a sinecure for an otherwise retired official. They're not even on the Politburo Standing Committee, right?”
It is unclear who has Xi Jinping's ear on Taiwan policy—there is no influential advisor like Liu He—because Xi, as Xi Zhongxun's son with personal career experience in Fujian and Xiamen during the 1990s Taiwan crisis, believes he understands the issue 'genealogically' and has unusual self-assurance, leaving no obvious consigliere on the matter.
“it's not clear who has Xi Jinping's ear on Taiwan policy, right? There's not somebody like even a Liu He, right? Somebody that you can point to and say, 'This is the This is the guy who's very influential with him.'”
Xi's network can be understood as a two-tiered solar system: an inner 'asteroid belt' of figures bound by deep generational affinity (like Zhang Youxia, whose father served with Xi's father in the Fourth Field Army), and an outer tier of disposable figures who merely crossed paths with Xi in their careers and can be elevated or destroyed without cost.
“if Xi is centered the center of his own political solar system, there's two echelons to it, right? There are the people who are inside the asteroid belt, and I would include most of the Politburo Standing Committee in that”
Xi's analysis of younger potential successors faces a hard information problem because he lacks personal relationships with people in his age cohort's children's generation, unlike US presidents who blend one or two close associates with many professionals—Xi's Standing Committee is uniquely composed almost entirely of decades-long friends.
“it's a it's a hard information problem because he doesn't have these personal relationships with the people who are in his age cohort.”
The succession question for Xi is fundamentally constrained by his own incentive structure: he has destroyed the old Deng-era system of peaceful power transfers through term limits but has not created a new system, forcing him into the position of having to solve a problem he himself has created—a 'Henry VIII problem' where he will obsess over succession but be reluctant to actually execute a plan.
“he's kind of uh like I say in the paper, he's kind of created a Henry the VIII problem for himself. Whereas, Henry the VIII spent all his whole life obsessed with who was going to succeed him. Xi has done the opposite. He's tried to procrastinate as much as possible about this question and kind of destroyed the old way for for doing that.”
The precedent of the EP-3 incident (2001) may have been misinterpreted by China: the US saw it as demonstrating the need for better crisis communications, while the Chinese may have interpreted it as an effective model of crisis management in which going dark and being opaque actually enhances Chinese leverage.
“I increasingly think that from from the Chinese side, they saw that as an effective model of crisis management, right? They were able to hold onto the pilots, right? For for uh for more than 10 days... They got their apology... it's like, 'What's What's the problem here? You know, going dark is part of what we need to do because we all need, you know, in that system you need to confer and kind of get your act together, but also as a as a tactical matter, you could easily see somebody in that system making the case like this was actually quite effective, right? Going dark uh enhances and being opaque actually enhances our our leverage with the Americans.'”
Xi's political network operates on a two-tiered structure: an inner 'asteroid belt' including Politburo Standing Committee members like Zhang Youxia (who has deep father-level connections to Xi's father from the Fourth Field Army in the Civil War) and an outer layer of 'disposable' figures like Li Shangfu and Wei Dong who can be purged without threatening Xi's authority.
“my very rough heuristic for understanding the people in Xi's network is that it's kind of a two-tiered structure, right? Or if Xi is centered the center of his own political solar system, there's two echelons to it, right? There are the people who are inside the asteroid belt, and I would include most of the Politburo Standing Committee in that, right? And and on the military side, I would include people like Zhang Youxia... And then I think for these other characters that have been removed like Li Shangfu, the former defense minister, or uh even Wei Dong... these guys are disposable. Xi can make them and he can break them.”
Time is on Beijing's side in the current Trump-Xi negotiations; as the midterm elections approach, Trump will face domestic political pressure to show a 'win' against China, and this time pressure will incentivize him to negotiate against himself or accept a deal that merely returns to status quo ante before Liberation Day, exactly as happened with Phase One in 2020.
“time is actually on Beijing's side in this negotiation... from Beijing's perspective because I think what they're banking on is as the administration gets closer to the midterm elections, they're going to want to have something to show for their efforts and for this prolonged negotiation with China, which I think they the Chinese side thinks means Trump may start negotiating against himself or get antsy for a deal, right?... if you look back at trade war 1.0, that's kind of what happened. That's how we ended up with phase one was Trump got antsy for a deal and he said, 'Just let's just do the deal and we'll call it phase one and then, you know, we can figure out the rest of it later.'”
Xi has significantly greater appetite for economic pain than the United States; he does not face domestic electoral pressure or complaints about expensive Christmases, allowing him to maintain coercive measures longer and with greater resolve than Trump can sustain, making 'escalation dominance' ultimately a question of willingness to endure pain rather than a question of available tools.
“I think she demonstrated during this. I think he's got I think he's got more appetite for pain than we do. He's not going to have voters who are going to start complaining about an expensive Christmas. And he's not going to have to deal with that. I I mean, we do we do have points of leverage, you know, there are select things we could do, right? Like the a aviation sector... but again, to what end? Is that really going to accomplish what you're trying to do if your goal is to try to demonstrate that you have escalation dominance and get them to back off, right?”
From Xi's perspective, supporting Russia (at least enough to prevent Russian defeat) is the right strategic bet, because a Russian collapse would allow the U.S. to pivot fully toward containing China; keeping Russia in the game as a strategic partner serves China's interests even if it comes at some cost to China's economy.
“I think that he feels like he made the right bet, right? That this is this was a smart play, you know, back the Russians uh and and and keep them in the game and keep them involved in this fight and make sure that that Putin doesn't doesn't lose this war, you know?”
Working in the CIA to analyze China differs fundamentally from doing policy work (e.g., at the NSC or Pentagon); analysis requires humanistic, historical thinking rather than social scientific regression analysis, asking 'how does this look from Xi Jinping's desk' rather than opining about US policy; this methodological discipline is harder to find in think tanks and academia.
“my job was not to opine about US policy... My job, you know, on a day-to-day basis was to think about how does this look from Xi Jinping's desk, right? And I think one of the striking things to me methodologically about this, especially somebody who had studied political science and majored in it in college, was that this was not a social scientific enterprise, right? I wasn't thinking about this in terms of some kind of regression analysis or or plotting points... it's much more humanistic in my mind and it requires a lot more of moral imagination. It's almost more like being a historian”
Trade war escalation without achieving strategic objectives is not a winning strategy; the question is not what tools the US has but what the purpose of escalation is and what level of domestic pain the US population is willing to endure for that objective.
“I think there are things we could do, but I think the bigger question is then to what end, right? Are you trying to escalate so you get them to back off eventually? Cuz I think it's not just a question of what tools do you have, but like what appetite do you have for pain, right?”
Xi's anti-corruption campaign in the PLA serves both genuine anti-corruption purposes and a crucial instrumental purpose: it is the key lever of power to bring the PLA under his personal control and suborn it to himself, which has been a priority from day one of his tenure.
“from practically day one in Xi's tenure in office, he has been laser focused on ensuring that the PLA is under his thumb, right? And the anti-corruption campaign has been an important tool of it. I think there's genuine reasons he wants to pursue anti-corruption, but there's an important instrumental purpose, right? That is the key lever of power, and it's been very clear from the outset that he wants to suborn them to himself.”
Xi likely believes he has his own superior understanding of Taiwan policy due to his heritage as a princeling, his father Xi Zhongxun's experience with Taiwan and United Front work, his personal career exposure in Xiamen and Fujian during the 1990s Taiwan crisis, and his experience in Zhejiang; this self-assurance explains why no obvious consigliere on Taiwan policy is visible in the system.
“it's not clear who has Xi Jinping's ear on Taiwan policy, right? There's not somebody like even a Liu He, right? Somebody that you can point to and say, 'This is the This is the guy who's very influential with him.' And I think a lot of that is because again, I think this is part of his legacy as a princeling and as Xi Zhongxun's son in particular, right? I think that he he thinks that he's got his own best handle on this issue because he understands this idea almost genealogically... he would have been vice governor during the Taiwan crisis in the '90s, right? So, he would have had a front row seat to this whole dynamic for for the previous 30 years.”
TSMC and semiconductor supply chains rank very low on Xi's priority list regarding Taiwan; he has sufficient confidence that China will eventually figure out chip production independently, and if he did decide to invade Taiwan, he would scuttle TSMC rather than preserve it, treating the economic consequences as acceptable costs.
“I think I think the chips and TSMC, I think actually ranks very low on Xi's priorities when it comes to this, even though he's got this techno-industrial fetish. I think he has enough confidence that China will figure it out over time. And I think if, you know, if he did make the decision to go for Taiwan, he'd scuttle it, right? That he he he would do what he needed to to to take the island, and I don't think it would factor very high in his considerations.”
The United States and Western allies have very little agency over Chinese internal succession dynamics; America is viewed by the Chinese system less as a policy variable to influence and more as a structural force of history—'the avatar of late finance capitalism'—that requires a strong leader capable of managing China's relationship with the declining West.
“I think for the most part very very little... To the extent that we are a factor, I think it's more not necessarily in the background, but we're kind of seen, I think, almost in these very luminous terms as a structural force of hit history, right? As kind of the avatar of late finance capitalism, right? That we're declining and we're dangerous and we're very powerful and that you're going to need a leader who's got the stomach uh and the and the wherewithal to deal effectively with the United States”
China responded to the end of the Biden administration's export controls and competitive actions with remarkable alacrity and force (Liberation Day and rare earth bans), signaling that it had prepared comprehensive responses during the intervening four years and was testing new retaliatory tools; the Trump administration misdiagnosed this response as weak and assumed China would continue to be restrained as it had been during Biden.
“we saw China respond, unlike that 2022 period or earlier periods, with great alacrity, right? They were responding and they were responding, you know, fairly forcefully and pretty pretty quickly... they had very clearly spent the intervening years thinking about how they would respond to this and how they would retaliate... they had very clearly spent the intervening years thinking about how they would respond to this and how they would retaliate. And I think that was the first wave of them test driving some of these new toys and tools”
Having visible access or relationship with the United States is a political liability for Chinese officials seeking to rise in the system; they can be attacked as too sympathetic to the US or having received benefit from American contacts, making American efforts to cultivate relationships with rising Chinese figures counterproductive.
“having that access is, you know, makes it actually much harder for that person to ascend the ranks, Yeah. cuz it's baggage, right? That open that makes them vulnerable to criticism that they're too sympathetic to the United States or too cozy with with the United States”
If Xi died suddenly, Cai Qi would seem most well-positioned to take power because he holds key party portfolios (running the General Office—the job Stalin held under Lenin) and sits on the National Security Commission, giving him an excuse to engage the PLA and security services that other Politburo Standing Committee members lack; but this same prominence could make him a 'Beria'-style target everyone ganged up on.
“the person who would seem potentially most well-positioned to do that would be Cai Qi, right? Because he holds so many of the key portfolios in the party”
The original logic of Xi's Taiwan policy under Hu Jintao was Marxian: if China changes the economic structure (through deeper economic ties with Taiwan), the political superstructure will follow; Taiwan would fall like an apple into China's gravitational orbit as economic integration deepened. This theory has proven intellectually bankrupt, and the DPP's continued electoral success despite PRC coercion suggests the island has moved further from Beijing, not closer.
“initially going back to Hu Jintao, kind of a softer approach, a very Marxian approach, right? There was I think the line of thinking was that if we change the economic structure, the political superstructure will change, right? So as China's economic clout goes and economic ties with Taiwan become closer, Taiwan is just eventually going to come into China's orbit. It's going to fall like an apple off a tree into their into their growing gravity, right? But after the election of Tsai, you see a clear pivot from Xi towards a more coercive approach, but that hasn't really been working.”
The US has maintained strategic security dialogues with Russia on nuclear doctrine even during heightened tension, but struggles to get the PLA to discuss even adjacent topics; this is striking because the US has had a closer peacetime relationship with China (4+ decades of diplomatic relations) than with Russia during the Cold War, yet China is far less willing to engage in military-to-military communication.
“the strategic security dialogue that we had with the Russians about really sensitive issues about nuclear weapons and nuclear doctrine, those continued until pretty much the outbreak of the war, right? Whereas, you know, and and and my old boss, Kurt Campbell, just had an essay about this in Foreign Affairs, getting the PLA to talk about anything even remotely to adjacent to that is almost like fantastical, right? Like you're kind of chasing a unicorn to have those conversations. And it's interesting because in a lot of ways we've actually had a much closer relationship with China over the over the previous four decades, right? But yet even though we have all and we have closer to people. People ties we have obviously have the commercial relationship and even despite all that, when it comes down to those really sensitive geopolitical issues, we can still talk to the Russians in a way that is unimaginable or not unimaginable, but it's very hard to fathom having those kind of conversations with with China.”
Xi's elevation of people from his immediate personal network onto the Politburo Standing Committee (the 'frat house' effect) means he has lost the informational advantage of having diverse advisors from different factional backgrounds; he now lacks good data on potential successors in their 50s because he has no personal relationships with them.
“Xi having populated the whole Politburo Standing Committee with his whole old buddies, right? Like, I've jokingly called this Xi's frat house, right?... he walks into a Politburo Standing Committee and all of these guys, can you imagine walking into a meeting where you're the boss and you look around the table and with the exception of Wang Qishan, you've known all these guys for 30, 40 years, right?”
The PLA was professionalizing during the Hu Jintao era in the sense of becoming more operationally proficient and technologically advanced, but the Chinese party does not actually want a 'professional' military in the Western sense (apolitical and politically neutral); Xi has explicitly and repeatedly reasserted that the PLA is the armed wing of the Communist Party and that loyalty to the party is mission number one, two, and three.
“there's this notion casual notion that floats around sometimes that the PLA over the last 20 years or so has been professionalizing... I think that's kind of not quite right... the party's perspective, they don't want a professional PLA in the sense that Samuel Huntington would have would have called this, right? That it's apolitically apolitical and politically neutral. And you can see that, you know, on the pages of Jiefangjun Bao on a regular basis, right? Where Xi excoriates this idea that and he reminds them, you are the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party. That is mission number one, two, and three.”
The probability of a coup against Xi has likely passed; any meaningful backlash would have had to materialize much earlier during his first term when he was taking down powerful figures like Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong; by successfully purging those rivals and their networks early, he made subsequent opposition impossible because coordination became a 'bad game theory problem' where potential conspirators have incentives to betray each other to Xi.
“If there was going to be a backlash against him, it would have had to materialize much earlier... Once he did that, it becomes much harder for other people in the system to conspire against him, right? And to marshal their forces because it's almost like a bad game theory problem, right? Like, you know, if I, you know, reach out to you to depose the boss, you have every incentive to sell me out to the boss”
The accidental war scenario between US and China—where a military collision escalates into major conflict—strikes Dotson as 'incredibly low probability' because both sides have strong incentives to avoid war and both leaderships have shown they will back down from crises; however, an actual collision or accident is more plausible ('probably inevitable') given the density of military forces in the region.
“does that necessarily lead to, you know, to some kind of cataclysmic conflict? I think you're right. I think objectively it's harder to see that... some kind of collision. That to me strikes me as totally plausible, right? Or even, you know, I think you could even make a fair case like it's probably inevitable.”
The most influential figure with experience on Taiwan and United Front work in the early-1980s central leadership was Xi Zhongxun, Xi's father, which informs Xi's own genealogical sense of ownership over the Taiwan issue.
“who would have been the person in the central leadership and the secretariat with the most experience dealing with Taiwan and dealing with the KMT and doing United Front work? It was Xi's old man, Xi Zhongxun.”
If the DPP had achieved a full electoral sweep in 2021 (rather than the KMT winning in legislative elections), it could have forced Xi into a crisis moment where he felt compelled to 'shake up the dynamic' on Taiwan, potentially accelerating escalatory options; Dotson worries that even the DPP's continued electoral success in his fourth term could push Xi toward coercive military options as he approaches 80 years old.
“what I worried about is that if if it was a crunch, right? If the DPP did have a full sweep in 2021, where does that leave Xi? Right? Does he start to get antsy? And that's part of what I worry about. And I argue argue this in the China Leadership Monitor pieces, what happens when Xi gets to his fourth term? Right? And he's staring down the barrel of 80. It's possible they might not be, but if the DPP is still in power, does he does he have to have a deeper rethink?”
In a sudden succession crisis, the other Politburo Standing Committee members would likely gang up on Cai Qi (as happened with Beria after Stalin), not because he has accumulated as much resentment as Beria, but because the system has an incentive to prevent any single figure from consolidating the level of power Xi now holds; however, the constraint that factional conflict must remain bounded within the corridors of power (not spill out to constituencies as Zhao Ziyang attempted in 1989) will likely result in a negotiated successor rather than a violent outcome.
“Does he become kind of like Beria, the guy that everybody else decides to gang up on?... I think everybody else decides Yeah, he hasn't killed everyone's aunts and uncles... It is possible other everybody else gangs up on him and then they decide among themselves who who should get the ring, right? And my suspicion is that they will probably be able to figure out though... there's a sense that this needs to be bound because if this gets out of control and kind of leaves the corridors of power and you have people doing what Zhao Ziyang did and reaching out to constituencies in the public, then things could could really unravel”
Xi may actually thrive in power and have little incentive to step back as he ages; the job itself is what keeps him energized and in motion, like a shark that must keep moving or it dies, and he is unlikely to move to the 'second line' and play the Deng role of informal power behind the scenes unless his health dramatically fails.
“If this is just what gets him out of bed every day...she lives for this. Like this is this is this is what gets him out of bed every day, I'm sure...he's got to stay in motion, right? Without the game, he would kind of he would kind of wither.”
A core thesis of Trump's Liberation Day was to force decoupling of America from China's economy, but months later there is no evidence of meaningful decoupling, suggesting the tariff approach alone cannot achieve this geopolitical objective.
“I think the sort of like one of the many initial theses around liberation day was like, this is a way to force America and the world to decouple from China. And it's kind of like like the the sort of we're we're sitting we're sitting in the middle of a my uh uh shutdown... there's this there's this like Republican line like ah, we don't even care about the government being shut down cuz then we can, you know, fire all these people... the sort of the sequencing... 'All right, we're going to settle the Ukraine war and then turn our energy to China.' doesn't like like the window is kind of closing”
Xi's preferred approach to Taiwan is coercive pressure and demoralization over time—maintaining a 'drumbeat of pressure' in hopes that Taiwan's political will gradually crumbles, rather than attempting immediate military conquest, which represents the 'blunt force trauma' option of last resort given the costs.
“what his approach is in the meantime, it's coercive and it's just kind of to demoralize Taiwan over time, right? And just kind of keep up the drumbeat of pressure and hope that hope that that starts to to cause the the foundations of Taiwan's polity polity to crumble over time. He doesn't necessarily want to go for the blunt force trauma first, right? That's kind of the option of last resort given the costs.”
China policy in the early 1980s under Deng Xiaoping's economic opening was the 'height of this discussion'—the moment when Taiwan unification seemed most plausible—because China was at its most liberal point; for any future Taiwan unification scenario to succeed, China would need to evolve in a more liberal direction, not toward greater coercion.
“the most liberal version of domestic China... like that was the height of this discussion when we had the most liberal version of domestic China. And so, for like it to ever really happen in a happy way, like like that's really what's going to have to like that that's really the development we're going to have to take.”
Outside of government, there is a powerful incentive to end analysis with policy recommendations ('what should America do about this?'), which can distort the analysis itself; intelligence analysts have the luxury of being able to just build the mental model first and then stop, leaving the policy inference to others.
“there's there's a focus on it in a way that you don't necessarily get in academia and and on the outside, right? Like, this is not something It's hard to study from the outside... there is this notion of wanting to try to cultivate... But, I think what's counterintuitive... having that access... makes it harder for that person... I think making that that I think it's so natural for to to talk about what the US should do for for people in Washington outside of government... this is always one of the funny things coming from me coming from the agency... my my boss... say, 'Okay, like so what do we do about it, John?'”
Xi Jinping has much greater appetite for risk than his predecessors (Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin), but in 'the big scheme of things, that's a low bar to clear'; he does not have the same penchant for outright violence and reckless gambling that Putin exhibits, and is instead 'much more methodical' in how he takes calculated risks.
“Xi is very He has a much greater appetite for risk than others in the Chinese system, right? Like a Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin, but that's, you know, in the big scheme of things, that's a low bar to clear, right? And he doesn't have that same kind of penchant for just outright violence and risk-taking that Putin has, right? He's much He's much casher and he's much more methodical, I think, in in how he goes about taking risks.”
Even with the summit and continued diplomatic engagement, new frictions (soybeans, entity listings) continue to crop up, suggesting that concessions on two chief sources of friction (Taiwan and technology competition) have not meaningfully reduced the structural drivers of US-China competition; the relationship is a 'ceasefire' rather than a deeper detente.
“even we see it right now, right? In the run-up to a summit where both sides um you know, especially the US side is trying to make to try to mollify Beijing. There are issues like the soybeans that are cropping up, right? There were additional entity listings just just about a week ago that the Commerce Department imposed on on a variety of Chinese subsidiaries, right? So, it it's fraught... can give pretty remarkable concessions on the two chief sources of two of the chief sources of friction in the relationship on Taiwan and on technology competition and still not really have any meaningful attenuation of the the structural drivers of of the competition... it doesn't feel like you said like warm and fuzzy right now necessarily. It's more of a ceasefire than than some kind of more meaningful or deeper detente.”
From an elite-politics-dynamism perspective, the current era is a 'nadir' compared to earlier decades: Xi's big-bang consolidation is over and leadership, PLA modernization, and economic reform are all in cruise control, even as China is more powerful as a share of global national power than ever before.
“from a kind of like like elite politics dynamism perspective, like we are at a we are at a true nadir, I think.”
Going from pure analysis (CIA) to policy work (NSC, Pentagon) is like a runner thinking they can do a triathlon: it's an adjacent but different skill set that exposes muscles they didn't know they were using, and while it's good to have both experiences, they are distinct disciplines.
“for me personally like I've I'm a I'm a lifelong runner. It's kind of like if you're a runner and you think, 'Like yeah, I can do a triathlon.' and then you get on a bicycle and you're like, 'I'm feeling a lot of burn in places I didn't expect to.' Right? I thought I was a good shape, but this is this is an adjacent muscle set.”
Working at Brookings, Dotson finds that 80% of questions are about 'picking' the Trump administration (who's up, who's down) rather than China, and he feels comfortable doing this analysis because he was trained to do it for China, but acknowledges that some of his analytical tools may be overextended when applied to US politics.
“80% of the questions are about doing pickingology on the Trump administration. Like in the early days, like 'Where does Must fin in his orbit? Right?' I'm like, 'Who's up? Who's down?' I'm like, 'I'm I feel comfortable doing this, but for their system.'”