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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's purges of the PLA reflect consolidation of power, not weakness; he has eviscerated any possibility of an organized anti-Xi faction, so future Chinese elite conflict will be among his own acolytes over succession, while US-China competition is a contest between two dysfunctional powers managing decline rather than racing to dominance.
- Xi's early decapitation strikes against Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong made organized coups against him structurally impossible, shifting future conflict to intra-faction jockeying
- Xi has more appetite for risk than predecessors but is methodical and calculated, so full-scale Taiwan invasion remains an option of last resort given the existential stakes for the party
- China played trade war 2.0 effectively using rare earths leverage and time, exploiting Trump's lower pain tolerance and the diplomatic vacuum that existed under Liberation Day
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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.”
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.”
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.”
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”
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”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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 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.”
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.”