War in Taiwan - Internal pressures (General)

by dulan drift, Sunday, August 09, 2020, 09:04 (209 days ago) @ dulan drift

On the point Dan mentions about internal pressures in the CCP being a potential trigger, there's this from Kevin Rudd, an ex-Australian PM and noted China watcher.

"In China, an already slowing economy, the ongoing impact of the trade war, and now the COVID-19 crisis have placed Xi’s leadership under its greatest internal pressure yet. Many in the CCP resent his brutal anticorruption campaign, which has been used in part to eliminate political enemies. His massive military reorganization has encountered resistance from the hundreds of thousands of veterans who lost out. The degree of opposition he faces is reflected in the large number of major personnel changes he has engineered in the party’s intelligence, security, and military hierarchies. And that was before the “party rectification campaign” that he launched in July to sideline opponents and further consolidate his power."

While in America he refers to their disastrous Covid response resulting in:

"150,000 Americans dead; an economic crisis marked by 14.7 percent unemployment, a 43.0 percent rise in bankruptcies, and eye-watering public debt; not to mention the future of American global leadership."

So it looks like your criteria is on the way to being met.