Does this sound farfetched? Communist China becomes so despised by the rest of the world for inflicting COVID-19 on us that demand for Chinese goods and cheap Chinese labor falls off a cliff. The world no longer wants China to supply its manufactured goods. Chinese factories close, Chinese workers have no income and the economy of Communist China spirals down. A severe depression begins in China, let’s say in October, 2020. Meanwhile, the United States takes action against China for the COVID-19 debacle by demanding repayment of the stimulus required to sustain the U.S. economy (maybe $4 trillion), as do a host of other nations – further driving China to effective bankruptcy.
What’s a despotic regime to do? Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, has already consolidated complete control in China. Is it unreasonable to think that he would use that power to do what many have done before him in similar circumstances (think Hitler’s Germany)? To wit: begin a war. Wars unite people, sometimes blindly. And they provide jobs to produce war material. Now is also a good time for China to strike because they control so much of our manufacturing – including things that really matter like antibiotics, other critical pharmaceuticals and infrastructure components. If China (along with Russia, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba) wins such a war, they become the world’s super power, something their leadership has openly stated is their destiny. If they lose, they’re bankrupt anyway and perhaps we’ll rebuild them like we did Germany and Japan, and bring back their economy. Of course Xi won’t survive to see that, but he will have had his moment in the sun. The prospect of such fame alone may be enough to get a man like him to try it.