 the Kuomintang (the Chinese Nationalist Party) and in the Korean War. The poorly equipped soldiers died in droves bravely charging at the enemy in “human wave” tactics. The ruling party also exercised near total control over the lives of individuals. Party cadres determined where people worked, what benefits they received, and even whom they married.
China’s state control has decayed considerably from the Mao era. The CCP’s own catastrophic policies, such as Mao’s Great Leap Forward which resulted in the deaths of perhaps 30 million people, are in no small part responsible for the state’s faltering links to the populace. Similarly, the Cultural Revolution instigated by Mao in the late 1960s brought enormous chaos and violence, resulting in the deaths of millions more. These disastrous mistakes discredited the party’s ideology and cost it considerable public support, a point acknowledged by the Chinese government. Deng Xiaoping’s liberalizing reforms in the late 1970s restored some luster to CCP rule when rapid economic growth lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Expanding economic opportunities and rising living standards earned supreme leader Deng Xiaoping broad popular support. China experienced a few major protests, most notably that of the Tiananmen Square massacre, but decades of rapid growth otherwise coincided with remarkable political stability in the 1980s and 1990s.
However, the state’s legitimacy has deteriorated considerably since the early 2000s, when opportunities began to stall and the external costs of rapid growth grew intolerable. Although China became the world’s second largest economy in 2010, wealth and income became sharply imbalanced. When Xi took power, the Gini coefficient reached 0.44, exceeding the threshold identified by the United Nations as destabilizing. China has the most billionaires on the planet, but it also has about 600 million people whose monthly income is less than $154. Two-thirds of the country’s population remains impoverished, with few job prospects beyond informal work as trash pickers or street hawkers. Moreover, income for many people has stalled. China’s per-capita income ranked 77th in 2021. Meanwhile, official malfeasance and corruption surged, toxic industries polluted the country’s air, soil, and water, and social welfare benefits for citizens remain meager. China’s coronavirus crisis owes, in part, to an inadequate medical infrastructure that proved ill prepared for infectious disease and the care of a growing elderly population.
Accordingly, discontent and disillusionment have soared. In 2005, the last year the government provided data, there were approximately 87,000 protests. By some estimates, the number had grown to about 180,000 protests a year by the mid-2010s, and there is little evidence of abatement. Since 2011, China’s internal security budget has exceeded that of the military, despite hefty annual increases in defense spending. Many young Chinese, facing diminishing prospects for upward mobility and immensely stressful lives, have adopted an attitude of despair and resignation. In recent years, the culture of “lying flat” has gained currency among young people frustrated by unemployment, soaring housing prices, grueling work hours, and low wages. Chinese citizens report an acute sense of anxiety as they struggle to secure a dwindling slice of a shrinking pie. Popular identification with the party has declined, a point acknowledged by dismayed party academics. China’s state is too strong to be labeled a “weak” or “fragile” state, but the country nonetheless has many features in common with weak states. At the very least, it can be considered a weakened state. Political scientists have measured the weakness with various indicators. The Fund for Peace’s Fragile States Index, for example, lists China as 98 out of 178 countries (the U.S. is listed as 46).
Further, China does not have a clear path to building a strong state. With Maoist ideology discredited and the economy incapable of sustaining the soaring growth rates of the Deng years, the CCP’s legitimacy increasingly rests on its ability to satisfy an increasingly diverse set of demands by the people. Yet by the party’s own admission, it cannot meet these needs. In 2021, Xi noted that the “people’s aspirations for a better life have generally shifted from ‘Is there enough?’ to ‘Is it good enough?’” But Xi’s remarks provide little hope for optimism. In a speech published in January 2022, Xi Jinping stated grimly that Chinese officials must not “get people’s hopes up by making promises that we are not able to keep.” Nor does Beijing have the luxury of hiding its state weakness by distributing rent from a single source of revenue to buy elite and popular support, as Russia has done with its mineral revenues.
The reality of a weakened Chinese state carries three important implications for Beijing’s potential use of force against Taiwan. First, the country’s tolerance for casualties will likely decline. Second, Beijing’s tolerance for high costs of war will decline. Third, Beijing’s tolerance for risk will likely decline.
As for the first point—the public’s increasing sensitivity to casualties—calls for patriotic self-sacrifice will ring increasingly hollow to a populace that receives little benefit from the government. Efforts to whip up public enthusiasm for a war that requires immense sacrifices are unlikely to work. After all, the CCP has invested enormous resources to bolster popular support for Xi and the government, with disappointing results. Officials concede that the propaganda is unlikely to succeed on its own and that material incentives are required to extract at least the appearance of public support.
China is already wary of reporting casualties. In its operations abroad, Chinese military forces have acted with considerable caution, refraining from risky operations and downplaying casualties from the violent brawl that occurred with India. Authorities have also obscured data on the number of casualties from the coronavirus due in part to fears over the impact that such disclosures could have on the government’s legitimacy.
Accordingly, military options for Taiwan will have to be scaled to what the public is willing to endure. The Chinese people may take pride in key national accomplishments, such as hosting the Olympics, lunar expeditions, and technological achievements, but are not likely to eagerly back imperial adventures that might cost them dearly. Studies show that Chinese people overwhelmingly oppose war. Whether nationalism is truly on the rise remains unclear. Sentiments among Chinese youth appear to include a complex set of views with only a minority hawkishly supporting a more militant nationalism. But studies show that the situation is even more complex than that, with much sentiment resting in between support and opposition to the regime. China could, perhaps, overcome this limitation by depending more on volunteers and contractors who fight for pay as much as they do for the country. In fact, China already relies primarily on volunteers for its military and security contractors to protect its overseas interests. China has already invested enormously in unmanned aircraft and automated systems, the appeal of which could grow, since the loss of robots will be less politically sensitive than uniformed casualties.
A weakened state also raises the salience of resource constraints. A ruinous war leaving the PLA in tatters would destroy a key pillar of Beijing’s prestige—the creation of a strong military. More importantly, China also faces enormous challenges in accessing the nation’s resources to fund and sustain a large-scale war. Unlike Russia, which can simply extract resources from mineral production, China’s diverse economy relies on taxes from corporations, citizens, and commerce. Accordingly, strategies of total mobilization have become more difficult for China as they are for all other late industrial societies. Military service is unpopular among urban educated youths, despite a dearth of jobs. Resistance to conscription has grown to such an extent that the State Council issued regulations in 2016 outlining penalties for refusal to serve. Further, tax efficiency is notoriously low, owing in part to extensive corruption. The country’s high levels of inequality make it necessary to levy taxes most heavily on powerful, well-resourced elites who may resist such measures. Not surprisingly, Chinese laws and writings on “defense mobilization” use the term to describe a more limited effort than the classic mobilizations of “total wars,” such as those of World War II.
These limitations will constrain China’s military options against Taiwan. With mobilization for total war looking less unlikely at this point, Beijing might find more appealing coercive options that rely heavily on nonmilitary and nonkinetic methods, such as economic coercion, diplomatic pressure, and propaganda. Military operations could augment such efforts in the cyber, information, and psychological warfare domains. Military exercises, drills, and other forms of intimidation and coercion could be useful as well, especially for a weakened regime. In fact, China is already carrying out many of these activities. If Beijing eventually decides that a military intervention is necessary, any large-scale attack could exceed the state’s strength. Further, a large-scale invasion is especially perilous due to the risk of attrition and consequent need to mobilize additional labor and resources. A blockade or smaller scale operations, such as an offshore island seizure, however, could be more attractive. Yet smaller scale options, like an island seizure, offer less hope of compelling Taiwan’s submission. The PLA’s exercise of a joint blockade during former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) visit could well be an indication of China’s preferred contingency plans. But even in the case of an island seizure or blockade, Beijing would need to face the unappetizing prospect of an uncontrolled escalation should U.S. forces intervene in a significant way.
Being a weakened state will likely encourage Beijing to be more risk averse. Already, top leaders routinely emphasize the importance of reducing risks. In one speech, Xi stated that the CCP should “take the prevention and resolution of major risks” as an “extremely important task.” Beyond speeches, Xi has exercised caution in his own behavior. Compared to