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No . China has no intention of invading Taiwan . Must stop believing all the anti- China propaganda . Xi is leading a country with 1.4 billion people of 56 different ethnicities, bordering 14 countries. China is extremely complex. On top of this, many in the “ West “ have had their knives out for China for a while because it is viewed as a peer competitor .

You are mistaken. I speak, read and write the language, I’ve lived there. I know their history pretty well, perhaps better in fact than you. The CCP shares with every other governing communist party in history a fundamental belief in totalitarianism. They wield this instinct ruthlessly against anyone who threatens their power, be they Uighurs, overseas dissidents, the American government, that poor guy in Beijing who bravely hung that banner on the bridge recently, anyone.

Yeah, they have officially 55 (or so, I forget the exact number) minorities, but the overwhelming majority of the population is Han. The borders of the CCP empire — except for Mongolia, and parts of it still possessed by Russia — coincide with those of the Qing empire, because that’s the land “China” is supposed to rule. The 55 minorities are there in the world to obey, and to make money for, the CCP leadership.

All countries are “complex.” Their governments are not all as brutal, as repressive, their leaders as eager to cultivate hatred of the foreign as the CCP now is. The next few years are going to be a dangerous time, as the CCP copes with the fruits of its self-imposed isolation and decline even as it tries, with as much violence as necessary, to remake the international order. That order is imperfect, but a lot better than any in which the CCP would be calling a lot of the shots.

That, not bromides about “complexity,” is the reality.

China is more complex than most outsider understand, and I might have bought the China-is-no-threat line before they developed a blue water navy, created fake island bases, claimed the entire South China Sea, began buying friends throughout the globe, created spy centers throughout the west, etc.

But the premise of the report is correct, Xi just killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

Taiwan is a low level symbolism for the mainland.

Formosa isn’t key to China’s ethos as say Chang’an or Beijing.

It isn’t critical in terms of resources.

I think far more for China’s sense of middle kingdom is to get back Russian controlled manchuria and to get back Mongolia. And have dominance over central Asia