"the rest of us will merely invoke Rule .308 on those foolish enough to riot."
The reason the Chicomms will be able to deal with their people's deprivation. They have no .308.
You are, of course, presuming that the ChiComs will be able to feed their own troops, or that there will be enough troops.
The PLA will be outnumbered approximately 1,000 to 1 by citizenry looking to eat them.