CORRECTED Can two things be true at the same time? CORRECTED

binary thinking and China

{As you can tell, Harry getting me up early, on top of traveling, is wearing me down. I apologize for leaving out a most important word from my column published earlier this afternoon. The text below includes the word. Thanks for your patience. cw}

“China, Feeling Strong, Senses An American Retreat” adorns the above-the-fold front page of today’s New York Times “Business” section, while “Dashed dreams and land grabs: the rise of rural protests in China” appears near the top of The Guardian’s website, both this morning.

Surely people recognize the contradiction here.

Uh, which is correct?

One of the most common phrases I heard Americans and foreigners, generally, say when I travelled to the Middle Kingdom over the past thirty years was that to understand China, you had to hold two seemingly opposed ideas in the front of your mind at the same time.

It’s not something we Americans have been accustomed to doing, although perhaps we are getting better at it as our own country evolves.

Part of it depends on the level of analysis (nation-state to nation-state or state or local), but a lot of the problem is that we like binary answers to multi-box questions.

China is supremely confident in so many aspects of its global presence, seeking to expand its role in AI, to assure that Taiwan remains a de jure non-entity in the international system, and to intimate the CCP’s willingness—capability—to silence any other narratives describing its growing prowess as a, if not the, international rule-maker as Washington purports to withdraw to the Western Hemisphere. The Times story reminds us that China sees the future as its to have and to hold, much as Americans did a century ago, but appears less confident about today.

The Guardian portrays a far different story in the Middle Kingdom, where the frustration of stalled opportunities for improved lifestyles becomes an unavoidable fact for millions returning to the interior following five decades of economic expansion and its associated societal effects. Rural protests within the PRC increased by 70% last year, albeit still relatively small in number considering the country’s 1.2 billion population.

But protests, never unknown even in this CCP dictatorship, remain an indicator of the Party’s inability to address genuine policy problems in a manner that meets the expectations of any Emperor of Heaven, a reminder of the embedded obligations incumbent on anyone serving as this nation’s leader to provide for the Chinese people rather than merely himself or the Party. It’s not a social contract in a Lockean sense, but there are definitely expectations in play.

The phenomenal transformation of China’s standard of living resulting from the Four Modernizations following Mao’s merciful death in 1976 relied on urbanization to provide cheap labor for export-oriented manufacturing. The population living farther interior never experienced the stratospheric growth of cities along the seventy-five-mile coastal belt, where manufacturing could easily be shipped out of the country, but the standard of living for people across the vast country improved notably.

Eventually, as is true with any economic cycle, the economic expansion of this era stalled, for a variety of reasons, leading many migrants to retrace their steps to their home communities. The Modernizations improved the standard of living for those in these traditional agricultural communities, but the populations in these interior sections are increasingly dissatisfied with the conditions they see. Land is increasingly subject to pernicious behavior by local Party officials who help businesses, too often without creating new jobs for the underemployed. The article notes that the eradication of long-standing institutions, such as a temple on the South China Sea island of Hainan, is a pernicious move that fuels popular distrust and active discontent.

Municipal-level governments in the PRC have incurred massive debts over the past quarter-century in hopes of providing jobs on major public works projects, even as these jobs fed an overcapacity problem without addressing how to pay off the debts.

But the expectations of those remaining in the lesser-prosperous communities did not abate, particularly when confronted by government promises of societaltransformation, undermined by local governments acting without due process (if not overt corruption) on various issues.

Under the circumstances, Westerners might find it unsurprising that the Chinese turn to civil unrest, since few other options are available to force the government to reconsider. But China, using the sense of self-importance that Xi is reinstalling at a time when Beijing feels little international pressure to alter course, is a horrible place to face penalties for disruptive behavior. Uighurs are about the end the second decade of facing “re-education camps”, a.k.a. incarceration for racial and religious reasons, in the northwest while various kinds of retribution against those seeking to entertain freedoms—whether of the press, religion, or any other aspect of civil affairs—receive hefty jail sentences as a deterrent against anyone else questioning the CCP’s perpetual authority.

Curiously, this report on the Hainan protest coincides with the release of an extended video where the initial PLA general officer who asked to end the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests faced court-martial. General Xu Qinxian, stripped of his military garb as well as his CCP membership, answered questions of a disciplinary board for six hours in this previously unseen video circulated by YouTube. General Xu’s relatively calm responses (one does not require Chinese language skills to grasp either the seriousness of the trial or the measured and thoughtful responses he provided) to why he thought military force overcompensated for the disturbance are remarkable, if not refreshing, in an era of obfuscation of responsibility for actions on behalf of too many governments. Xu’s professional judgment led him to reject the orders he received.

The choice he made had both personal and professional consequences, as is often the case for anyone in uniform around the world.

Xu’s insubordination by refusing the CCP demand to send in the tanks earned him a five-year jail sentence. He remained in his country until his death in 2021.

Another PLA officer led the troops into Tiananmen on 4 June 1989, resulting in the death of thousands who were protesting the Party’s behavior. It was a moment of colossal duality, much as this substack column began today, encapsulated in the reality of an illegitimate leadership determined to project power while unable to address its citizens’ demands. The difference, of course, is that China feels even more empowered today to project its strengths abroad while the United States appears chaotic, dependent on reaching a trade accommodation with the PRC, and less interested in pressuring the CCP to adhere to human rights as a standard of governance.

Yet China’s internal system is decidedly broken, whether because of dictatorship, probable closed-door struggles over leadership, debates over the appropriate balance between economic choices and Party dominance, the acceleration of population decline, an increasingly frustrated youth cohort, and a range of other domestic challenges. The breakage exists from Hong Kong, ever less a Special Administrative Region in anything other than name, to Xinjiang with its minorities, to Xi’an in central China, to the coastal areas. The picture that Xi Jinping seeks to paint is ever so gradually fading as our focus is only on the external power shifts that the West sees as so disadvantageous.

My column today is a message to see these stories as NOT determinative for the country’s future, but they are indicators of multiple things occurring simultaneously, all of which bear consideration by our national security community and the public as a whole. China certainly has the potential to do damage to other states and the international system, but that is not a sure thing. At the same time, increased protests are occurring, but the CCP has long endured civilian pushback in the form of protests against some of its policies. The state responds when it cannot avoid responding, so we should not go to the extreme of assuming the regime will fall within four months, though that is always possible.

Humans are complicated, as I have noted many times in this column. Each and every action taken has consequences: short-term, medium-term, long-term, and longest-term. But we are foolish to assume that multiple conditions of strength and weakness, vulnerability and impunity exist only in singular form in any society. Perhaps it’s only that, as outsiders, we catch a glimpse of the Middle Kingdom and thus seek a categorization of what we are witnessing to project hopes and fears for the future. If so, that is a futile quest as variables are too common to guarantee much, for us, for Sri Lanka, for the CCP, or for the unemployed laborer from Guangzhou returning to a village in Kunming Province only to find no more surety than when he departed two decades ago.

But we are foolish to focus solely on state-to-state analysis. Of course, it is important as both China (along with about ten other countries) holds nuclear weapons with awesome power in case of armed conflict. Many of the most diabolical transformations occur within states where weakness leads to unpredictable behavior. That ought to worry us at least as much as state-to-state conflict, as states with internal incoherence are not pretty to watch, nor do they offer a helpful understanding of where trends are taking us.

I welcome your thoughts on China, General Xu Qinxian, civil unrest that is not at the threshold of regime overthrow, or any other topic. You likely have different reactions, so put them on the table for discussion.

Thank you for reading Actions Create Consequences today, as your time is valuable. I especially appreciate those who subscribe to the column, as you expand the sources I can access in thinking through these questions.

Today is a big day in our home. We are unabashedly seeing the days begin to lengthen, so I am a happier lady by the day. It won’t be long before I no longer have to wait until 7 am for a beautiful sunrise, as I saw yesterday (we finally had rain this morning).

It’s Harry Truman’s Adoptaversary as we brought him home ten years ago. I wanted an orange guy in our household but not so much when I receive a tap on my arm at 0215 yesterday when he thought he deserved a treat.

Wishing you a restful weekend, particularly if you are battling our 50 mph winds along the Eastern Seaboard. Be well and be safe. FIN

Chris Buckley, “The Secret Trial of the General Who Refused to Attack Tiananmen Square “, NYTimes.com, 17 December 2025, retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/world/asia/china-general-tiananmen-square.html

Amy Hawkins, “Dashed dreams and land grabs: the rise of rural protests in China”, TheGuardian.com, 18 December 2025, retrieved at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/19/workers-rural-protests-china-land-grabs

Inconvenient Truths: Jennifer Zeng Reports. “‘I Cannot Do It. The Secret Trial of General Xu Qinxian for Defying Tiananmen Square Orders”, YouTube.com, retrieved at

Li Yuan, “China, Feeling Strong, Senses An American Retreat”, NYTimes.com, 19 December 2025, retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/business/trump-xi-us-china.html