Special to CosmicTribune.com, May 29, 2025

Geostrategy-Direct

Excerpted from an analysis by Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs

It is already established that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping is a “dead man walking”. Is that also becoming true of the party itself?

The coming descent into chaos in mainland China is part of the transformation of global architecture which has been anticipated for some time, although the instability of that global momentum is such that the major rivals of the PRC cannot for a moment disregard their military preparations for a possible break-out by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

At the same time, some — particularly in the U.S. Donald Trump White House and the Russian Kremlin under Vladimir Putin — are actively planning a post-PRC framework: a post-China world.

But what of the in-country planning for a post-Xi, China?

The PRC was already facing existential questions when Xi came to power in 2012, particularly with regard to the reality that its food production capacity could never satisfy its population. The PRC would need to secure more imported food, which it did (particularly with the 2020 deal with the U.S. during the first Donald Trump presidency); and it would clearly be better with a reduction in its 1.4-billion population.

And that population contraction has occurred to a significant degree.

However, the indecision — or incapacity — of the CCP party elders and various party factions to deal with its current General Secretary, Xi Jinping, has left the mainland Chinese population now in a position of such economic distress that uprisings are expanding in scope and geographic spread throughout the country.

They may not be able to be contained.

Meanwhile, the party elders and factions had by early 2025 contained Xi, partially because his policy of removing “enemies” had only created more of them, and partly because of his own exhaustion and health issues. But this discreet containment has occurred only after the possibly irredeemable damage Xi caused to the economy and cohesiveness of the PRC.

The task of restoring optimism in the PRC economy cannot be resolved quickly, and the patience of the public has already been exhausted.

It was clear, almost as soon as Xi Jinping achieved paramount power in 2012, almost by default, that he had no comprehension as to how to manage the wealth which had been created in the PRC through the relatively laissez faire policies of the Deng Xiaoping era. And it became clear, even as Xi used his tenuous victory in 2012 to eliminate all those he perceived as opponents, that he consistently failed to make decisions which would be good for either himself, the party, the PRC, or China. Xi cared little about economic policy; indeed, he knew nothing about it.

He burned through the massive wealth amassed by his predecessors, and his Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) never gained enduring strategic influence, despite the cost.

Was it ignorance, arrogance, paranoia, alcoholism, or overweening ambition which blinded Xi from sound decisionmaking? Whatever it was — and it may be too late even to speculate — it has resulted in the terminal decline of the PRC.

Whether this is fully understood in the outside world is still debatable. But it is evident to the population within the PRC.

The PRC’s population decline, however, has not been a sign that domestic food production may now be able to cope with internal needs. Rather, domestic food production, distribution, and consumer poverty have continued to decline to ensure that the PRC remains a nation unable to feed itself. Moreover, it has ensured that its agricultural land and water quality have been ruined for decades to come.

The U.S. strategic community, in particular, defines itself through the supposed prowess of its enemies. Most of the rest of the West, including the US private sector, defines its view of the PRC on wishful thinking: the belief that the Chinese “economic miracle” would last indefinitely and fund the wealth of their economies. But that has now ended, despite pools of wishful thinking, particularly in Western Europe and Australasia, that the cash would continue to flow from Beijing.

By the end of the first quarter of 2025 even the PRC official statistics could not hide the fact that the cash had run out in the general economy. What diminished levels there were of bank loans were flowing mostly (75 percent) to large state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and only 25 percent to small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in the private sector, and even then only in amounts capable of addressing a small portion of debt service, not investment in capacity building. The capital investment in growth had completely dried up.

It is time, then, to consider the fate of China — the geopolitical entity and peoples — as well as the party-state, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and the Communist Party of China (CCP) in the coming few years.

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