Very timely article.

I was just reading an article from one of those Medium leading lights you speak of. The article had me shaking my head throughout as the esteemed author presented a Chinese invasion of Taiwan to be an inevitability, and had even proposed that such an event was likely to happen by the end of this year, citing the mid-November US mid-term elections as the ideal time, presumably because American attention would be focused elsewhere.

In a comment on that article, I noted that any timetable for an invasion - if one were indeed forthcoming - would be timed way before the second half of the year because that is when the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China is due to happen. This is a quinquennial event, the first Party Congress to occur in the CPC's 2nd century in power, and the one which may see Xi Jinping anointed as General Secretary for a third term, breaking with the two-term tradition post-Mao. Do we really expect the Chinese to risk everything on a massive endeavour like an invasion of Taiwan so soon before the 20th Congress is due to happen, when unintended consequences could leave the PLA mired in an undesired war of attrition (such as the one Russia is facing in Ukraine now), leaving Xi Jinping with metaphorical egg on face just before his ascension? I don't think so.

I've been meaning to write an article as a rejoinder to the initial article. But what do I know? I'm just a person who's spent the past decade or so writing about economics and business in the South, Southeast, and East Asian regions, and not a Medium marquee writer.