the benefit of chinese domestic consumption machinations of war are a way of rallying support and fostering an us versus them attitude helps take peoples minds off other unpleasant realities caused by xis policieshowever freely playing the nationalism card is a very dangerous ploy for it creates an expectation in the people and swings china in a martial direction unsurprisingly then western analysts are increasingly warning that the peoples liberation army pla will take aggressive action against taiwan sometime this decadeit would be the ultimate feather in xis cap to bring taiwan into the ccps foldhowever chinas bellicosity has had an opposite reaction beyond its borders with opinion against china hardening in taiwan and the usa and allies like australia and japan contemplating how to deter chinese military actionwhile an outright military invasion of taiwan is the least likely course of action for xi other alternatives are open to him perhaps occupying an outlying taiwanese island would send the right message or instigate a confrontation with its maritime militia taiwan and its friends must therefore be on total guard against chinese subterfugethe pla plows on with its modernization examples include two types of prototypical stealth fighters that broke cover this year one a twinseat version of the j20 for the pla air force the other a new carrierborne fighter for the pla navy there was no sign of the stealthy h20 strategic bomber in 2021 thoughactually the most startling military revelations concerned the pla rocket force throughout the year several vast fields of siloes for intercontinental ballistic missiles icbm were discovered still under construction these will likely accommodate nucleararmed df41 icbms able to strike the usathe pentagons 2021 china military power report predicted that china will quadruple its nuclear stockpile to 1000 weapons by 2030 last years pentagon report warned of only a doubling of chinas nuclear arsenal so such a radical reassessment indicates a major shift in chinese nuclear policyno longer accepting us nuclear primacy beijing has moved away from the minimum deterrence to limited deterrence with an operational nuclear triad of land sea and air platforms additionally china will increase the peacetime readiness of the plarf and move to a launchonwarning posture with an expanded silobased force the pentagon warnedthe mysterious test in julyaugust of a fractional orbital bombardment system where a rocket launched a warhead into orbit around the earth and then struck a target also caused jaws to drop china is pursuing exotic and sophisticated means of countering us military dominance so expect more such surprises in the year ahead in areas like missiles space and hypersonicsone positive point is that this past year there was no bloody confrontation along the sinoindian border as there had been in 2020 neither side has backed down for both have reinforced postures and built supporting infrastructure such as helipads and barracks but neither has china pushed as aggressively nonetheless expect china to probe to see how determined india is to defend its frontierchinas assertion of jurisdiction