It seems to me that Xi sees himself to be more like Mao than any of his predecessors. Reuniting Taiwan might loom large in his mind as the achievement that would prove it. I wouldn't be surprised if it comes to pass.

So... the heart of these sorts of articles always circle around the CSIS. CSIS is a political think tank, not an operational think tank, but it's in DC so it hosts politicos more often than, say, RAND.

CSIS' wargames are designed to provoke losing conditions for the Americans because that's their goal: "in what way can the United States be provoked to losing." American military doctrine is, basically, "avoid Vietnam at all costs" which is why Desert Shield was six months of "ZOMG Elite Republican Guard" followed by 36 hours of "Hit the brakes Schwartzkopf or we'll have to occupy Baghdad". British military doctrine was "keep a navy big enough to defeat the next three navies" which allowed the British to dominate the world until navies weren't enough; American military doctrine is "keep a military big enough to defeat anyone at any cost anywhere ever" because the only way to maintain the "exhorbitant privilege" is by being the house, and the house has to be able to bounce any lout who counts cards or shakes down whales for table ante.

CSIS will investigate things like "what if the Chinese annihilate our entire command and control structure" as a base condition or "what if the Chinese are secretly eight times as effective as we are." Again, the goal is not to see what happened, it's to force policy-makers to deal with failure to recognize what the US structure looks like in failure. And they provoke that failure in a... quaint fashion:

Note that "failure" means "American materiel losses" not "an American loss."

Time and time again, around 25 times, most simulations had the same result: a free and independent Taiwan, a costly victory for the U.S. Navy and Air Force, China humiliated, and a global economic disaster.

The point of the discussion is "you need plans to deal with a humiliated China and a global economic disaster" not "ZOMFG fear China." RAND, for their part, thinks you shouldn't make more of this than it is but we all know it's a special kind of disaster porn that scratches exactly the itch of a certain kind of Strangelovian bureaucrat.

So when Politico says "(because America might lose)" recognize that they're talking about a game of Risk where China already has all of Asia and has been given three teams' worth of armies because the goal is not to make sure we win, it's to make sure the people who are making the decisions don't shrug off a potential conflict as a non-event.

China, for their part, wargames for an entirely different reason: "yes, Xi, China remains the dominant power in the world, as it has always been, as it shall always be." This is important because a Chinese invasion of Taiwan involves civilian car ferries loaded with troops crossing the 220-mile Taiwan Strait at 20 knots. The danger, fundamentally, is in the Chinese believing their own hype.

And, I mean, it's possible? I didn't think Putin would take a swing at Ukraine, I've been wrong before. But Putin took a swing at Chechnya 20 years ago and a swing at Georgia 10 years ago. The Russians are in practice for this shit, sadly enough. The Chinese military hasn't done much besides throw rocks across the Line of Control since their failed invasion of Vietnam.

Much of the cold war was the US psyching itself out that Russia was a threat for domestic political purposes. There were no adversarial powers left in the world but in order to justify Bretton-Woods as something other than offshore piracy we needed a bad guy to "protect" all the merchants on main street from. One of the knock-on effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is Russia went from "towering, monolithic enemy" to "annoying brigand with nukes." When your resupply comes from Iran and North Korea? You are no longer a Bretton-Woods grade threat, full stop.

So now we need another.