China's Victim Complex:

China's Victim Complex | Center for a New American Security: The most likely -- and worrisome -- explanation is that domestic priorities drive China's foreign policies, which are therefore often formulated at the expense of strategic and diplomatic considerations. And while the implications of coercing neighbors and illegally seizing territory are not necessarily desirable, they pale in comparison to the consequences of failing to confront the regime's existential domestic challenges: economic slowdown, energy insecurity, and the growing political instabilities associated with dead pigs floating in rivers, a potential nationwide outbreak of avian flu, terrible traffic jams, sky-high real estate prices, and unbreathable air. No wonder the Chinese Communist Party works hard to keep populist foreign-policy issues in the headlines. It would be comforting to learn that the defense white paper's finger-pointing at the United States was just old-fashioned propaganda, behind which China is reassessing its foreign-policy approach.