Its practice of coercive power at home might assure its power at home, but the Chinese Communist Party’s practice of coercive power abroad often weakens its political interests abroad. Just as Xi Jinping places far too much confidence in Mao Zedong’s statist economic theories, so also does he place too much faith in Mao’s lesson that “Every Communist must grasp the truth, ‘Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.'”

This bears note in light of China’s policy toward the Netherlands.