I stopped relying on rationality of humans when it comes to war.
Russia and Ukraine had terrible birth rates before the war and Russia had a clearly inadequate amount of soldiers for occupying a country of that size (only about 200 000, where a million or more would be realistically required). Not very good preconditions for a massive war. Putin went ahead anyway.
GWB's attack on Iraq wasn't a particularly smart action either.
Maybe China can learn from those mistakes. Or maybe Xi feels that his time is slowly coming to an end anyway, and a Heroic Feat is necessary to fix his position in the textbooks of tomorrow.
Russia and Ukraine had terrible birth rates before the war and Russia had a clearly inadequate amount of soldiers for occupying a country of that size (only about 200 000, where a million or more would be realistically required). Not very good preconditions for a massive war. Putin went ahead anyway.
GWB's attack on Iraq wasn't a particularly smart action either.
Maybe China can learn from those mistakes. Or maybe Xi feels that his time is slowly coming to an end anyway, and a Heroic Feat is necessary to fix his position in the textbooks of tomorrow.