China Hawks Hear What They Want to Hear

A good way to ensure that U.S.-Chinese rivalry turns into something like a new Cold War is to interpret every word that the other leader says in the most alarmist way possible.

Rachel Cheung puts Xi Jinping’s “heads cracked and bleeding” line from his speech marking the centenary of the Chinese Communist Party in context:

So, what to make of Xi’s thinly veiled warning? It would be an exaggeration to take the expression as a threat of war, but it was no doubt used to signal the unshakeable stance of the Chinese leadership, even …