It's not even internal strife. It all comes down to it's now or never. If they let this opportunity slip by they will never get Taiwan.

Their population is declining and there's nothing that can be done about it in any meaningful way. Nothing has worked to get people to have more children. As they get older people of military age will decline.

Right now this generation the males outnumber the females. Which means expendable soldiers. These people will never marry and benefit the state in anyway.

The leverage China has is it's consumers it's one of the largest markets. But the Chinese buying things to support international companies is quite minuscule as a percentage of the population and will decline as time goes on, they get all the media attention that's all . They've been struggling to boost internal consumption for years.

And it isn't that surprising. Chinese people are one of the most tightarse people ever. They haggle everything and that's even if they get to the point of actually going to buy it. Spending money to make money usually doesn't factor in.