I could well be wrong, but I still have more confidence in Chinese society as a whole to believe they will let Xi lead them over a cliff. To me, philosophically, we see China's draconian internal policies in terms of just being evil, but internally the Chinese leadership justifies them as being utilitarian. Xi wants to demonstrate he can *save* more lives with his Covid policies than we have in the West. Political Chaos must be suppressed in China because it is historically too deadly and bad for economic development - etc. But that's a harder logic to apply to starting a war. I think/hope there is still a difference there between that and Russia, where Europe's ancient and deep 'Glory of the Motherland' mindset can still be tapped into by a Putin to justify a war of ambition.