NOT GETTING MY HOPES UP, BUT IT’S GOOD TO PLAN: Why We Must Prepare for the Chinese Communist Party’s Collapse.

The international consequences would be enormous.

China is not merely another authoritarian country. It possesses nuclear weapons, the world’s largest standing military by personnel, enormous security and intelligence organizations, advanced biological laboratories, vast state enterprises, major financial institutions and supply chains embedded throughout the world economy.

The collapse of central authority could therefore create simultaneous military, financial, humanitarian, political and proliferation crises.

Who controls the nuclear arsenal? Who commands the People’s Liberation Army? What becomes of the People’s Armed Police, the militia, the Ministry of State Security and the vast domestic surveillance apparatus? Who secures dangerous biological facilities? Who prevents provincial military commanders or security chiefs from becoming warlords? What happens to the renminbi, China’s banks, sovereign obligations, state enterprises, foreign reserves and trillions of dollars of domestic assets?

From there, things get dicey.