Can you construct a new world order using the structure of the existing world order? That increasingly seems to be Xi Jinping’s goal, couched amidst calls to “to safeguard the UN-centered international system, preserve the international order underpinned by international law”.

Xi’s speech today at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2021 certainly fits with that theme. Xi and his CCP clearly see massive opportunities from the carnage of the pandemic and the multiple strategic disasters of US domestic and foreign policy to change fundamentally the substance of the world order while keeping the edifice in place. And their odds of succeeding look higher than the foreign policy elite in America and its allies would like to admit.

Is there a “Minsky Moment” concept for geopolitics? It is starting to look like Xi and his team think there is, or are at least willing to gamble on one.

Today’s Essential Eight items:

1. Xi’s Boao speech

2. Wang Chen on Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law

3. Xi again…