Oh I get it. Years ago, eons maybe...when China began plowing all their excess cash not needed for domestic (ha!) uses or the military/military application (bingo!) they wnt on a building binge building cities nobody populated...
Yeah, there is a merit system but 100% devoted to unquestionable communist party orders (as it is with everything!) and those that obey are promoted. That's it, you do not need to apply any other prism to it than that! I think Trap pr Charles started that thread...Charles started the String of Pearls with me that I later had Pan I believe consolidate into the thread below she initiated...
https://itsaboutliberty.com/index.php/topic,3910.0.html...can't remember if that was a legacy one or not, damn...getting long on the tooth!

Anywho...they do weird crap...about all they do related to their genetic inheritance is their "long game" economic/military strategy (which they do not separate in their thinking) the String of Pearls (bases, artificial islands) and goal of circumventing/eventually render obsolete American trade and monetary dominance (BRICs, advantageous trade imbalance, currency manipulation) are hand in hand with their objectives of world domination.
The KISS Principle definitely works with these folks...so don't over-think things. Much of their big things are for show, a transient display of their dominance...but apart from their military it is often kabuki...and even there there are suspects. Their carrier is still window dressing, they are not near true operational status yet and will not be for a while...and on par with the US who has been operating them for a century quite far off. And their so-called "stealth" fighter is also window dressing and not operational as far as any news I can scrub...and I scrub a lot. But, where one hand is performing magic the other is doing things...the String of Pearls is real, the economic warfare is real, the territorial expansion with artificial islands is real, their expanding ICBM and submarine and air assets is real. They are the primary threat to America, not Russia...Russia can be easily contained and checked...China is the real threat and they know that and they need Russia as a distraction for us to divide our attention and weaken us in their eyes...and under the JoeFraud puppet government we've nver been weaker in generations and they all know it.