* This article on renditions
* IP theft (e.g.: https://www.ip-watch.org/2018/04/04/us-imprisons-chinese-sci...)
* Drug peddling and money laundering (http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article207911324.html)
* Unfair trade practices and trade war (no link needed for this on HN)
And this only covers what happens outside of China.
I was in Cleveland in 1989 at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre, where 10,000 student protesters were killed [1]. At the time, we know there were many deaths through word of mouth (our Chinese students stayed in touch with friends and family back home) but nobody knew the actual numbers. So we held a local protest to support them, lots of white and Chinese students, in downtown Cleveland. There were Chinese men in sunglasses and trench coats with long-lens cameras taking pictures of everyone present. The Chinese students told us they were government political officers, keeping tabs on them, and they were accustomed to seeing them. They feared retribution on their families back home, and on themselves if they went back home.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1...
PS. When asked, at the time, why a billion people don't stand up, a common reply was "such a people deserve such a government." At the time they were largely agrarian and pre-internet; only people with good information or who had travelled abroad knew how bad they really had it.
If you have the resources and the time to invest in a long game, scorched earth strategy is likely going to be more effective.
It's called being the new superpower on the block. Welcome to the party of relentless, global, 24/7 criticism, China. It's going to get dramatically worse with each passing year and every action taken (no matter what that is).
If they're already violently annexing territory 4x the size of Texas from half a dozen neighboring nations, imagine what they'll be doing with a $20 trillion economy and $500+ billion in military spending in about a decade. Who's going to restrain their behavior then? My guess is: nobody.
It is very well possible that the downfall of the Chinese regime will come from the interior. The regime depends on economic growth like an addict on heroin - they need to feed 1.3B people, of which many are transitioning from poverty to middle-class level.
And much of the Western world is nearing saturation with Chinese products (and in addition, the Western economies aren't growing that much as before themselves!) - that explains the Chinese investments across Africa. They're on quite a gamble at the moment... either a modernized Africa will be the new target market so that the Chinese economy can grow or they're screwed. The question is: will Africa get up to speed before the Chinese economy collapses from a lack of growth?
Also, as for violently annexing territory, they are mild-mannered compared to pretty much every other 'young superpower'. It's worth putting this in perspective with the historical behavior of European superpowers as well as the USA and USSR.