China’s week is off the rails — and we’re breaking it all down. In this episode of The Restricted Handling Podcast, we dive into the East China Sea standoff that’s turning into the geopolitical equivalent of a bar fight between Beijing and Tokyo. The Senkaku Islands dispute is heating up again, with Chinese and Japanese coast guards facing off for the second time in two weeks after Japan’s Prime Minister doubled down on defending Taiwan. Beijing’s not just talking tough — it’s trying to drag London and Paris into the drama, dusting off old World War II rhetoric to guilt Europe into taking its side. Spoiler alert: it’s not working. 

Meanwhile, Xi Jinping’s much-hyped “modernized” military machine is misfiring. The corruption purge we’ve been tracking continues to paralyze China’s biggest defense companies. Missile production’s slowing, contracts are frozen, and audits are piling up faster than propaganda speeches. We’re talking a 10% industry-wide revenue drop in one year. Even Xi’s elite Rocket Force — the branch responsible for hypersonics and nukes — is limping through investigations. The optics? Brutal. The PLA is supposed to be combat-ready by its centennial in 2027, but at this rate, it might just be parade-ready. 

Out at sea, China’s showing off hardware that looks straight out of a sci-fi flick. The new Type 076 “drone carrier” Sichuan just finished another sea trial, and Beijing’s flexing its shiny new YJ-series anti-ship missiles that can hit targets over 1,000 kilometers away. But not everyone’s impressed — a Russian military blogger joked online about how many missiles it’d take to sink the Sichuan, and the internet meltdown that followed was peak thin-skinned authoritarian energy. 

We’ve also got updates on China’s reach across the Pacific, with Australia warning that Beijing’s pushing deeper and harder into its backyard, while the Philippines is still staring down Chinese coast guard ships at Scarborough Shoal — and not backing off this time. Taiwan’s turning its private sector into a DIY intelligence network, converting civilian planes into recon craft to track Chinese movements. 

Back home, Beijing’s pushing the boundaries of control. The Communist Party’s using AI to tighten censorship, policing, and surveillance of ethnic minorities. Big tech firms like Tencent and Baidu are now the regime’s “digital deputies,” and the justice system is literally using algorithms to make sentencing recommendations. Add a planned “mega-embassy” in London that sits right over critical financial cables, and the spy thriller basically writes itself. 

From corruption and control to coast guard clashes and cyber crackdowns, this episode brings the full picture: China’s flexing harder than ever—but the cracks are showing.