- The Washington Times - Wednesday, October 8, 2025

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to make stronger, more-nationalistic demands of President Trump at their upcoming meeting in South Korea, according to a former Defense Intelligence Agency specialist on China.

Frank Miller, who retired from the DIA in 2022 and spent time inside China as a military attache, said if he were advising Mr. Trump before the meeting, he would warn him not to try to force the Chinese Communist Party chief on issues such as trade, tariffs and Taiwan.

“He’s obviously in a position now where he’s got the best military any Chinese leader has ever had,” he said.



The two leaders will be attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in South Korea at the end of the month.

U.S. backing for rival Taiwan and China’s campaign of military intimidation against the democratic-ruled island also will be a key element of Trump-Xi talks.

Mr. Miller said China is deterrable from attacking Taiwan, and the president could convince Mr. Xi that the time is not up for seeking peaceful solutions.


SEE ALSO: Pentagon nominee says Taiwan must spend 10% of GDP on defense


But Mr. Trump is constrained by the mistakes of previous administrations, he warned. 

“One thing I can’t advise is, ’How do you get him out of the South China Sea,’” Mr. Miller said. “That’s where I think we made a mistake years ago.”

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The former DIA officer was referring to the failure of President Obama in 2012 to confront China in the Spratly Islands when the PLA took over Mischief Reef.

The lack of any pressure on Beijing began a decade-long, island-building campaign that led to military bases on several islands in the South China Sea that are now being used to promote China’s claim to sovereignty over 90% of the sea.

Mr. Miller said Mr. Xi sees Taiwan as central to his legacy as supreme Chinese leader, viewing it as the last of three territories Beijing needs to restore its full control of China — the others being Hong Kong and Macao.

Mr. Xi is “ideologically Chinese” on such matters and likely to be less compromising in the talks with the president, Mr. Miller said.


SEE ALSO: Trump plans aid package for U.S. soybean farmers while seeking trade deal with China


The Chinese leader, who is general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, chairman of the Party Central Military Commission and president of the country, is a true believer in communist ideology but more of a Leninist and Maoist on maintaining power rather than embracing discredited Marxist theories.

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“He absolutely is trying to prevent, from his perspective, being re-colonized,” Mr. Miller said. “From our perspective, that’s ridiculous. But again, this is part of the psyche that goes on Chinese heads.”

The recent large-scale military parade hosted by Mr. Xi earlier this month marked the beginning of new, hardline policies toward the United States by Beijing.

Tens of thousands of goose-stepping Chinese troops and an array of new missiles, tanks, aircraft and naval weapons were highlighted by Mr. Xi who notably seated Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on either side of him.

China under Mr. Xi was signaling the world that a new Cold War-style bloc is forming between Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang, Mr. Miller said.

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China is no longer using the low-profile adage of the late leader Deng Xiaoping for China to bide its time and hide its capabilities, he said.

“That’s gone,” Mr. Miller said. “They’re now kind of throwing [their power] as much in our face as they can,” he said of the military parade.

The former DIA officer retired after 42 years as an Army officer with extensive experience in China and Asia and with the Pentagon’s Joint Staff.

Mr. Miller, a West Point graduate, is currently vice president for intelligence integration at Exovera, an artificial intelligence-powered open source intelligence firm. 

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The company boasts 5 billion records in Chinese, and its effectiveness seems to have been confirmed by sanctions imposed by Beijing on the company.

Mr. Xi, he said, is a true believer in Chinese communism, a variant Beijing calls “Marxism-Leninism with Chinese characteristics” that drives his policies and actions.

“If you break down the old Soviet system into Leninists and Marxists, I personally think Xi is more Leninist than Marxist even though he is trying to add ‘Chinese characteristics,’” Mr. Miller said.

The Chinese Communist Party’s ruling ideology includes a strong element of Maoism, the communist system under the rule by Mao Zedong from 1949 until his death in 1976.

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Mao has been blamed by historians for the deaths of an estimated 60 million people resulting from his efforts to remake China into a communist state.

Mr. Miller said Mr. Xi’s Maoism is evident in the emerging tightened controls within the country under a strong central dictatorship that regards maintaining stability at the top as a priority.

One example was Mr. Xi’s declaration in 2018 of himself as “chairman for life,” and an end to leadership term limits, he said.

“But one of the things that in all of his speeches he keeps talking about is the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” Mr. Miller said. “But if you look at that in Chinese, it’s not China the country. Xi uses the term ’minzu,’ which means the rejuvenation of the Chinese ethnicity, and that better matches the Lenin side of communism more than the Marxist side.”

Like Lenin’s idea of revolution internally and around the world, Mr. Xi is working to inspire communist movements and support for Chinese ideology around the world.

The Chinese programs currently involved in spreading Chinese communism include the international development scheme known as the Belt and Road Initiative, as well as several others, including the global security initiative and global governance initiative.

These efforts are what separate Mr. Xi from earlier Chinese Communist leaders, who limited their attention to internal matters, Mr. Miller said.

Mr. Xi also remains dedicated to internal development in China. But the Chinese ethnic campaigns around the world are to promote Chinese communism. 

China rejected most of Marxism during the 1980s under then-leader Deng, who adopted a more pragmatic brand of communism, especially in the field of economics.

Deng steered the nation away from the radical Maoism of the Cultural Revolution that killed millions in a bid to eliminate all vestiges of pre-1949 China.

Part of the effort has been to coax top Chinese scientists and technology experts into leaving the United States and European nations and returning to China under the rubric of supporting the Chinese race.

“It’s as if the Thousand Talents program that we’ve known for a couple of years has sort of shifted away from the idea that ‘Hey, we can give you a lot of money,’ to ‘Hey, you’re Chinese. Let us help you bring the glory of what you’re doing … back to China,” Mr. Miller said.

Recently, ethnic Chinese scientists from the United States, Europe, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea have been returning to work in China.

The lure for the returnees is not money paid by the Chinese government but for “the love of the Chinese ethnicity,” Mr. Miller said.

Mr. Miller said that recent reports of purges within the ranks of both the CCP and the People’s Liberation Army reflect challenges to Mr. Xi’s power, resulting from the Chinese leader’s perceived trust deficit in both institutions.

However, Mr. Miller said he does not see any real threat to the Party leader’s position from internal opponents.

The problem for Mr. Xi is that there is a real threat to his policies and objectives from within the communist system, especially from what the Chinese are calling “tigers” — or senior political and military leaders — along with “flies,” as the lower-level opponents have been called, he said.

Three of the six military leaders recently ousted from the Central Military Commission, the Party military control body, were not loyal enough to Mr. Xi and thus were fired, Mr. Miller said.

One key deadline for the Chinese leader is getting the People’s Liberation Army ready for military action against Taiwan by 2027.

Mr. Xi’s firings of military leaders may have resulted from elements of the PLA taking shortcuts in weapons testing, training or other military preparations, such as reports that the PLA had undermined nuclear missiles by mixing water with fuel to compensate for fuel shortages.

“That would then require somebody to take the blame,” Mr. Miller said.

Another factor in military dismissals could be commanders or leaders appearing to have too much of their own following, creating potential competing loyalties with Mr. Xi, who is chairman of the Central Military Commission.

“So if there’s somebody that was that way, or had garnered, intentionally or not, enough followers that it seemed like they were a threat to the party, they would go down,” he said.

Mr. Xi is extremely quick to take action against anyone who he views as stepping out of his policies, thoughts, goals and objectives, he said.

The Chinese leader has “disappeared” for periods of time from public view, fueling speculation he was undergoing medical treatments, and there were reports that he suffered a stroke a month ago.

He also was overheard on state media at the military parade discussing longevity as a result of organ harvesting and replacements with Mr. Putin.

Mr. Miller noted the 72-year-old leader, during a recent military parade, seemed to have a head and eye twitch and to be favoring a painful right hip.

But “if he did have a stroke, it was a mild one,” he said.

The Chinese president also did not attend the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York, possibly as a result of a heavy travel and meeting schedule, Mr. Miller said.

China has not designated a successor to Mr. Xi, although Chinese Premier Li Qiang appears to be groomed for the top leadership post should Mr. Xi die or become incapacitated, he said.

• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.

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