Well, how do you think the Chinese deal flexibly with hawkish elites like Trump and his advisors then (or Putin, or elites who love brinkmanship without having to directly pay for it themselves)? Keep in mind that should counter-value strategic nuclear exchange occur, these elites all have luxurious bunkers they and their families could hide in. Ultimately, it is ordinary people and soldiers in the warring countries who pay the price of city-busting strategic nuclear exchange, not elites who do not have to take the direct punishment for their decisions. In other words, once this whole hypothetical saga come to an end, it is the very perpetrators who are likely to emerge as winners and continue to rebuild the world (or at least their own countries) according to their own desires. Having said that, I will be surprised if Xi and other Standing Committee did not prepare secret bunkers deep inside China's mountain ranges for their offsprings to live through a nuclear winter. To conclude, what I am trying to argue is that should someone like Trump start a nuclear war, he would have far less to pay compared to his compatriots. Same argument goes to CCP rulers.
