China has many problems, as befits such a gigantic country trying to maintain the extraordinary economic success against the downside of a very troubled recent past. Therefore, it could be regarded as axiomatic that China does not need any more problems, particularly self-created ones. This is why I am worried: some of the new problems seem largely self-created.
Here are a few China doesn't need and could ease by unilateral action. The first is its territorial problems. It's having too many quarrels with its neighbours lately. Here's an absurd but telling conspiracy theory: that someone very high up in the Chinese governing or party elite is secretly working for the CIA and the Pentagon. How else to explain the pointless and ugly frictions with the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia?
Something funny is going on. Until relatively recently, all we heard out of the Beijing international relations publicity machine was 'peaceful rising'. The Chinese were saying, in effect, we are not a 21st century version of the former Soviet Union, wishing to subjugate countries around it.
That was calming to hear. But then came all the elbowing and macho upsizing over territorial rights in the South China Sea.
Be careful, Beijing: China, a great historic nation getting its act together, doesn't need to appear like some adolescent, bullying Asian leviathan. It needs to be subtler in its external relations. Only the Pentagon and CIA can gain when more and more scared Asian neighbours are ready to jump into Uncle Sam's tender embrace.
Here's another problem China really doesn't need: public disputes with the Roman Catholic Church. OK, we get it: China's party and government do not believe in God. We also understand that the church itself, scarred with a plethora of child molestation cases globally, is no pure paragon of virtue. But if there is a God and if the church does have some kind of special relationship with the Almighty (as many people devoutly believe), Beijing should end its unseemly quarrel over who should appoint bishops on the mainland and work with the Vatican to resolve disputes over the candidates.