[snogglethorpe]

Many countries do this sort of thing sometimes... but because China's government stays in power at its own pleasure, without the aid of elections to lend it popular legitimacy every once in a while, and because it's freer to pursue goals that may not have the support of the populace, it may have to resort to such measures more often than governments in other countries.

[scarmig]

I'd say you reverse the causality.

The government does this because most mainlanders eat this up. Idiotic jingoism and military adventures are how you win the populace and build your legitimacy. War is the health of the state.

The fact that culturally most people seem to see neighboring countries as either outright provinces, historical vassals that should be in their sphere of influences, or monsters that deserve to be raped and pillaged to account for past crimes doesn't help things.

Not to say the same thing doesn't occur in my country. It certainly does, and half a million dead in an equally pointless, stupid war does make risible any moral posturing on our part.