Commentary A great boxer can take a punch. In the rough and tumble of international politics, states and their leaders must be able to as well. It is an open question whether China’s Xi Jinping could. Like a boxer with a glass jaw, as the leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Xi cannot handle major reverses because setbacks—a major diplomatic or military defeat—introduce the possibility that his rule is delegitimized. We have been here before. At the dawn of the Cold War, American diplomat George Kennan identified a fundamental truth about communist regimes in the “Long Telegram” of February 1946. Written when Kennan was stationed in Moscow, he perceived that defeat—that is, the inability of the Bolsheviks to expand their revolution—causes a lack of legitimacy and ultimately the failure of communist rule. Kennan’s eternal verity regarding the nature of communist regimes applies to Xi today. As Beijing’s economy slows, the …