China’s economy is in worse shape than you think - The Australian

Chinese economic weakness reduces Beijing's capacity to fund military modernisation and sustained power-projection in the Indo-Pacific, indirectly easing pressure on Australia's defence posture and buying time for AUKUS execution. Conversely, economic desperation may drive China toward riskier regional assertiveness or Taiwan coercion as a political distraction, so the net effect is ambiguous; economic collapse at home is not a reliable stabiliser of Chinese behaviour abroad.