Beijing’s endless saber-rattling over Taiwan proves just how high the stakes are for the United States. 

Our leadership, political and military, must not lose sight of the massive strategic threat China represents. 

Consider Thursday’s provocative Chinese military exercises off Taiwan, an explicit “punishment” — Beijing itself used that word! — for “separatist acts.”

Those separatist acts consisted of a speech given by newly inaugurated Taiwanese leader Lai Ching-te (and Lai’s election itself). 

Lai is a staunch backer of Taiwan’s autonomy, and dared to say so.

Beijing hit back hard. 

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Why does it feel such latitude to do so — and to say, as the government did, that the exercises are “a stern warning against the interference and provocation by external forces,” i.e. the United States?

For the same reason its consulate general in New York felt free to put out a statement the same day saying that if America “truly cares about cross-Strait peace and stability and wants the world to be safe and prosperous, it should uphold the one-China principle and support China’s reunification.”

China sees such vast room to maneuver because of President Biden’s fumbling and pusillanimity in the face of China’s aggressive power projection. 

Look at Biden’s April phone meeting with Chinese supremo Xi Jinping.

The president made the usual noises about “peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

But Xi implicitly threatened military action if the US doesn’t tread carefully enough there. 

He had reason to feel comfortable doing so: The Biden administration has not taken any actions that have gotten China to stand down regarding any of its aggressive practices since Joe came into office. 

Remember the US spy-balloon fiasco of 2023? 

The White House let a Chinese military surveillance device float across the country and peep at sensitive sites and then planned to lie to the public about it (likely so that Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s planned-then-postponed visit to Beijing would go smoothly).

China clearly took note of Biden’s horrific tuck-tail skedaddle out of Afghanistan, his flagging commitment to Ukraine and his politically motivated abandonment of America’s close ally in the Middle East, Israel.

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Xi has watched the lame US response to provocations from Iran.

It’s pathetic.

And our weakness has borne ugly fruit for Taiwan. 

Xi plainly sees there’s no cost to buddying up with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, threatening Taiwan and moving ahead to dominate the waters off China’s coast — and the region itself.

March saw China violate Taiwan’s territory with the deliberate entry of Chinese coast guard boats into Taiwainese waters mere weeks before Biden’s phoner with Xi. 

Beijing reportedly sent four spy balloons over Taiwan in January, ahead of the elections that put Lai in power. 

And Xi made his vision absolutely clear in his year-end address in December, promising “complete reunification” of China and Taiwan, after having made a similar promise only a few days earlier at a speech on the 130th anniversary of Mao’s birth. 

The trajectory here is apparent and should be setting off alarm bells in the White House, Pentagon and all the other corridors of American power. 

Is anyone listening?

Indeed, China’s claim that “reunification” — the conquest of Taiwan — will make the world safer is a precise echo of Putin’s ugly designs on Ukraine.

Biden already failed that test; we hope he finds the resolution and courage to pass this one.

Though we’re not holding our breath. 

Source link: https://nypost.com/2024/05/24/opinion/china-rattles-its-sabers-over-taiwan-and-the-us-mist-not-lose-focus/