Guest Post by Pat Buchanan
“The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States… does not challenge that position.”
Thus did President Nixon, in the Shanghai Communique of 1972, accept China’s territorial claim to the island of Taiwan.
In 1979, Jimmy Carter severed relations with Taiwan, recognized Beijing as the legitimate government and dissolved the U.S. mutual security treaty with the Republic of China on Taiwan.
We ceased to be obligated to go to war to defend Taiwan.
Fast-forward four decades to the first weekend of President Joe Biden’s administration. Saturday, China sent eight nuclear-capable bombers and four fighter planes into the air defense identification zone of Taiwan.
Sunday, Beijing sent 16 military aircraft into the same region.
Observing U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and visits by U.S. officials, China is issuing us a reminder: “You Americans are encouraging those on the island who seek independence. Not going to happen. Rather than let Taiwan go, we will fight. Taiwan is a part of China and is a red line for us.”
Beijing is said to be seeking a face-to-face meeting with Biden.
Why? Perhaps because incoming Secretary of State Antony Blinken in his confirmation hearings said that President Donald Trump “was right” to take a “tougher approach to China.”
Blinken also agreed with outgoing Secretary Mike Pompeo, who had called China’s treatment of its Uighur minority “genocide,” and added that our commitment to Taiwan is “something that we hold to very strongly.”
Under Xi Jinping, said Blinken, China seeks to “become the leading country in the world — the country that sets the norms, that sets the standards.” In short, China’s geostrategic goal is to replace the U.S.-created world order with a new world order of its own.
Before we proceed further down this road to collision, questions need to be answered.
To whom does Taiwan belong? If the answer is what it has been since 1972 — “Taiwan is a part of China” — then is not encouraging the 25 million Taiwanese to seek independence an “incitement to insurrection” from Beijing’s standpoint?And if China uses force to compel Taiwan to repudiate any right to independence, are we prepared to fight a war with a nuclear-armed China over the island’s political status and orientation?
When Chinese Communists in 1950 conquered Tibet and began its ethnic and cultural cleansing of the region, what did we do?
Basically, nothing.
When China occupied and fortified rocks and reefs across the South China Sea what did we do?
Basically, nothing.
When China crushed the Hong Kong democracy protests we encouraged, and imposed a new national security law on the island’s 7 million people, what did we do?
Basically, nothing.
Now, Xi Jinping has bluntly told America that how China treats Tibetans, Uighurs, Christians and Falun Gong, all citizens of China, is no more the business of the United States than was our treatment of the indigenous peoples of North America the business of Imperial China.
China’s model of political and economic development has enjoyed success in this century as an alternative to the Western model of liberal democracy.
Beijing does not believe in untrammeled freedom of religion, or of speech, or of the press. She does not believe in choosing leaders by the ballot box.
China is not an egalitarian society. She does not believe in the equality of all races, religions and ethnic groups. She does not celebrate diversity but fears it, seeing what ethnic diversity did to the Soviet Union, tearing it apart into 15 nations.
She does not believe in racial quotas for advancement, but in a meritocracy that rewards loyalty and performance. And Chinese student test scores are among the highest in the world.
While China steals intellectual property from U.S. factories in China, who moved the factories there to take advantage of cheap labor where a worker could be hired for $2 an hour?
Beijing says any attempt to impose our “universal values” on China would amount to interference in her internal affairs. And any attempt to sever from Beijing her jurisdiction over Taiwan or the Spratly or Paracel Islands in the South China Sea will be resisted by force.
Moreover, as none of the disputed rocks and reefs in the South and East China Seas involves any territory claimed by the U.S., and we have conceded for 50 years that Taiwan is “part of China,” why are we sending carrier battle groups into these seas and through the Taiwan Strait?
What are we threatening?
On Sunday, a U.S. aircraft carrier battle group, led by the USS Theodore Roosevelt sailed into the South China Sea on a “freedom of navigation” exercise, the first such operation under President Biden.
This was the same day that those Chinese bombers and fighters flew into Taiwan’s air identification zone. We need to talk.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.”
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The current administration and all its handmaidens throughout the sphere of influence lack the balls to stand up to them. Especially so when they start showing pictorial evidence of their past failures…..
Send hitlary to be the ambassador. She’ll piss them off in short order and get Xi’s hackles up worse than President Trump ever did.
Never happen… china would simple start grease’n palms and they’ll all line up obediently and then do whatever china wants… and it’ll be sold as good for the nation and ‘world peace’.. sigh
When we occupied and fortified rocks and reefs of Diego Garcia, what did the world do?
Basically, nothing.
Oh, wait…
British rock
It is all theater. The US is not going to war with Red China over anything, and Red China will continue to accrete all they want by through the “soft power” of loans, infrastructure, co-option, and sending occupying forces into places like West Canada and California. How well that will work out for them in the mid (50 years) and longer (250-500) remains to be seen. China ought to be careful what is wishes for, lest it get it. Say what you like about the Chinamen, they have been around for a long, long time.
But big wars between real consumers and real producers are not conducive to world governance and theft, so they won’t be allowed. Chinamen rulers desperately need to keep the cheap-shit supply system running, and American rulers need to keep cheap Chinese shit in front of American consumers. Both classes love them some cool, expensive weapons systems too . All theater. And we clap, boo, cry, whatever string the propaganda crew in the theater team pulls.
Nobody care about Tibet, or Uygurs, or Falun Gong (sp?) or who makes the rules in Hong Kong or Taipei, or DC or Honolulu. Nobody cares about african americans lives mattering, or Puerto Rico sovereignty, or the end of white people in the not so US. The ruling class in Washington is as fundamentally corrupt as the crew running Bejing, just uses different spices in their stew.
Buchanan knows this, but can’t quite bring himself to say it.
“Say what you like about the Chinamen, they have been around for a long, long time.” They also think long term, while we change directions every 4 or 8 years.
YHAT my friend is the head of the nail. Communists and muslims play the long game. Western nations determine their future only a couple months before they cast they vote, and often many don’t even know what they are voting for. pretty sad.
China actually creates comprehensive 50 year plans while the mooslums simply plan to take over the world with their false religion with no strategic thoughts whatsoever. I do not know if there is another country on the planet as strategic as PRC.
The muslims do have a plan, they’ve been stating it publically for decades. Their plan is called the ‘Third Jihad’ or ‘Cultural Jihad’, same thing.
They openly state its taking over a host country from the inside out. Overwhelm the hosts country with ‘refuges’, take advantage of their welfare systems, have as many anchor kids as possible, infiltrate all institutions from schools to all level of government, etc… VERY close to the same goals of the communists.
The biggest difference between the communists and muslims is that the muslims are easily inflamed and will resort to violence enmasse very quickly. Look at the UK for a good example of the jihad going on there. Its nearing the tipping point where the muslims will take over fully.
Decades? More like centuries. It’s all there in the Koran. After studying Islam I viewed it as a murder cult disguised as a political system disguised as a religion. I have to admit though, I admire their steadfastness. They have a morality much different from white/christian values, yet they may be able to resist the insanity enveloping the West.
Amen.
Awoman.
I think Buchanan is in the early stages of dementia.
He’s qualified for the next republirat president, then.
I jumped over to cspan to check and see if I could see some impeachment hearings, this is what was on:
I didn’t listen to it….it’s already pretty clear that we will coexist on their terms….lol
annuit coeptis novus ordo seclorum <<——=====….. rings, within rings, within rings….
Oh, I think he’s said it as carefully as he can, given the circumstances. My major at university way back when was Asian Studies with a concentration on China. Even then, half a century ago, I believed that once Mao and Chou had passed, China would begin its ascendency which is now nearly unstoppable. The USA and its effeminized citizenry is simply too soft to root out domestic corruption. God willing and the creek don’t rise, I’ll soon begin teaching my grandchildren Mandarin, given that where I live (Argentina) the Chinese have the inside track already largely under control. I deplore it, but can’t see that changing in the foreseeable future. Never imagined the USA would decline so rapidly. Cry the beloved country!
70% of the world’s shipping goes through the China Sea, so sending some large naval targets is our way of saying we want the sea lanes to remain open. When China wants to close it, our ships will become future reefs.
With Comrades Biden and Harris calling the shots guess which one it will be?
To give Joe another billion dollars?
All They, the CCP leaders, need and want to do is gently remind Deliverance Joe of his “obligations.”
My experience with Chinese people in business – especially women – is that everything they say is a lie, pretty much all the time. If they say anything that’s not a lie, it was by accident.