The good news — to hear Xi Jinping, chief Butcher of Beijing, tell it — is that Mr. Xi will “not take the bait.”
You see, China’s authoritarian leader complained (in a conversation last year with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen) that the U.S. had been “goading” him, trying “to trick” his Chinese Communist Party (CCP) into a military invasion of Taiwan.
How difficult it must be for this totalitarian titan to restrain himself from launching a murderous assault against a neighboring country . . . and all triggered because the bad ole USA talks to the ROC (Republic of China/Taiwan) and provides the weapons it needs to defend itself.
One constantly reads that China claims Taiwan as its own province, of course, though the actual history behind that assertion tells a much different story.
History regardless, Taiwan today ought to belong to today’s Taiwanese.
But it is another Chinese “claim” that may first lead to a full-fledged world war: Xi and Company demand virtually an entire ocean, the 90 percent of the South China Sea captured within their nine-dash-net.
Now, back in 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, an international tribunal at The Hague, heard a case brought by the Philippines, in which it ruled that China lacked any reasonable basis for its nine-dash-line demands.
Last week, reported VOA News, “China announced its coast guard will be empowered to investigate and detain for up to 60 days ‘foreigners who endanger China’s national security and interests’ in the disputed waters.”
Yesterday, Foreign Policy informed us that China is “sharply increasing its violent attacks against Philippine vessels and sailors in disputed waters off the Philippine coast,” and that on “Monday, China Coast Guard ships intercepted Philippine vessels attempting to resupply their own sailors grounded on a shoal inside the Philippines’s own exclusive economic zone (EEZ), barely 100 miles off the western coast of the archipelago.
“The Philippine Armed Forces chief of staff likened the Chinese assault” — perpetrated by “ax- and knife-wielding Chinese crewmen” — to “a pirate attack.”
China has a long rap sheet in its treatment of the Philippines, and with everyone in the region save for North Korea.
War rages in Europe. And the Middle East. Now the world’s worst regime, the CCP, inches ever closer to World War III.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
