Taiwan Flails as Biden Courts China
U.S. presidential election keeps getting more unpredictable as DC monoparty sends money abroad
On “The Ingraham Angle” on Fox News, I discussed President Biden’s embarrassing failure of a summit with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping in San Francisco. I argued that Biden failed to achieve anything real and made harmful concessions on military use of artificial intelligence, while neglecting even to mention human rights issues like imprisoned dissident Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong or thousands of others in Beijing’s gulags who personify the regime’s true nature.
I also differed with a lawyer from Trump’s State Department over throwing more good money after bad at Ukraine, which is losing and involves no vital U.S. interests. Please take a look at video above if you’re interested.
Simon and Whiton
Meanwhile on Simon and Whiton, Mark and I discussed the latest with the U.S. presidential election and China’s economic tailspin plus the lamentable state of Taiwan. Video above and talking points (with my personal spin) below.
Taiwan’s ruling DPP party is bad on economics, and has little vision or promise.
Aside from the soon-to-be-boring-again semiconductor industry, Taiwan’s economy is stagnant.
Its financial system is third rate. The last American bank (Citi) just split. The ruling DPP is good on opposing Beijing but sees itself as part of the international Left and has no vision aside from artsy woke piffle.
It thinks it has great support in the USA but doesn’t.
The DPP would still crush the corrupt pro-Beijing KMT party, but an opposition alliance not headlined by the KMT could win.
In accepting “free” weapons from Washington for the first time in recent history instead of paying for its own arms as it has for decades, Taiwan has risekd undermining its status with American voters tired of underwriting foreign liabilities.
This development plus Taipei’s ongoing footsie with establishment mavens who always eventually bend to China (e.g., the business and political elite who just feted Xi Jinping in San Francisco) risk putting Taiwan in the same category as Ukraine.
Average American voters won’t accept another unfunded liability, especially if it could draw us into general war with a major power. Previous occupants of this liability category include Afghanistan, Iraq, and South Vietnam. They’re all doing fine, right?
Despite verbiage and platitudes to the contrary, successive U.S. administrations of both parties have overseen the decline of US power in the Pacific since its post-Vietnam peak in 1987.
Chairman Mike Gallagher of the House China Committee just revealed we don’t even have adequate missile defenses at our most important Western Pacific bases. We’re basically asking for another Pearl Harbor from China.
The feckless DC monoparty has blown ~$120 billion resisting Russia’s war with Russia junior—in which no U.S. vital interests are on the line—while neglecting the Pacific (and increasing the Iran threat). Will any president or Congress reverse this trend, especially with fiscal crisis on the horizon, or is it time to accept that our foreign policy establishment will remain too focused on Europe and backwaters like Syria and Iraq to deter war in the Pacific or prevent Chinese hegemony in the Western Pacific?
The US cannot win a fight against China or prevent Chinese hegemony without a much more focused military and stronger allies.
"The US cannot win a fight against China or prevent Chinese hegemony without a much more focused military and stronger allies."
Our allies have proven to be fairly feckless and unreliable over the last few decades, and our military is staffed at the enlisted level largely by people who view it as welfare and only useful as a ticket to college. Vaccine purges were a thing. No free thinking or free will will be allowed. Don't even get me started on the General Officer level leadership. General Mills Milley? Really? How did that guy ever become a thing with all his white rage?
The Democrats have lost control of the monster they unleashed inside their own ranks. The only question is when will our enemies take advantage of it more than they already have.