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Opinion
The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.
U.S., allies must unravel dependence on nation, its products
The Columbian
Published: August 8, 2022, 6:01am
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Chinese President Xi Jinping recently warned the United States not to “play with fire” over Taiwan. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi decided to play with fire by showing up, chatting with Taiwanese leaders, offering citizens a moment of hope and giving Xi an excuse for violence.
His more expert means of playing with fire has been shouting maniacal threats, keeping warplanes flying over Taiwan and rolling out weaponry apparently to ready the military in the killing of Taiwanese multitudes in a war of worldwide consequence.
President Joe Biden, the U.S. military and a variety of government officials were not enthusiastic about the Pelosi visit, seeking to avoid risking a lot for very little. Others said running from rhetoric would make us look like cowards, causing allies to flee our protection despite our Ukraine vigor. Belligerent, cruel and dictatorial as he runs for a third term as the kind of president he thinks everyone wants, Xi embraces a historical aim of the world’s most populous nation also becoming its dominant power while going unpunished for punishing others.
A new punishment of his would be to violently reunify Taiwan and China.
They split after World War II with Taiwan gradually becoming a prospering democratic republic respecting human rights and not having to endure Mao Tse-tung’s murderous ruination from which China has amazingly recovered despite despotism still enjoying itself. There has been an agreement that the two countries would come back together under peaceful circumstances and shared understandings, but peace is in retreat and the political separation is oceanic even as China sees reunion as crucial to its ugly ambitions.
In a show of administrative incompetence of the kind usually reserved for satire, Biden has said at least three times that the United States would support Taiwan if it were attacked by China while his aides have refuted his words as no sure thing. To be sure, a prolonged war anytime soon could be awful for the United States even if we won, in part because of what we are already going through economically and otherwise.
Still, optimists note, we have an incredible military and maybe Taiwan could be saved by just a few quick encounters. The doubters say we have not kept the military up-to-date with more long-range missiles and ships, and point out that nuke-happy, cyber-nifty, satellite-crafty China has hypersonic missiles that our missile defense system can’t thwart. Returning to the favorable outlook, we would be fighting alongside Taiwan with help from Japan, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand. A major bonus is that NATO has come to realize Asian dangers and Western slippage and might sign up.
It might not work as an alternative to war at this point, but what seems to me essential in a future without China in charge of everything is that the United States and the best of the rest undo their dependence on this second richest country in the world as it breaks just about every rule out there to further its own interests.
Decent nations have to stand together to make international organizations, banks, businesses and other nations stop the pillage, the violence, the destruction and sometimes downright evil tearing the international good to pieces and robbing the future of our noblest aspirations.
Consider China stealing several hundred billion dollars of our technology and intellectual property every year. President Barack Obama sadly gave crafty China a place on his Iran-deal panel with his lack of wisdom revealed by China now receiving oil as it invests $400 billion in Iran over 25 years. Along with such peace dividends as infrastructure, Iran is receiving help in creating new weaponry, spying and getting troops ready for combat.
To prove their ethical rot, Chinese leaders are killing and incarcerating Chinese Muslims, a human rights violation. Remember the flattening of Hong Kong? China is also supporting the deadly fentanyl producers inside the country who send their product to Mexican cartels crossing into the United States to help kill 100,000 American drug users a year.
The list goes on but determination with heart can maybe help end the abuses and save Taiwan as the first in a series of collapses without the Chinese people themselves being victims, too.
