After all, if you were China, why wouldn’t you try and invade Taiwan right now?

China has seen the absolute hapless incompetence of the Biden administration when it came to Afghanistan. It is now seeing the sheer panic over Ukraine, and heard Joe Biden say that a “minor incursion” by Russia would be no big deal. This didn’t just give a green light to Vladimir Putin, but to Xi Jinping. After all, Taiwan is smaller than Ukraine. And would Joe Biden really stand up to China in order to protect tiny little Taiwan? Well, that is the belief that is obviously guiding the Chinese Communist Party at the moment.

So China decided to stage an apparent practice flight “incursion” into Taiwanese airspace.

Taiwan on Sunday reported the largest incursion since October by China’s air force in its air defence zone, with the island’s defence ministry saying Taiwanese fighters scrambled to warn away 39 aircraft in the latest uptick in tensions.”

Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, has complained for more than a year of repeated missions by China’s air force near the democratically governed island, often in the southwestern part of its air defence identification zone, or ADIZ, close to the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands.”

Taiwan calls China’s repeated nearby military activities “grey zone” warfare, designed to both wear out Taiwan’s forces by making them repeatedly scramble, and also to test Taiwan’s responses.”

The latest Chinese mission included 34 fighters plus four electronic warfare aircraft and a single bomber, the Taiwan ministry said.”

Yes, American and Japanese naval forces were doing exercises in the Philippine Sea nearby, so was this a demonstration aimed at the United States and Japan, or at Taiwan? Taiwan is of the belief that it was aimed against them, since it was their airspace that was violated and their forces that scrambled to warn off the Chinese.

Again, if you were China, this would be the time to start making serious moves on Taiwan. Representative Michael McCaul (R-TX) pointed out on Sunday that China is quite obviously watching what happens in Ukraine, and that every move the Biden administration now makes is being analyzed by the bad actors on the world stage for their own purposes.

We need joint exercises in Poland, the Baltic states, Romania, Bulgaria to show Putin that we’re serious. Right now. He doesn’t see we’re serious and that’s why the buildup is taking place. I think this all started, Margaret, with Afghanistan and the unconditional surrender to the Taliban when he saw weakness, weakness invites aggression. We saw that with Chamberlain and Hitler. You know, Reagan talked about peace through strength. And right now, whether- and-and the thing is, this is not just about Ukraine. It’s about China. It’s about President Xi and Taiwan. It’s about the Ayatollah and the bomb. It’s about North Korea that just fired off two missiles, they said, were, you know, these, you know, these hypersonic weapons. I think this has broader global ramifications. We’re seen as weak right now be-because of President Biden, his-his comments about a limited- a limited invasion was somehow acceptable, and that NATO was divided. I think one thing he said was true is that NATO is divided, and that’s- Putin’s goal is to divide and weaken NATO. He’s accomplished some of that.”

We have a little over nine months until the midterm elections, and almost three more years of this senile old man in the White House, with a cackling fool who refuses to study sitting right behind him.

We already know that China is preparing to make a move (Rep. McCaul has openly said that he thinks China will wait on Taiwan until after the Winter Olympics, potentially copying what Putin did during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and Russia’s initial invasion/occupation of Ukraine). The question now becomes, what is Taiwan willing to do to protect itself, if they know they can’t depend on Joe Biden for help?

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Featured image: composite of Taiwan flag via Winston Chen on Unsplash (Unsplash license) and Chinese flag via SW1994 on Pixabay (Pixabay license)