This time I would like tentatively to share the insights of Dr. Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he specializes in Iran, Turkey, and the broader Middle East. A former Pentagon official, Dr. Rubin has lived in post-revolution Iran, Yemen, and both pre- and postwar Iraq. For more than a decade, he taught classes at sea about the Horn of Africa and Middle East conflicts, culture, and terrorism, to deployed US Navy and Marine units.
His theme is: China may fight India before Taiwan, carried in Washington Examiner posted on March10.
The post-World War II democratic international order is on life support.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine raises fears that China might try to take Taiwan by force.
The United States did little, for example, after China shredded its treaty commitments on Hong Kong and extended China’s police state to the previously autonomous territory.
The Biden administration may have encouraged China further when the White House walked back Biden’s off-the-cuff commitment that the U.S. would defend Taiwan.
Biden’s willingness to ignore a “minor incursion” in Ukraine and prioritize the fight against climate change over efforts to counter both China’s genocidal campaign against the Uyghurs and Russia’s moves in Ukraine emboldens Beijing further.
Taiwan, however, is not the only country in mainland China’s sights.
Seventy years ago, Chinese Communist Party authorities gobbled up the entirety of Tibet in a violent, colonialist orgy.
Today, mainland China has territorial disputes with 17 other countries .
It is one thing to dispute a border but another thing to change it by force.
In recent years, China has seized Filipino territory in the South China Sea and encroached by land into Bhutan.
Two years ago, China began making similar incursions into Ladakh, an Indian region.
That dispute may flare again as the winter snows melt in April and May.
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