"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting," declared Sun Tzu, the legendary Chinese military strategist. Xi Jinping, the most powerful Chinese Communist leader since Mao Zedong, is surely familiar with this sage advice. Yet he decided not to take it.
Recall that in 1997 the British lowered the Union Jack over Hong Kong, their colony since 1842. In exchange, Beijing committed to the principle of "One Country, Two Systems" – the maintenance of Hong Kong as a free and open society for 50 years.
Had Mr. Xi kept that promise, he could now say to the Taiwanese people: "You, too, can have such a deal. Become a province of the People's Republic of China. There's no reason for bloodshed."
Instead, over recent years, he has brutally stripped the people of Hong Kong of the rights they had been guaranteed under the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, a treaty – and treaties, of course, are the bedrock of international law.
As a result, the Taiwanese now know that the vibrant democracy they've constructed would be quashed by the commissars in Beijing.
During a weeklong visit to Taiwan last month, I asked senior government officials and think-tank scholars: Why did Mr. Xi choose to suppress Hong Kong and take a hard approach to Taiwan? The best answer I received: "Because he can."
Let's widen the aperture for a minute. We're living in perilous times. Four democratic societies are threatened by four aligned tyrannies – an Axis of Aggressors.
The least imminently endangered is South Korea because thousands of American troops have remained there since 1953, after an armistice signed by the U.S., North Korea, and China brought the Korean War to a halt – not an end.
On Feb. 24, 2022, Ukraine was invaded by Russian troops. That unlawful and imperialist war continues.
Israel was attacked by Hamas (a proxy of the Islamic Republic of Iran) on Oct. 7 of last year, and by Hezbollah (Tehran's Lebanon-based foreign legion) starting a day later, and directly by the mullahcracy on April 13 of this year. The Houthi rebels of Yemen also have been firing missiles and drones at Israel. This multifront war – whose aim is not to subjugate Israelis but to exterminate them – is far from over.
President Biden has provided Ukrainians with munitions for defensive purposes, while warning against their use to attack Russians on Russian soil lest that "provoke" Vladimir Putin, Russia's nuclear saber-rattling dictator.
Mr. Biden has constrained Israel as well. His desire to avoid escalation is understandable. His belief that he can achieve that by appeasing Tehran is not.
Mr. Xi is watching all this, providing limited but significant support to both Moscow and Tehran, and doubtless thinking: Is now a good time for me to seize Taiwan?
The most lethal scenario by which he'd attempt that would be with an amphibious assault and missiles raining from the skies.
Other scenarios Mr. Xi might be considering – as either a substitute or a precursor to kinetic military strikes – include cyberwarfare to shut down critical infrastructure and impeding shipping to and from Taiwan.
Mr. Xi insists his goal is the "re-unification" of what he calls a "renegade province." A soupçon of history: Taiwan was a Dutch colony in the 17th century until it was annexed by the Manchu-led imperial Qing Dynasty in 1683. From 1895 until after World War II, it was a Japanese colony. (If not for America, it might be one to this day – as might mainland China.)
In 1949, after Mao's forces defeated the Nationalist Chinese, approximately two million followers of Gen. Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan where they set up their own government.
Indigenous Taiwanese are today only a small percentage of the island's population of 24 million, but they know who they are, maintain their languages and culture, and do not want settler-colonists from China ruling them.
The key point is this: Taiwan has never been ruled by Communists and very few Taiwanese – whatever their ancestry – would choose to be. What they want instead is the right to self-determination, a core principle of international law.
Taiwan is hugely important to the economy of America and other nations. More than 90 percent of the most advanced microchips are made on the island, predominately by the fabled Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). Should TSMC be taken over intact by Beijing, the consequences for the U.S. would be enormous. Should TSMC be destroyed during a conflict, a global depression could ensue.
And don't believe for a minute that if Mr. Xi swallows Taiwan his appetite will be sated. Expect instead that he'd move quickly to limit the independence of his other neighbors, e.g., the Philippines, Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, and of course Japan.
His short-term goal: to establish Beijing as the hegemon of Asia. His longer-term ambition: to replace the U.S. as the preeminent global power and end its leadership of an "international community" we used to call the Free World.
Should he succeed, our grandchildren will grow up in a brave new world order – one very different from that left to us by the Greatest Generation.
If World War II was fought to prevent global domination by totalitarian dictators, the ascendance of the People's Republic of China would mean we'd merely won a battle in a war we were eventually to lose.
And if the Cold War was fought to prevent the spread of Communism, that twilight struggle will turn out to have ended a few generations later in a victory for a Communist regime 3,600 miles east of Moscow.
This is what Mr. Xi believes he can do. Sun Tzu would understand. Will the next occupants of the White House?