China would moderate its behavior, the argument went, perhaps eventually easing its military threats against Taiwan, and letting Hong Kong maintain its status as a free-trading city-state outside of Beijing's direct control.
With the world still distracted by fears of the coronavirus pandemic's deadly impact and much of the West's economy shut down, China used the crisis to expand its power by bullying its neighbors, crushing all dissent in Hong Kong, and making not-so-subtle military threats against the U.S. Over the past few weeks, China has systematically gone about stifling Hong Kong's freedom movement and arresting its leaders, prompting U.S. Secretary Of State Mike Pompeo to declare on Wednesday the obvious: Hong Kong no longer is autonomous from China.
President Xi Jinping has just told the military to prepare for combat, an ominous sign that China is planning something big as the world deals with its coronavirus issues.
Will China use the world's Wuhan virus distraction to invade Taiwan, now that it has broken its treaty to reclaim Hong Kong? Will it bolster its military presence in its illegally built "islands" in the South China Sea, intended to steal its smaller neighbors' rights to the area? Will it provoke a weakened Kim Jong Un in North Korea to do something rash to provoke a crisis among U.S. allies South Korea and Japan?
Since 2018, when Xi Jinping maneuvered during the Communist Party's conference to win virtually unbridled powers and also end term limits for his leadership, China has moved rapidly back down the road to totalitarian rule that it had partially abandoned after Mao Zedong's death.
In a commentary earlier this year, Heritage Foundation Distinguished Fellow Lee Edwards pondered the question, "Is the curve in Communist China pointed up to freedom and democracy or down to Marxism-Leninism and totalitarianism?".
"Consider China's aggressive attitude toward Hong Kong and its activity in the South China Sea, its efforts to bully the island democracy of Taiwan into accepting it is a province of China, the onerous conditions attached to its large loans to cash-hungry nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America, its blatant theft of the intellectual property of U.S. companies doing business in China," Edwards wrote.
With the world still distracted by fears of the coronavirus pandemic's deadly impact and much of the West's economy shut down, China used the crisis to expand its power by bullying its neighbors, crushing all dissent in Hong Kong, and making not-so-subtle military threats against the U.S. Over the past few weeks, China has systematically gone about stifling Hong Kong's freedom movement and arresting its leaders, prompting U.S. Secretary Of State Mike Pompeo to declare on Wednesday the obvious: Hong Kong no longer is autonomous from China.
President Xi Jinping has just told the military to prepare for combat, an ominous sign that China is planning something big as the world deals with its coronavirus issues.
Will China use the world's Wuhan virus distraction to invade Taiwan, now that it has broken its treaty to reclaim Hong Kong? Will it bolster its military presence in its illegally built "islands" in the South China Sea, intended to steal its smaller neighbors' rights to the area? Will it provoke a weakened Kim Jong Un in North Korea to do something rash to provoke a crisis among U.S. allies South Korea and Japan?
Since 2018, when Xi Jinping maneuvered during the Communist Party's conference to win virtually unbridled powers and also end term limits for his leadership, China has moved rapidly back down the road to totalitarian rule that it had partially abandoned after Mao Zedong's death.
In a commentary earlier this year, Heritage Foundation Distinguished Fellow Lee Edwards pondered the question, "Is the curve in Communist China pointed up to freedom and democracy or down to Marxism-Leninism and totalitarianism?".
"Consider China's aggressive attitude toward Hong Kong and its activity in the South China Sea, its efforts to bully the island democracy of Taiwan into accepting it is a province of China, the onerous conditions attached to its large loans to cash-hungry nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America, its blatant theft of the intellectual property of U.S. companies doing business in China," Edwards wrote.
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