Beijing’s territorial designs on Taiwan present a parallel to Russian belligerence toward Ukraine. And as the autocratic regimes of China and Russia grow more unified, protecting Taiwan’s sovereignty will require the same kind of unity that Western nations have adopted in the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression.
That’s according to two lawmakers Michael Guest (R-Miss.) and Carlos Giménez (R-Fla.) who spoke to NTD’s “Capitol Report” program on March 2. NTD is an affiliate of The Epoch Times.
“As we start to see Russia and China become more aligned, the countries that oppose the aggressive nature of both those nations are going to have to band together, just as we see in Europe,” said Guest. “We’re going to have to have those same allies in the Far East, and be prepared, if we see China make any move toward Taiwan.”
U.S. lawmakers Michael Guest (R-Miss.) and Carlos Giménez (R-Fla.) told Epoch Times affiliate TV station NDT on March 2.
Given the growing danger to Taiwan’s de facto independence, Guest said it is not too soon for President Joe Biden to look at supplying more arms to Taiwan preemptively. Trying to do so “after the fact,” when a nation or territory is under invasion or occupation, is much more difficult, he argued.
“So I believe that the President should take an aggressive stance, and should again reaffirm our commitment to Taiwan and immediately begin supplying them with the arms that they need, so that they could defend against any possible attack from China,” he said.
The United States is Taiwan’s largest arms supplier and is bound by federal law to provide the island with the means to defend itself.
Giménez, meanwhile, warned against letting the Ukraine conflagration distract from the menace posed by the communist regime in Beijing.
The threat to America and the world “now and in the future” is the Chinese regime, he said. One reason for this assessment is the vast economic power that Beijing can put to use on behalf of its military. Giménez contrasted Beijing’s economic might with that of Russia’s. China is the world’s second-largest economy after the United States, and its economy is about 10 times larger than Russia’s.
“China is now starting to be a much greater economic power. They’re also accelerating their military expansion. They want to be the dominant military power over the United States by 2050, and they want to be the dominant economic power in the world,” he warned.
Giménez cautioned strongly against mistaking the nature of the regime in Beijing. For all the market reforms undertaken under predecessors of leader Xi Jinping, the communist character of the political and economic system in China is unmistakable, he said.
“They may be disguised as a capitalist nation, but they’re not,” Giménez said.
“I don’t want my children or my grandchildren living under the boot of the Chinese Communist Party, and so I’m going to do everything in my power to see that never happens,” he added.
