Communist China's air force sent more than 150 aircraft into Taiwan's air defense zone over a two-day period, a clear warning that Beijing's patience is reaching an end in its long-announced plan to attack and conquer the independent nation it claims as its own.
In a public speech that followed the aircraft sorties, and which commemorated 110 years of Marxist revolution in China, President Xi Jinping vowed to "reunify" China with Taiwan.
“Taiwan independence separatism is the biggest obstacle to achieving the reunification of the motherland,” he said, “and the most serious hidden danger to national rejuvenation.”
Bob Maginnis, a national security analyst at the Family Research Council, says XI has made “reunification” with Taiwan a key part of his ongoing push to remain in power.
“And so the longer he delays the taking of Taiwan,” Maginnis says, “the more difficult it will be for him to stay in power.”
China is ruled by the National People’s Congress, where Xi was first elected president in 2013, and again in 2017, after working his way up the ranks filled with fellow ruthless Communist members. In 2018, the People's Congress voted to abolish the two-term limit in what was described as a surprising decision and now Xi is expecting to win an unprecedented third term in 2022.
Term limits were established by the People’s Congress during the 1980s to keep the nation from being ruled by another strongman like Mao, which China's leaders know all too well would mean a prison cell or a bullet for political enemies. Now, however, Xi's power is being compared to the ruthless Mao.
According to Maginnis, it was unlikely China was preparing to attack Taiwan anytime soon. That plan may have changed, he advises, because China is now watching America’s weak president. Xi is likely being pushed to act while Joe Biden remains in the White House.
“So I do expect that the timeline has been accelerated,” Maginnis predicts.
