When Speaker Pelosi said she was going to Taiwan, the PRC made many threats. I did not think they could make so many threats and then do nothing. Most Chinese feel that making threats and doing nothing means losing face. After she left, the PLA began doing exercises all around Taiwan. Still, exercises are rather normal, closer to Taiwan than before, but not that new. The PRC dropped out of several arrangements with the US, but the US don't care.
After Pelosi said she was going and several rather prominent PRC individuals made threats, several very accurate analysts said the PRC wouldn't do anything. The PRC is rising, but most (including the PRC leadership) figure the US is much stronger now and would win any war. The US also notes that the PRC is rising. Top US analysts say that, if a war occurs now, the PRC is absolutely certain to lose. But after 2025, the PRC is very likely but not absolutely certain to lose. After 2030, the PRC is only likely to lose, not very likely. So the US have decided that 1) the PRC must be held responsible for a totally unprovoked war; and 2) this 'totally unprovoked war' must be forced to start before 2026.
Read the New York Times. Russia had an economy like Saudi Arabia: they sell oil and gas and use the money to buy everything they need from Europe and the US. The US threatened to admit the Ukraine into NATO and put nukes and ABMs into the Ukraine that would eliminate Russian MAD so Russia would have no choice but to surrender and let the US break Russia up into several unarmed states, and all that Russian oil and gas would return to its rightful owners: the US oil barons. Russia said this was a Red Line.
Obviously, Russia should have surrendered. But instead, Russia attacked the Ukraine, just as the US wanted. Advanced US weapons destroyed every Russian Air Force plane and every Russian Army tank, and, since Russia buy all their planes and tanks from Europe and the US, they cannot replace any of them. Also, those US weapons killed off the entire invasion force, so Russia are now using 13-year old boys and 70 year old men, all of whom know they can't win, and are very dispirited, while the Ukrainians are highly motivated and winning. Yes, to preserve Democracy, ordinary Americans have to eat less and drive less, and ordinary Europeans must also eat and drive less and take cold showers, but these are very minor sacrifices to make for Democracy, and only for a few more weeks before the complete collapse of Russia. And not making those sacrifices would mean that the evil Putin could recreate the USSR, then the Warsaw Pact, then add all of Western Europe to the Warsaw Pact, then invade and conquer the US, so winning the Ukraine War is absolutely essential, according to the US/UK/EU leadership and all the Western media.
Independent media say every word is false: the Russians are very slowly winning in the Ukraine, those 'advanced US weapons' could not take out more than a very few Russian aeroplanes and tanks (especially since fewer than 1/3 of those weapons ever reach the Ukrainian military), while Russian weapons destroyed most of the Ukrainian aeroplanes and tanks. After Russia were taken in by the Minsk Accords, the US had 8 years to build impregnable, underground fortresses throughout the Ukraine (especially in the Donbass). Conventional artillery, rockets, bombs dropped from planes cannot penetrate the massive cement and steel ceilings with trap doors for shelling the Russian military whenever there are no bombers. The Russians bomb and isolate until all the food and water run out, so it can take more than a month to take each fortress, and during that month, the Russian military make no progress. But food and water eventually run out, and then the Russians take the fortress and move forward a few kilometres to the next fortress.
But stick with the New York Times narrative, which is reiterated in all the Western media: the proxy War in Ukraine is going very, very well for the West, and Russia will soon be under NATO control
So now, to preserve US hegemony, the next step is the PRC that must be forced to invade Taiwan, where those advanced US weapons and sanctions will quickly destroy the PLA and the PRC just as they have destroyed Russia, provided the US can provoke the PRC to invade Taiwan before 2026.
I am convinced the proxy war of the PRC and Taiwan will go very, very well in the New York Times and all the rest of the Western media if not quite so well in real life.
And if the US fleet sail in as they did 25 years ago to make sure the PRC didn't try anything when Speaker Gingrich visited Taiwan, the PLA Navy are not quite the same as they were back then, and that US fleet might all be submarines before this is over.
And then what? The US leadership might figure that having no world at all is better than seeing the PRC replace the US as World Hegemon.
