Will President Joe Biden's weakness lead to the outbreak of World War III before the year is out? At least one man familiar with the war thinks so.
In an interview last week with the conservative British news outlet GBNews, Erik Prince — a former US Navy SEAL and founder of the private military contractor Blackwater — said he expected China “will seize Taiwan in the spring of 2024.”
The prediction came after the host — British Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who also serves as a commentator and host for the network — noted that Chinese President Xi Jinping “warned President Biden at the summit in [San Francisco] That China will unite with Taiwan.”
Xi did not set a timetable for that, but Prince argued that China would try to make an attempt with Taiwan during the Biden administration because of Biden's weakness on foreign policy — and that, due to weather conditions, it would be more likely to happen in China. spring.
“As an American, it seems we are in a second version of the Carter administration, from 1977 to 1980,” Prince said, referring to a miserable period in American history that covered everything from the second oil shock to the Iranian crisis. The seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran and the subsequent hostage crisis.
“The weather window, if they're going to do something forcefully in Taiwan, opens around May or June because for most of the year, it's very windy.
“If they're going to take Taiwan by force, I expect they'll do something this spring,” he added, saying he “would be surprised if they don't try something under the Biden administration because for them… they should feel like the door is wide open for them to do what they want to do.” with it.”
Indeed, the door was wide open to a move that could lead to the outbreak of World War III on a number of fronts, as Prince pointed out.
“The foreign policy setbacks we are seeing are often increasingly frequent,” Prince told Rees-Mogg.
“Now, apparently, you can shoot at US Navy warships hundreds of times and shoot at Americans in the Middle East without consequences,” he said, referring to the current unrest caused by Iran-backed Houthi terrorists.
He added: “Now we have the Houthis who have blocked one of the busiest waterways in the world, the Red Sea, and seized more than 50 percent of global container trade.”
“Once again, it is a catastrophic loss of US credibility and deterrence.”
The left — and indeed some libertarian-leaning rightists — may despise Price for his role as founder and former CEO of Blackwater, which played a crucial role in contracting for military services during the post-9/11 conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
However, the man knows his army – and it's not as if there aren't plenty of sabers flying from Beijing that could eventually start a shooting war.
NBC News first reported on December 20 that “Chinese President Xi Jinping bluntly told President Joe Biden during their recent summit in San Francisco that Beijing would reunite Taiwan with mainland China, but the timing has not yet been decided, according to three current and former officials.” . American officials.
The officials said Xi told Biden in a group meeting attended by dozens of US and Chinese officials that China would prefer to seize Taiwan peacefully rather than by force.
He also asked the White House, before the summit, to publicly declare that it supports the “peaceful reunification” of the communist country with its smaller, democratic island counterpart, according to NBC. This is something those at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue refused to do, according to the president's minimal discretion, NBC reported.
NBC also reported that Xi told US diplomats that US military projections that he would take control of the island in 2025 or 2027 were incorrect and that he had not specified a time frame.
“The discoveries provide previously unreported details about a crucial meeting between the two leaders that was intended to reduce tensions between their countries,” the NBC report noted.
Xi's private warning to Biden, while not markedly different from his previous public comments on Taiwan reunification, caught the attention of US officials because it was issued at a time when China's behavior toward Taiwan is seen as increasingly aggressive and ahead of a potential presidential election. Pivotal. Elections on the self-governing, democratic island are next month.
For its part, Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party seems desperate to attract Washington's attention to this issue.
On Wednesday, the party announced that Hsiao Pei-chim – Taiwan's envoy to the United States, nicknamed the “Cat Warrior” – is its vice presidential candidate, the British newspaper The Guardian reported.
How the move will affect the election is anyone's guess, but the fact that the party is betting on a Colombia-educated woman with ties to the US diplomatic community to help it at the polls indicates how much Taiwan's leaders want power. Joe Biden authorized before Beijing could undertake any kind of “peaceful” reunification.
Unfortunately for the Taiwanese, having Joe Biden's ear doesn't seem to be worth much these days. The fact that we are even talking about such a move by China — which could ultimately lead to World War III — is indicative of the state of the world in which the diminishing octogenarian has become the leader of the world's only free superpower.
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This article originally appeared in The Western Journal.
