Indeed, there are parallels between Russian despot Vladimir Putin’s ruthless efforts to snuff out the strategically important Ukrainian democracy and China’s aspirations to control Hong Kong, Taiwan and the resource-rich yet vulnerable Australasian region.
Despite its claims that all nations should respect one another’s territorial rights, China hypocritically refuses to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while unilaterally appropriating enormous swathes of the Indo-Pacific that are recognised as belonging to other countries under international law.
Inevitable conflict
China is an ideological state that is hell-bent on eliminating threats to the power and longevity of the autocratic Chinese Community Party and its leader-for-life. Xi has relentlessly warned his 1.4 billion subjects to prepare for a new “long march” involving countless casualties because, he argues, conflict between capitalism and socialism with Chinese characteristics is “inevitable”. (Less than one-tenth of the 100,000 Chinese soldiers who commenced the last long march in 1934 survived).
Xi has committed to unifying China’s mainland with that recalcitrant outpost Taiwan – which presents an existential threat to the CCP through its counterfactual of democratic freedom and liberty – via force (or any other means) – during his term, as he has done with Hong Kong.
When Xi came to power, many asserted China had no expansionist ambitions. Xi personally promised President Barack Obama that…
