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** Trump Hit Iran, So Will China Attack Taiwan? ([link removed])
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by Gordon G. Chang • June 23, 2025 at 5:00 am
* [E]xpect Xi to up the pressure on Taiwan and others in coming weeks.
* Xi fully backed Iran and its three main proxy terrorist groups — Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah, and Yemen's Houthis — against Israel, with Beijing providing economic, diplomatic, propaganda, intelligence and weapons support.
* For a time, Beijing looked as if it was driving events with its sly proxy war conducted by Iran. Now, China's Iranian proxy, and its proxies in turn, are being decimated, and Beijing cannot respond other than by cutting and running. The mighty People's Republic of China is bugging out of the Middle East.
* But China is not entirely out of the fight. In addition to the renewed air campaign against Taiwan, Beijing has upped the pressure against the Philippines in the South China Sea. On June 19, the same day China started its most recent air campaign against Taiwan, the Philippine Coast Guard announced that more than 50 of China's maritime militia vessels moved close to Iroquois Reef in the South China Sea, a feature within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines. A Philippine Coast Guard spokesman correctly called the Chinese action an "illegal swarming."
* China claims most of that crucial body of water, including features such as Iroquois, which are far from recognized Chinese shores.
* This we learned on June 21: The United States is truly a great power — and China is not.

China's President Xi Jinping fully backed Iran and its three main proxy terrorist groups — Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah, and Yemen's Houthis — against Israel, with Beijing providing economic, diplomatic, propaganda, intelligence and weapons support. Now, China's Iranian proxy, and its proxies in turn, are being decimated, and Beijing cannot respond other than by cutting and running. Pictured: Xi meets with Iran's "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on January 23, 2016, in Iran. (Image source: khamenei.ir)

China apparently tried to protect Iran, its client state, with a threat against Taiwan in the days preceding America's destruction of Iranian nuclear sites on June 21.

Beijing's gambit failed. President Donald Trump, from all indications, stared down Xi Jinping.

Nonetheless, expect Xi to up the pressure on Taiwan and others in coming weeks.

Beginning late June 19, China sent 74 warplanes near Taiwan's airspace. Sixty-one of the craft crossed the median line, the unofficial boundary running down the middle of the Taiwan Strait. The Chinese provocation came after a long period of quiet in the skies over that contested body of water.

Then, on June 21, the Pentagon told Reuters it had sent B-2 bombers to Guam. At the time, many saw the development as a final warning to Iran.

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