Americans will need to come to grips with a mounting, deadly serious crisis.  The Democrat nominee for the presidency appears saturated with corruption, and worse -- yes, there’s a worse here -- he’s compromised himself to foreign powers, one of which -- the People’s Republic of China (PRC) -- is rightly regarded as an enemy of the U.S.  Sly Vlad Putin and whoever runs the Ukraine owns Joe Biden, too.  Russia and the Ukraine having the goods on Biden is bad enough, but China is the U.S.’s principal rival for global dominance.  The blackmailing of a President Joe Biden is a chilling prospect.  Biden as president imperils the nation in ways never experienced before.

What does this mean to the Sino-American rivalry?  It means that with Biden blackmailed and in the White House, the Chinese may never fire a shot to gain hegemony over the U.S. -- the domination that tyrant Xi Jingping dreams about.

Did you know that in the last week the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group was deployed to the South China Sea?  Let’s examine this development and then tie it in to the growing Biden uber-scandal.   

Per USNI News, October 15, 2020:

The carrier strike group] is now operating in the South China Sea for the third time as part of its current underway period. Meanwhile, a destroyer made a transit of the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday.

USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) and its strike group passed through the Strait of Malacca and entered the South China Sea on Monday, according to ship spotters. Accompanying the carrier was guided-missile cruiser USS Antietam (CG-54) and destroyer USS Halsey (DDG-97).

Why has the U.S. sent a strike group back for a third time recently?  More from the USNI News report:

USS Barry (DDG-52) passed through the strait on Wednesday, a first for a U.S. warship since Aug. 31. “The ship’s transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” read the statement. [italics added]

While the U.S. under Donald Trump’s leadership has routinely contested the PRC’s fraudulent claim to the South China Sea as its territorial waters, the strike group’s deployment involves much more this time.  It targets recent PRC threats to Taiwan.  President Trump intends selling advanced weapon systems to Taiwan as a counter to mounting Chinese threats.  If war comes with the PRC, sooner rather than later, Taiwan is the flashpoint. 

From the Washington Post, October 12, 2020:

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- With tensions soaring in the Taiwan Strait, China responded to Taiwanese overtures for dialogue by releasing new footage showing a large-scale military exercise simulating an invasion and a purported confession from a Taiwanese businessman held captive in China on spying charges.       

The double-barreled release by the influential China Central Television late Saturday and Sunday signaled a hard line from Beijing on the same weekend that Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen offered conciliatory remarks expressing a desire to hold talks as fears grow that China's increasing threats toward Taiwan could spill over into military action. 

And, finally, this from the Post report:

Chinese President Xi Jinping has made bringing Taiwan under Beijing's control a core plank of his vision to restore China's greatness and has signaled growing impatience with the DPP's refusal to acknowledge the one-China principle. In its annual work report this year, the Chinese government removed the word "peaceful" from long-standing references to "reunification" with Taiwan.

Why would Xi Jinping beat the war drums now about Taiwan? 

With presidential and other stateside elections in full swing, Xi may have calculated that the U.S. is too preoccupied to fully engage over Taiwan.  He had hoped to steal a march. 

Another reason is Xi may believe specious national polls -- that Trump is at a disadvantage in the presidential elections.  Xi may have gambled that Trump is inhibited, unable to effectively counter PRC aggression toward the Taiwanese, fearing voter backlash.  If so, the president sending the strike group back into the South China Sea confounds Xi’s schemes.  Certainly, Xi would prefer intimidating Taiwan into submission.  An invasion and conquest of the island would come at an enormous price, both militarily and economically, to the PRC.  With the U.S. Navy as a tripwire, an attack on Taiwan would mean war between China and its chief trading partner.             

China’s “president for life” may be facing some internal party dissension.  Unleashing COVID on the U.S. and the world hasn’t worked to China’s advantage, at least not with President Trump.  Conflict with the U.S. over unfair trade isn’t going China’s way, either.  War -- or its rumblings -- is a time-honored means for tyrants to refocus, galvanize, and consolidate support among a ruling class and populace.       

This brings us back to the Hunter Biden laptop and the forebodings among the emails contained therein.  If the emails are the revelations they appear, Joe Biden not only knew about Hunter Biden’s and his associates’ influence-peddling with Chinese oligarchs, but facilitated it, granting access to them with him and, likely, other Obama administration high officials.  Worse still, emails on the laptop implicate Joe Biden in substantial skims or cuts of “fees” paid to Hunter Biden. 

If these suspicions are borne out, Xi is holding a sword over Joe Biden’s head that, if used, would not only destroy his presidency, but subject Biden to criminal prosecution (once impeached and removed from office, if he chose not to resign).  What else could the top charge be than treason?   

Biden, submitting to Chinese blackmail, would grant the PRC the latitude to seize the militarily and commercially critical South China Sea and mount intense pressure campaigns -- up to and including invasion -- to bring Taiwan to heel.  What choice would Biden have?  Xi would be poised to create his version of the old Imperial Japanese Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.  This would be a crucial step in positioning the PRC for global supremacy.     

A secondary consideration, in matters of trade, Biden couldn’t afford to protect the U.S. market from China’s cheap labor and slave-produced goods.  To date, the PRC’s lucrative revenues from trade with the U.S., principally, and others have financed its ceaseless military buildup.  Let’s note that prior to Trump, PRC military and industrial espionage, as well as inadequate safeguards stateside, were a boon to China’s development of a technologically sophisticated military, one that not only threatens U.S. overseas interests, but, with each passing day, the homeland as well.  What possible actions could a compromised President Biden take to stop further Chinese theft?  Or would Biden simply facilitate the transfer of technology?      

This nightmare scenario of a Biden presidency need not materialize.  Though an estimated 23.5 million votes have been cast to date, many tens of millions more votes have yet to be made.  The Hunter Biden laptop discoveries are evidentiary.  Joe Biden and his family have long been alleged to be as crooked as the day is long.  A Biden presidency is an unprecedented risk to U.S. national security.  Reelecting Donald Trump is the prevention.  A Trump second term is imperative.                                                 

J. Robert Smith can be found on Twitter @JRobertSmith1 and Parler @JRobertSmith.  He also blogs at Flyover.                   

Image: Ben Stanfield