Republican Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn questioned China expert Gordon Chang about China flying military jets into Taiwanese airspace during the Wednesday episode of her YouTube show, “Unmuted With Marsha.”
“The president needs to get behind his desk in the Oval Office and publicly warn the Chinese and say that the U.S. will defend Taiwan,” Chang said in the interview, obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller. Chinese aggression toward the democratic island has ramped up in recent weeks, with the People’s Liberation Army Air Force flying a record 52 planes over Taiwan on Oct. 3.
“I think that we need to actually have our navy have port calls in Chinese ports with our Arleigh Burke destroyers,” Chang said, urging a military response to Chinese aggression.
Blackburn suggested that “Biden’s weakness, and the way he acted in Afghanistan” encouraged Chinese aggression.
“What kind of effect does that have on this China aggression that we are seeing?” she said.
Chang agreed, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping and other leaders “perceive the Biden administration as incapable.”
“We know this. We don’t have to speculate. As Kabul was falling, we saw their propaganda narratives. And these two narratives, one of them was that because the U.S. couldn’t deal with the Taliban, it had no hope of countering a magnificent China,” he said.
“And the second narrative was that, when Beijing invaded, and they sort of used the when, not the if, that Taiwan would fall in a couple days, and the U.S. would not come to help.”
Biden and his administration have repeatedly argued that leaving Afghanistan would allow the U.S. to pivot to a great power-focused foreign policy in countering China.
“There is nothing that China or Russia would rather have — would want more — in this competition than [for the] U.S. to be bogged down another decade in Afghanistan,” Biden said on Aug. 31.
Critics of Biden’s withdrawal have argued that maintaining a presence at Bagram Air Base, 40 miles from Kabul, would have allowed the U.S. to more effectively combat China in the Near East. China will also attempt to access Afghan mineral rights through its New Silk Road international development initiative. (RELATED: China Reportedly Mulls Takeover Of Bagram Air Base After Hasty US Withdrawal)
“Communist China is an authoritarian regime set on global domination. Beijing’s takeover of Hong Kong was just a small step in China’s plan to expand their empire,” Blackburn told the Daily Caller. “Now, Communist China has turned its sights towards Taiwan. The United States must stand strong against communism and China’s aggression. Joe Biden needs to provide diplomatic and military support to protect our friends in Taipei.”