China’s rapid accumulation of commodities has drawn global attention and led some analysts to speculate President Xi Jinping’s country is girding itself for war over Taiwan.
“Xi seems to have studied the sanctions playbook the West used against Russia over Ukraine and subsequently initiated long-lead protective measures to batten down the hatches of China’s economy to resist similar pressure,” former Office of Naval Intelligence head Michael Studeman wrote recently on foreign policy analysis website War on the Rocks.
China claims democratic Taiwan as its territory, though Beijing’s ruling Chinese Communist Party has never governed there. U.S. officials believe Xi has instructed Chinese forces to be prepared to invade the island by 2027,…
