For years, each party has established and advertised its red lines. For Taiwan and the US, the red line has been a Chinese invasion, or any attempt by China to take Taiwan by force. For Xi, the red line has been Taiwan formally declaring independence or—less definitively—moving too close to independence for Chinese leaders’ comfort. But in recent years, under an increasingly aggressive Xi, many fear China has lowered its threshold for military action. The Chinese leader, fresh off securing an unprecedented third term and dispensing with China’s decades-old term limits, simply wants to reunify
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