Xi Jinping’s expansionism has united the democratic world against Beijing

What Beijing could not do in the face of this was respond with something credible. Neither China’s Foreign Ministry nor the Eastern Theater Military Command, which is responsible for operations around Taiwan and regularly issues threatening statements whenever activity occurs near Taiwan, have issued any official condemnation of HMCS. Charlottetown transit. The silence has revealed what the bluster hides: Beijing calibrates its pressure on targets it believes will back down. This is not the case for Canada.

The United States, Japan, the Philippines and the Netherlands close the door on China’s exit

On May 27, a Dutch warship entered the waters of the South China Sea that Beijing claims as its own sovereign territory, sparking strong protests from China’s Foreign Ministry. At almost the same time, the United States and Japan were finalizing joint naval exercises in the waters surrounding Taiwan, with some exercises conducted 100 or 200 kilometers from the island’s coast.

The proposition that “a Taiwan contingency is a Japan contingency,” once debated as a political issue, now describes active military coordination. Starting in June 2026, the United States will temporarily deploy its Typhoon medium-range missile system to Japan. The Typhoon is a battery of ground-launched cruise missiles whose range covers much of the region, and its deployment directly concerns China’s ability to project military power across the Western Pacific. When Washington deployed its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, a missile defense battery, to South Korea in 2017, Beijing responded with furious economic retaliation, pressuring Seoul for years. Typhoon’s deployment targets a broader range of threats, and Beijing finds itself with far fewer levers to pull against Japan than against South Korea, and far less appetite to test them.

The Philippines has widened the circle further. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. traveled to Japan for a state visit from May 26 to 29, with security and defense cooperation in the South China Sea at the center of the negotiations. The United States, Japan and the Philippines now operate as an integrated security front along what military planners call the First Island Chain: the arc of islands stretching from Japan to the Philippines to Taiwan that constitutes the main geographic barrier between the Chinese military and the open Pacific.

Lawmakers from the democratic world visit Taipei

A cross-party delegation of Israeli lawmakers visited Taiwan in early May. Paraguay’s president traveled to Taipei to strengthen his country’s formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, one of the few governments to maintain official recognition. On May 23, the first secretary of the French Socialist Party arrived in Taipei and publicly declared, in front of an international audience, that Taiwan is “a de facto state.”

From May 23 to 31, a cross-party delegation from the German Bundestag’s Berlin-Taipei Friendship Group arrived in Taiwan, the latest evidence that European governments have largely stopped adjusting their positions on Taiwan in deference to Beijing’s sensitivities. Governments that sent representatives or lawmakers to Taiwan in May alone: ​​Canada, the Netherlands, the United States, Japan, the Philippines, Israel, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the European Union and Paraguay.

Former British intelligence chief: China keeps war alive with Russia

In a interview with the The Wall Street JournalRichard Moore, who served as director of Britain’s secret intelligence service, known as MI6, from 2020 to September 2025, was unequivocal: “Without China, Russia would have lost. It’s as simple as that.” Moore said Chinese chemicals and components going into the production of Russian artillery and drones were essential to the military supply chain keeping the war alive. He added: “What keeps Putin in Ukraine is Chinese support. »

On May 29, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen issued a strong statement signaling new measures against China’s subsidized exports to Europe. European governments had maintained, to varying degrees, the hope that China could be separated from its practical support for Russia’s war effort. Moore’s statement, delivered with the authority of a career intelligence chief, significantly closed that space.

The original Chinese-language source for this article attributes a version of this remark to Russian President Vladimir Putin himself, presenting it as a cynical move by Moscow against China. Available documents show that the statement came from Moore, not Putin, and that the meaning is different but no less damaging for Beijing: the accusation comes from a senior Western intelligence official, speaking to a Western audience making decisions on trade, investment and security cooperation with China.

Beijing’s intimidation strategy produced the opposite of the intended result

Governments that once covered themselves have stopped doing so. Military deployments that once required months of negotiations are happening on accelerated timelines. Parliamentarians who once avoided Taipei to spare Beijing’s feelings are now going there as a deliberate political signal.

North Korea’s public declaration that it will never give up its nuclear weapons has sharpened the security calculus across Northeast Asia and strengthened the arguments of Japan, South Korea and the United States for closer military coordination, using precisely the threat that Beijing is supposed to help manage. Xi Jinping reportedly scheduled a visit to Pyongyang that was postponed, apparently due to domestic pressure in China. The partnership between Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang, which CCP propagandists have presented as a coherent strategic axis reshaping the world order, produces strategic liabilities faster than strategic advantages.

Beijing faces tightening military deployments, a limited number of governments willing to accept its leadership on Taiwan, and a European trade stance moving toward confrontation rather than accommodation. And a senior Western intelligence official has now placed China at the center of Europe’s bloodiest land war since 1945.

Note: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the editorial position of Vision Times.