Andrew Bolt: Nobody can save Taiwan, not the US and certainly not Australia

China made it crystal clear it’s ready to risk a new world conflict after Taiwan called itself independent.

There’s one frightening thing I didn’t tell you last week when I warned that China’s dictator sounds like Adolf Hitler in January 1939, preaching peace but planning war.

I didn’t say that it’s a war China will almost certainly win.

I should say this now, after China made it crystal clear last Thursday it really is ready to risk a new world conflict, with its top military spokesman warning democratic Taiwan that calling

itself independent “means nothing but war”.

Time we woke up, before China turns much of the western Pacific into a Chinese lake.

Taiwan to Chinese dictator Xi Jinping is like Poland — or its “Danzig corridor” — was to Hitler.

To Xi, it belongs to the Fatherland and must and will be taken back. Very soon.

Xi, who last month warned his army to prepare for war “at any moment”, isn’t an idiot.

He won’t start a war he thinks he can’t win, and he knows America — China’s one great rival — is in relative decline, culturally and economically.

Don’t think the US or even Australia will work to protect Taiwan from China’s warpath, writes Andrew Bolt. Picture: Sam Yeh / AFP.

The coronavirus that swept out of China has sped the rot.

The US economy last year shrank 3.5 per cent, while China’s grew 2.3.

China’s economy before the virus was 67 per cent the size of America’s. Now it’s 70 per cent.

Yes, new President Joe Biden says the US stands by Taiwan.

But how many American lives will he risk to save a country that the US does not even

officially recognise for fear of making China angry?

How many US cities will he risk if war with nuclear-armed China gets out of control?

As for Australian help, forget it.

Our own government also refuses to recognise Taiwan. Think it will dare fight for it, despite Taiwan’s plea in December for our help?

No, the only people Taiwan can rely on to defend it are the Taiwanese — and even then, China almost certainly has a network of sympathisers, Quislings and agents to sabotage Taiwan’s defences.

Donald Trump, as president, did at least ramp up arms supplies to help the Taiwanese defend themselves, and China risks huge losses if it does invade the island, rather than, say, blockade it.

But do not count on the rest of the world helping Taiwan once fighting starts.

The self-hating West isn’t that keen now to defend democracy with blood.