It’s hardly surprising that China feels emboldened. Xi Jinping must look at America and see not just a superpower in decline but a gerontocracy that has lost its marbles.
Last week, Nancy Pelosi, the 82-year-old Speaker of the House of Representatives, visited Taiwan as a gesture of solidarity, in spite of China’s fierce warnings that her arrival would be treated as a grave provocation. Presumably Pelosi felt that, by not being cowed, she’d shown China who’s still global boss. And other photo-opportunistic politicians are expected now to imitate her. What for, though? In the following days, China intensified its military drills around the Taiwan Strait. Some experts reckon that the Chinese Communist party used Pelosi’s visit as an excuse to carry out an invasion rehearsal. Well played, Nancy.
Meanwhile, the 79-year-old Commander-in-Chief fumbles on and on. Last week, Joe Biden’s White House tried to redefine the word ‘recession’ in order to stop America being officially in one. Joe and his wife, Jill, visited a flood in Kentucky, which is what presidents and first ladies are meant to do. On the way back, however, the old man couldn’t get on his jacket as he stepped off the Marine One helicopter. Jill had to help him, and he dropped his sunglasses on the tarmac. Barely a day goes by without Biden stumbling in some way and it all adds to an overwhelming sense that the President is too decrepit.
Don’t feel too sorry for him, though. Pity the families of the 12,400 Americans who have been shot dead this year, as gun crime hits levels not seen in US cities since the early 1990s. Or pity the American infants who can’t be fed. For several months, the US has been suffering an acute shortage of baby milk formula. ‘The babies are crying and the babies are hungry,’ said Pelosi back in May.
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