The broken vows that endanger US, allies

When US President Donald Trump in January urged Iranians to “take over your institutions” and promised that “help is on its way,” he presumably meant American help for the protesters.

However, the ill-timed and uncoordinated US bombing campaign that came only after 50,000 Iranians were murdered in the streets seemed more like a trick to lure them into a death trap.

Instead, the help that was on the way came from China, not from the US, and it went not to the Iranian people, but to the regime that was killing and otherwise oppressing them.

It is little wonder that despite Trump’s mystification, his renewed call last week for another attempt at an unarmed overthrow of the regime has so far gone unheeded. The tragic irony is that the Trump administration and the Iranian people clearly want the end of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ criminal rule, but their respective efforts to bring it about are entirely at sixes and sevens.

Trump still refuses to apply serious pressure on Beijing to halt its deadly material support for the Iranian regime despite Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) promise to him to refrain from doing so. For his part, Trump is more interested in pursuing a supposedly lucrative trade deal with China than in demanding that it stop providing Teheran with life support. So Beijing is free to continue aiding a US enemy and distracting Washington from focusing on its main security challenges from China and Russia.

It is not the first time Xi has deceived a US president into believing his empty promises and jeopardizing Washington’s national security interest in the process.

Asked in his first term whether he had been “duped” by Xi about the danger COVID-19 presented to the American public, Trump said he had a “great relationship” with Xi who assured him that COVID-19 presented no serious risk to Americans — as 1 million perished and the lives of millions of others, and the entire US economy, were severely disrupted.

Even before Trump’s tenure, Xi had falsely assured former US president Barack Obama that China would not militarize the artificial islands it built in the South China Sea, imperiling US friends and allies Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Australia and others.

Most recently, Xi told Trump that China would not invade Taiwan while Trump is in office.

However, even if Xi honors his word more faithfully than he has previous strategic commitments, there are two large loopholes in his pledge of restraint.

If Trump leaves office for health or other reasons before his term expires in January 2029, Xi could attack Taiwan and still tell the world he kept his word.

His second escape hatch, even while Trump remains in office, is that China, instead of openly attacking Taiwan, could impose a crippling blockade on it and put the onus for initiating hostilities on Trump, triggering yet a second war by the president who promised no more such overseas conflicts.

Would Trump risk US Navy ships and personnel to break the blockade?

Xi might be willing to bet that Trump would prefer to engage in protracted negotiations to demonstrate his vaunted deal-making skills, but what he would be trading away for the illusion of peace would be Taiwan’s national security and sovereignty.

Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the US defense secretary in 2005 and 2006, and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in 2009 and 2010.