Nikki Haley urges Washington to act 'strongly' against Beijing: If China takes Taiwan, its 'all over'

Indian American Republican politician and 2024 GOP (another name for the Republican Party -- Grand Old Party) Nikki Haley on Wednesday (local time) said the United States must act "strongly" against China, stating that if Beijing takes control of Taiwan, it will be emboldened to seize other territories around the globe.

According to The Hill, Haley during a closed-door meeting with members of the Republican Study Committee (RSC) said that if China takes control of Taiwan, Beijing will be emboldened to seize other territories around the globe.

"The US must take stronger action against China," the former President Trump's ambassador to the United Nations said, starting with organising a boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing with allies like India, Australia, Japan, South Korea and Canada.

"The last Olympics that they had [in 2008] was their coming out. That's how they saw it. They were introducing themselves to the world. This next Olympics, if it goes unscathed, this is their way of showing that they are now the superpower of the world," Haley told nearly 70 GOP lawmakers in the basement of the Capitol.

"And if we don't boycott, if we don't do something to really call them out, mark my words: Taiwan is next. And if they take Taiwan, it's all over, because they will think that gives them free rein to grab any territory, not in the region, but anywhere they want to go."

She also blasted the joint statement from President Biden and other Group of Seven leaders this week calling out China's human-rights abuses as extremely weak, arguing the G-7 instead should have established that Taiwan -- the East Asian island whose autonomy is in constant dispute -- is a "sovereign country."

On Tuesday, Taiwan witnessed the largest daily incursion as over two dozen Chinese military planes flew into the country's Air Defence Identified Zones (ADIZ).

Beijing claims full sovereignty over Taiwan, a democracy of almost 24 million people located off the southeastern coast of mainland China, even though the two sides have been governed separately for more than seven decades.

Taiwan has complained in recent months of repeated missions by China's air force near the island, concentrated in the southwestern part of its air defense zone near the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands. Tensions in the Taiwan Strait are escalating. China ramped up political pressure and military threats against Taiwan, with almost daily incursions into Taipei's air defence identification zone.

Taipei, on the other hand, has countered the Chinese aggression by increasing strategic ties with democracies including the US, which has been repeatedly opposed by Beijing. China has threatened that "Taiwan's independence" means war.

(ANI)

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