Senator Menendez may cause your children to die fighting in China

One of Senator Robert Menendez's most vocal critics is sounding an alarm over the political bully's latest dangerous game of global tough guy.

Included in the bloated National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY23. was a bipartisan amendment Menendez proposed, called the Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act (TERA), which was called a deliberate and dangerous provocation by the People's Republic of China.

“U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez is a madman who never met a potential war that he did not like, and his response to Russian violence in Europe was to provoke a potentially similar reaction in Asia,” said Lisa McCormick the progressive Democrat who challenged the corrupt lawmaker in his last Democratic primary. "You don't get honey by kicking a beehive."

The hawkish lawmaker is also an unethical part of the corrupt political establishment in New Jersey, so it’s not at all likely that his motivation is to preserve democracy, but McCormick says that pursuing peace is not a weakness.

A J-11 fighter, operated by a Chinese navy pilot, flew within 20 feet of a U.S. Air Force RC-135 spy plane in international airspace over the South China Sea, forcing the American pilot to take evasive maneuvers. McCormick said such military adventurism could easily result in accidents that may quickly escalate into war.

“There is more hope that human rights can be brought to China, which has expressed a desire for a peaceful reunification with Taiwan, but our top foreign policy influencers seem to have a ‘shoot first’ tendency that works against our interests,” said McCormick, who believes many Americans are unaware of the relationship between China and Taiwan.

“Significant investment on the mainland started in November 1987, when Taiwan’s government lifted martial law and allowed its citizens to visit their relatives in China,” said McCormick. “A full relaxation of restrictions on Taiwan travelers visiting China came into effect in December 2008 with the opening of direct flights and the approved investment in China comprised 44,577 cases totaling $193.51 billion.”

“Today, Taiwan is one of the biggest investors in China and the value of cross-strait trade was $166 billion in 2020,” said McCormick, who argues that American policy should prioritize peace by encouraging the communist government to elevate human rights instead of driving wedges between the East and West.

McCormick said Taiwan’s Economy Ministry reported, “With regard to inward investment from Mainland China, 44 cases were approved with an amount of US$34,952,000 from January to November 2022.”

“As for Taiwan’s outward investment to Mainland China, 330 applications have been approved from January to November 2022, in an amount of $4.5 billion,” said McCormick, the progressive challenger who nearly toppled Menendez in 2018. "These guys are doing business with one another but Bob Menendez is trying to get them into a fight. Americans need leadership that can prod allies and trading partners toward democracy instead of bloodthirsty and greedy politicians with itchy trigger fingers."

Since the government relocated to Taiwan in 1949, it has exercised jurisdiction over Taiwan proper, Penghu Islands, Kinmen Islands, Matsu Islands, and a number of smaller islands, while China has been under the control of the authorities in Beijing.

For decades, neither government operated as a democratic republic but Taiwan adopted reforms in the 1980s and the mainland communists evolved a market-based economy sometime later.

“Beginning with the acceleration of Taiwan’s democratization in the late 1980s, many restrictions concerning civil exchanges with China have been lifted, which suggest there are ways to influence the domestic policies within the communist state that pro-democracy advocates find objectionable,” said McCormick. “Bob Menendez is prepared for sending our children to die fighting an unnecessary war in China because he simply cannot see that there is a better way.”

Vladimir Putin’s brutal attack on his Ukrainian neighbors has sparked global outrage —but he was provoked by the threat that a nation on his border was in the process of joining NATO, a military alliance that Russia views as a potential danger.

“I do not agree with anti-democracy Republicans who want to stop supporting Ukraine but I believe American policymakers dropped the ball by instigating Putin’s brutal attack on his neighbors,” said McCormick, who blamed Menendez as sharing responsibility for supplying the provocation for Putin’s invasion.

Putin had often expressed concern over the expansion of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, into Eastern Europe and former Soviet Republics, especially Ukraine.
“Putin sees the invasion of Ukraine as an act of self-defense against NATO expansion,” said McCormick. “Xi Jinping has expressed interest in a peaceful reunification with Taiwan but he is clearly viewing American weapons systems as a deliberate provocation. You cannot pull a tiger’s tail without the expectation that the animal will bite you.”

McCormick called on the Biden administration to apply economic pressure to compel China to adopt better human rights policies instead of prodding the Asian empire into a war.