Before the February invasion, Russia and Ukraine have combined to export about 25% percent of the world’s wheat, with Ukraine accounting for about 8%, making it the world’s fourth-largest grain producer. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the war had increased food insecurity in many poorer nations because of rising prices. Mr. Guterres also said that the world could face long-term famines if Ukraine’s exports are not restored to pre-war levels. Mr. Putin’s blackmail is having considerable effects beyond the price increases. Egypt, which previously received about 80% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine, faces shortages of bread that could destabilize its government. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Egypt has sought billions of dollars in loans and investments from the International Monetary Fund and neighboring nations to support bread subsidy programs. Those programs subsidize food purchases for about 70 million Egyptians in a country having a population of about 103 million. The African Development Bank announced in May that it was spending about one and a half-billion dollars to help farmers buy seed, fertilizer and equipment to help increase the continent’s output and - it hopes - avert hunger. It is not likely to succeed because nations other than Ukraine and Russia are reducing their grain exports to avert shortages at home. India, the world’s second-biggest grain exporter behind China, banned wheat exports in May. China’s wheat crops reportedly will be diminished this year due to weather and other factors. Some Ukrainian grain is being carried overland by train, and the European Union pledged recently to help Ukraine export millions of tons of grain over the next few months.

Famines can be brought about by natural disasters or wars. The Eritrean famine that began in 1984 was caused by both. About 50 years earlier, in 1932, Josef Stalin inflicted famine on Ukraine in an attempted genocide. Between 3.5 and 5 million Ukrainians died in a famine in what was then the state that produced the most grain in the Soviet Union. That Soviet-imposed famine is known in Ukraine as the “Holodomor,” which is a combination of Ukrainian words meaning “hunger” and “extermination.” Russia’s war against Ukraine began on February 24 and has continued ruthlessly, relentlessly and remorselessly. Tens of thousands have died on each side. In its effort to strangle Ukraine’s economy, Russia has prevented it from using its Black Sea ports to export the millions of tons of wheat, corn and sunflower oil it produces every year. Odesa and Ukraine’s other major ports are blockaded. Mariupol, its other major port, has been essentially destroyed. As a result, global grain prices are increasing quickly, as much as 30% over last year. Wheat prices have reportedly increased by 80% since July and fertilizer prices are also soaring. The U.N. has said that grain prices could increase by another 20% or more this year. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “weaponizing Ukraine’s crops” as a tool to blackmail the rest of the world. Mr. Morawiecki is obviously correct. Mr. Putin’s regime has said that it could permit Ukraine to export grain if the economic sanctions imposed on Russia over its February invasion were lifted.

In that case one can anticipate that Mr. Li will be their preferred choice for president. The writing may be on the wall for Mr. Xi’s future, as official CCP publications have increasingly highlighted Mr. Li as a vital component for China’s success going forward. As Mr. Chang asserts, the spotlighting of Mr. Li in official CCP organs is “another bad sign for Xi.” Mr. Li has spent much of his political life in the shadows. Now, Mr. Li is increasingly stepping out from behind Mr. Xi’s shadow. Recently, as though recognizing that he had erred, Mr. Xi announced a shift away from his “zero COVID” policy to a “dynamic zero COVID” policy, which will effectively allow for the restoration of some degree of economic freedom in China, even though the coronavirus in China is not yet under control. Mr. Li did not have it in him in 2012 to prevent Mr. Xi’s successful bid for the presidency - despite being the favored successor for Mr. Hu - and it remains to be seen whether Mr. Li can muster the gumption to successfully challenge Mr. Xi. As greater challenges to his reign mount in the run-up to the 20th People’s Congress, and if Mr. Xi’s political situation at home does not improve, the more likely that Mr. Xi is to engage in aggressive behavior with Taiwan or India or another Chinese rival in the Indo-Pacific. Napoleon once said, “Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will wake the world.” China’s rise in the last 50 years has already fundamentally changed the balance of world power irrevocably. A vicious power struggle in Beijing could shake an already brittle international order to its very foundation - and initiate a world war the likes of which we’ve never experienced.

However, Mr. Jiang and his clique are old. While they certainly can do damage to Mr. Xi’s political future, a bigger threat looms behind him: his number two, CCP Premier Li Keqiang. Mr. Li is part of the Youth Faction League, which is nominally led by Mr. Xi’s immediate predecessor, the man who pioneered China’s “Peaceful Rise” strategy of the 2000s, Hu Jintao. Mr. Xi and Mr. Hu could not be more different from each other. Whereas Mr. Hu lived by the creed of biding one’s time and hiding one’s capabilities to keep your enemies off-balance, Mr. Xi has demonstrated a consistent dedication to overt ― and increasing ― displays of Chinese force abroad. In the words of Gordon G. Chang, author of “The Coming Collapse of China,” “Li Keqiang would be less ideological” than Mr. Xi. In fact, according to Charles Burton of the MacDonald Laurier Institute in Ottawa, Canada, during the transition of power from Mr. Hu in 2012, it was Mr. Xi who outmaneuvered Mr. Li for the role of president ― despite the fact that Mr. Li was next in line to succeed Mr. Hu, since Mr. Li was from the Youth Faction League that Mr. Hu led. Mr. Chang believes that, despite the rising antipathy to Mr. Xi’s rule from within powerful factions of the CCP, Mr. Xi is likely to be given a historic third term as China’s president. But given the rising anger over Mr. Xi’s policies, not only regarding his draconian COVID-19 policies but about Mr. Xi’s outspoken support for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s deeply unpopular (and illegal) invasion of Ukraine, readers should not be surprised if a challenge to Mr. Xi’s potential third term occurs at the party congress this fall. If a challenge is mounted it will be done by elements belonging to both the Shanghai Gang and the Youth Faction League.

China is undergoing significant social, political and economic stress at a precarious point in time for the reign of President Xi Jinping. A man who rose to power with great fanfare in 2012, Mr. Xi has spent the last decade aggregating as much power as possible in his hands ― defying the patterns and preferences judiciously established by every Chinese Communist Party leader since Deng Xiaoping. When things were going well in China (especially compared to the hard times that China’s great American rival had fallen on in the wake of the Great Recession of 2008), Mr. Xi enjoyed immense political benefits for the success that China experienced in the early part of his presidency. Yet, in defying the standards for rule that Deng and his successors had spent decades laying down for future Chinese rulers to follow, Mr. Xi ensured that, if things started going badly in China under his watch, he alone would bear the burden of blame. Since late 2019, when the novel coronavirus mysteriously erupted from Wuhan, China, Mr. Xi has been made to look increasingly bad. As a new strain of COVID-19 spreads throughout China, Mr. Xi looks even worse because he has instituted draconian “zero COVID” policies that have locked the country down and set up the conditions for political unrest, both on the streets and inside the halls of power in Beijing. Already, Mr. Xi’s old nemesis, the 95-year-old former Chinese president Jiang Zemin and his so-called “Shanghai Gang” have been making moves at undermining Mr. Xi’s presidency in response to his unpopular lockdown of Shanghai.

But “strategic ambiguity” creates an aura of uncertainty. And what the Ukraine war has pushed to the forefront is the need for deterrence from strength. Not deterrence through uncertainty. And before we get into the third, and arguably the most important factor when it comes to Taiwan, let’s take a moment to see what the Russian war on Ukraine has taught us. That war has taught Beijing and Taiwan lessons, both good and bad for each side. The resilience seen in Ukraine is a good indicator for Taiwan’s spirit to fight and defend its freedoms if the Chinese regime were to launch an invasion. In war, there is the weighing of odds. If it’s just Beijing vs. Taiwan, those odds are looking pretty good for the Chinese regime. But if it’s Beijing vs. Taiwan and Japan and Australia backed by U.S. military might, suddenly those odds don’t look so good anymore. But all that aside, there’s a third factor, maybe the most important one, when it comes to Taiwan. Keith Krach told me, “There will always be a need to defend Taiwan. And the reason is, they are a role model of democracy in that region.” “They also dispel Xi [Jinping’s] myth that the Chinese culture cannot survive a democracy and it needs an authoritarian government,” he added. And because of that, the Chinese communist regime will forever see a free Taiwan as a thorn in its side and try to squash it. Obliterate it. The Chinese regime is afraid of the freedoms of Taiwan, as that would allow the Chinese people to rise up against authoritarian rule, a rule of fear. In fact, Taiwan showcases a second China. One not ruled by an iron fist of fear.

Will Americans be embroiled in another war? With the Russian war on Ukraine, many experts are now predicting Taiwan is doomed to fall to the Chinese Communist Party. But it’s not that simple. On the economic front, Taiwan produces nearly 90% of the world’s high-end semiconductors, also known as microchips. These chips are found in everything from phones, cars, computers, even military gear like fighter jets. If Taiwan were to fall to China, there would be a massive disruption across the supply chain. Former undersecretary of state, Keith Krach said semiconductors are “literally the base of everything. It’s the most important industry in the world.” Taiwan is part of what’s known as the First Island Chain, which stretches from Japan to Taiwan to the Philippines. If Taiwan were no longer free, the Chinese regime would be able to break through that First Island Chain and access the Pacific Ocean. Now the reason that would be perilous is first, the Pacific Ocean has deep enough waters that China’s nuclear-armed submarines would be able to bypass U.S. detection and launch a surprise assault on U.S. shores. Right now, the U.S. is able to track China’s submarines and stop them, were they to try and launch an assault. Second, if Taiwan were to fall, the neighboring countries would rush to strike a deal with China in order to preserve their own safety as much as possible. That would mean a massive loss in allies to the U.S. in that region. Now, when it comes to the question of whether America would defend Taiwan, the issue of “strategic ambiguity” comes up. Under that, the U.S. just has to make sure Taiwan has the means to defend itself. Hence the increase in arms sales to Taiwan.

It might be worth thinking about what the business and political elites in the U.S. have done and are doing to enable the Chinese Communist Party and its regime of slavery, genocide and destruction. The Biden administration canceled mineral leases in northern Minnesota that are essential to the development of mines that hold the copper, nickel, cobalt and other elements that are crucial to our daily life and essential to the development of electric vehicles and batteries. Right now, Communist China owns or controls about 80% of the critical minerals needed to make those vehicles and batteries. Republican Rep. Pete Stauber, who represents northern Minnesota, noted: “President Biden is choosing foreign sourced minerals, including mines that use child slave labor, over our own domestic, union workforce that follows the best labor and environmental standards in the world.” Team Biden is perfectly content to rely on Communist China for these critical minerals. Dozens of members of Congress urged the U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to expand and expedite the process by which companies can be excluded from complying with tariffs on Chinese goods. The reality is that companies have had four years to migrate their supply chains away from Communist China. Many would rather spend much less money lobbying members of Congress for these sort of carveouts. Since China is what it is, one has to assume that U.S. capital eventually finances slave labor, child labor, “reeducation” camps, the Peoples’ Liberation Army and cyberattacks on the United States itself.

In 2015, Mr. Obama visited Cuba and restored diplomatic relations with the Castroite regime. “I have come here to bury the last remnant of the Cold War in the Americas,” he triumphantly declared. Mr. Obama’s concessions were not reciprocated. On the contrary, the regime has continued imprisoning dissenters while strengthening its relations with China, Iran, Russia and Turkey. Iran has established cultural centers and mosques across Venezuela, recruiting and radicalizing locals. A more immediate concern: Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicles, capable of carrying precision armaments, have been positioned in Venezuela just over 1,200 miles from Miami. Iran’s influence ops through cultural centers thrive in virtually every Latin American country, from Mexico to Chile, regardless of the political leanings of local governments. China’s rulers also have developed strong ties with Nicaragua. President Daniel Ortega broke off relations with Taiwan. Panama, long closely tied to the U.S., dumped Taipei in favor of Beijing in 2017. The following year, El Salvador followed suit. China’s rulers have reportedly bribed officials in that country and are now moving forward to build a deep-water port and manufacturing zone from which U.S. companies will be excluded. Throughout Central and South American, Beijing is financing infrastructure projects through its Belt and Road Initiative - loading countries with debts they may be unable to repay. Chinese influence is everywhere in this hemisphere and moving forward in alarming ways. The goal appears to be both a substantial military presence and economic dominance within the next decade.

On May 12, 2022, North Korea’s state media announced that 350,000 people were affected by an “obscure febrile disease,” with follow-on media pronouncements that 1.2 million people were affected and 560,000 were in quarantine with 50 deaths, stating clearly that this was a major national emergency. The situation in North Korea must be dire, given these recent public statements from Mr. Kim and state media. It’s possible the April 25, 2022, military parade, contributed to spreading the coronavirus. The U.N. recently reported that 42% of the Korean people are undernourished due to food insecurity. That’s a concerning statistic, especially in a country with a weak health care system that’s currently experiencing food shortages due mainly to drought and biting sanctions. The challenge for Mr. Kim will be his ability to address the spread of the virus and starvation while, also, continuing to enhance his nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Given their close allied relationship, it’s logical to assume that Mr. Kim has reached out to China for medical assistance to address the spread of the coronavirus in North Korea. Indeed, the North is in dire need of COVID-19 vaccines and medical supplies, in addition to food aid ― rice, wheat, potatoes and soybeans. This comes at a difficult time for China where COVID-19 has reemerged and resulted in the lockdown in Shanghai and other cities, adversely affecting the economy in a profound way. Providing North Korea with the humanitarian assistance that reaches the people in need, in a country with a population of 25 million, is a moral imperative. The potential for instability in a nuclear North Korea must be of concern to all nations, but especially neighboring countries.