While We Confront Iran, We Can’t Take Our Eye Off China

I’ve said it for years: The Chinese Communist Party is the defining threat of our time. Not Iran. Not Russia. The CCP. That hasn’t changed. If anything, this moment makes it more urgent.

The President is doing the right thing in the Middle East. Taking the fight directly to Tehran and its proxies is long overdue, and he deserves credit for it. Maximum pressure works. I know because we used it. When you squeeze the Iranian regime, you’re not just stabilizing a volatile region – you’re also cutting off Beijing’s most reliable source of cheap energy and regional chaos. Iran is China’s gas station and its cat’s-paw. A weakened Tehran is a less useful Tehran for Xi Jinping.

But let’s be honest about what the CCP does when America’s attention is elsewhere. They move.

Look at what’s happening right now in the East China Sea. Beijing has quietly reserved an enormous block of offshore airspace – larger than Taiwan itself – for a 40-day period. These NOTAMs run from the Yellow Sea down toward Japan, locking out traffic from the surface to unlimited altitude. Forty days. No explanation. No propaganda. Just silence.

That silence is the tell.

This is not a training exercise. Routine exercises last a few days and come with plenty of chest-thumping from the Global Times. This is a sustained operational posture – the kind you maintain when you’re practicing real-world contingencies. Blockade tactics. Airspace control. The precise maneuvers you’d need if you were serious about Taiwan or wanted to test our commitments to Japan.

The timing is deliberate. Beijing watched the United States and Israel take the fight to Iran and made a calculation: Now is the time to push. They’re not subtle about it – they just count on us being too distracted to notice. They’ve been doing this for 30 years.

I’m glad the President is set to meet with Xi in May. Diplomacy has a role. But Xi Jinping only respects one thing, and it isn’t goodwill. He respects power – military power, economic power, and the credible willingness to use both. Every meeting with the CCP that isn’t backed by demonstrated strength is a meeting they’ll use against us.

Our friends in Taipei, Tokyo, and Seoul are watching closely. They see the congressional delegations. They see the arms approvals. They’re encouraged. But they also see those 40-day shadows being cast across their flight paths, and they want to know if we see them too.

We do. Or we should.

America is not a one-front country. We can – and must – do two things at once. Support the President’s campaign against Iran. And make absolutely clear to Beijing that no one is sleeping in the Pacific. Keep our naval and air assets at full readiness. Fast-track Taiwan’s defenses. Back Japan’s military buildup without apology.

The CCP is betting we’re too stretched, too distracted, or too timid to hold the line. They’ve made that bet before and been wrong. Let’s make sure they’re wrong again.

The 40-day airspace closure is a warning. Beijing is moving. We need to move faster.