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Japan’s Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, is being savaged by China for her common-sense statement that Taiwan is immensely important to Japan.

She’s right. It would pose a grave danger if China took Taiwan and sat astride the shipping lanes through which much of Japan’s energy and trade flow.

And People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces operating from Taiwan would have free access to the Pacific. Swing north and the PLA surrounds Japan. Move south and it isolates the Philippines and Australia.

And there’s a political angle too. A Taiwan under Chinese Communist control demonstrates that U.S. military and economic power — and even American nuclear weapons — could not keep 23 million Taiwanese free.

The United States will be finished in the Asia-Pacific region — its reputation ruined. Asia will turn ‘pink’ overnight as nations cut the best deals they can with Beijing. (RELATED: US-ROK Alliance: Washington Sees Only What It Wants To See)

Japan will resist, but its alliance with the U.S. would at least be severely weakened. Tokyo would be hard pressed to fend off increasing Chinese pressure.

South Korea Highly Vulnerable

South Korea will be in worse shape than Japan — not least owing to geography. It has no direct outlet to the Pacific and is effectively boxed in by China and North Korea.

South Korea is even more vulnerable to Beijing choking off trade and energy routes as well as direct trade with China. Korean industry also depends on semiconductors from Taiwan.

Chinese and........

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