WE IGNORE BAD MEN TO OUR DETRIMENT
WASHINGTON — Much of the world was shocked that Russian President Vladimir Putin actually went through with his threat to invade Ukraine — but not everyone. “I knew he would go in in July last year, when I read that manifesto for the subjugation of Ukraine and when I learned that he ordered all Russian soldiers to read it,” former Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski told me last week. “He was telling us very clearly what he intends to do. We just thought it was too nuts, and he can’t mean it.”
There’s a lesson here: We need to take the words of our enemies seriously. Putin was clear about his intentions in Ukraine — but we didn’t listen. Chinese dictator Xi Jinping has been just as clear about his intentions in Taiwan. We need to listen this time.
Putin’s 6,885-word manifesto is available for anyone to read on the Kremlin website.
Putin is not the first murderous tyrant to warn us of his intentions, only to be ignored by the world. In 1996, Osama bin Laden issued a fatwa laying out his grievances against the West, and calling on Muslims to wage “jihad against the enemies of God, your enemies the Israelis and Americans.” We ignored his warnings, and five years later, he launched the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Then, in speeches and videos after 9/11, bin Laden made clear his intentions for what would come next — laying out his plans to drive the “Crusaders” from all current and former Muslim lands, and establish a radical Islamic caliphate stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
President George W. Bush understood that we needed to listen to our enemies. In 2006, Bush asked me to compile bin Laden’s statements into a speech he described as “the enemy in their own words.” In it, Bush said, “I know some of our country hear the terrorists’ words, and hope that they will not, or cannot, do what they say,” but “history teaches that underestimating the words of evil and ambitious men is a terrible mistake.”
Now we need to pay attention to what Xi says. The Chinese leader has laid out his intention to reunify Taiwan with the Chinese motherland just as clearly as Putin laid out his intention to reunify Ukraine with mother Russia.
In a 2019 speech, Xi declared of Taiwan that “we should not allow this problem to be passed down from one generation to the next,” adding that while he sought peaceful reunification, “we make no promise to renounce the use of force and reserve the option of taking all necessary means” to forcibly reunify Taiwan. Last July (the same month Putin issued his Ukraine manifesto), Xi declared that “resolving the Taiwan question and realizing China’s complete reunification is a historic mission and an unshakable commitment of the Communist Party of China,” and he promised to “take resolute action to utterly defeat any attempt toward ‘Taiwan independence.’” And last October, Xi warned that “those who forget their heritage, betray their motherland and seek to split the country will come to no good end,” adding that “the complete reunification of our country will be and can be realized.”
Some hear Xi’s words and hope that he will not, or cannot, do what he says. But the Russian invasion of Ukraine has reminded us that underestimating the words of evil and ambitious men is a terrible mistake. The question is: Will we listen this time? Or will we ignore Xi’s words — just as we ignored Hitler, bin Laden and Putin before him — and pay a terrible price once again?