纽约时报：习近平，谢谢你！

By: BRET STEPHENS

2022年10月19日

尊敬的习主席：

在你作为中国共产党总书记的第三个任期开始之际，请接受我国的谢意和祝贺。虽然现在可能还不明显，但我们相信，你的统治总有一天会被视为美国以及其他自由国家历史上最大的意外之喜之一。

除了少数例外，这不是10年前你刚成为最高领导人时，人们普遍期待的情况。

那时，西方许多人认为，中国恢复其作为世界主导文明和最大经济体的古老地位只是一个时间问题。中国惊人的年增长率经常超过10%，使我们自己微不足道的经济进步黯然失色。在一个又一个行业——电信、银行、社交媒体、房地产，中国公司正在成为行业领导者。外国公民蜂拥而至，在上海、香港和北京生活、学习和工作；富裕的美国父母炫耀他们的孩子参加了沉浸式普通话班。

在决策层面，人们普遍接受这样的观点：一个更富有的中国将在海外具有更大的影响力——从西欧到南美，从中亚到东非，都会感受到这一点。虽然我们知道这种影响有时会很强硬，但却没有什么政治意愿来遏制它。中国似乎提供了一个独特的资本主义活力和威权主义效能相结合的模式。决策一旦做出，事情就可以完成。这与日益僵化的自由世界形成了鲜明的对比。

并不是说我们认为中国一切都很好。在你崛起的同时，你的主要竞争对手薄熙来在可能政变的谣言中戏剧性地倒台了。普遍的腐败、人口老龄化、国家在经济中的作用这些长期的挑战需要谨慎的管理。此外，迅速崛起的全球大国必然会引起国际社会的不满和抵制。

不过，你似乎可以胜任这项工作。你的家庭在文化大革命期间的痛苦经历表明，你了解极权主义的危险性。你打击腐败的决心似乎与你进一步开放经济的意愿相匹配——你任命有能力的技术官僚李克强为总理就证明了这一点。20世纪80年代，你曾在艾奥瓦州的一个家庭里生活，这令人们期望对你可能对美国怀有某种好感。

这些希望不仅仅是落空了，而是被粉碎了。如果说现在唐纳德·特朗普和乔·拜登——或汤姆·科顿和南希·佩洛西之间有一个共同点的话，那就是必须阻止你。

你是怎么做到的？

你的反腐战争变成了大规模清洗。你在新疆的镇压堪比苏联的古拉格。你的经济“改革”相当于让通常效率低下的国有企业重新成为主导者。

你们事实上的窥探、黑客攻击和窃取知识产权政策使华为等中国品牌在西方大部分地区让人敬而远之。2020年，联邦调查局局长克里斯托弗·雷在一次演讲中指出，“我们现在已经到了这样的地步：联邦调查局每10个小时就会立案调查一个与中国有关的新的反间谍案件。”

你的清零政策有时将中国的大都市变成了巨大的、无法居住的监狱聚集地。你在外交上的霸凌在很大程度上成功地鼓励了日本重整军备，并鼓励拜登承诺美国将为台湾而战。

所有这些都可能使你的中国变得令人生畏。但这一切都不能使你变得强大。独裁者通常可以要求服从，但他们很难激发出忠诚。正如政治学家约瑟夫·奈著名的观察，胁迫的力量与吸引的力量是不一样的。这是一个可能很快就会困扰你的常识——就像现在困扰普京一样，如今，他一度令人生畏的军队在乌克兰被大批摧毁。

你仍然可以改变方向。但这似乎不太可能，不只是因为老人很少改变。你树敌越多，你需要的压制就越多。像你现在这样，让唯唯诺诺的人围绕在你身边，可能会给你带来一种安全感。但它会切断你与重要的真实信息之间的交流，特别是当那些信息令人不快的时候。

对于像你手中这样的政权来说，最致命的弱点就是它为维持权力而告诉人民的谎言最终会变成它告诉自己的谎言。把外国记者赶出中国只会使问题变得更糟糕，因为你再也无法从外界的视角了解你眼前日益复杂的问题。

这一切都不能解决我们美国的问题。在很多方面，你的好斗加剧了这些问题，尤其是在我们两国有一天可能发生冲突的风险越来越大的情况下。但在自由世界和非自由世界之间的长期竞争中，你在不知不觉中帮助自由这一边辩护。借用我同事汤姆·弗里德曼的一句话，“谁会想成为你统治下的中国？就算只有一天。”我对此表示怀疑。所以我们想说声谢谢。我们知道我们的合众国是有缺陷的；我们知道我们的领导人是有缺陷的；我们知道我们社会的边缘有裂痕。但是仔细看你一眼，我们宁愿选择这一切，也不愿选择你那阴暗的方向。

Bret Stephens自2017年4月起担任《纽约时报》观点与评论版面的专栏作家。他于2013年在《华尔街日报》工作时获普利策评论奖，此前还曾担任《耶路撒冷邮报》主编。

Why Saudi Arabia and OPEC can diss Biden

 Washington is aflame in the aftermath of the Oct. 5 decision by the OPEC+ oil cartel to cut oil production for the foreseeable future. OPEC+ includes the 13 members of OPEC and 11 other nations, most notably Russia. Saudi Arabia is the biggest energy producer among the group, and its de facto leader. Russia is the second-biggest energy producer in the group.

Saudi Arabia seems to be doing Russia’s bidding by keeping oil markets tight, and pushing prices up. Oil exports are the Russian government’s biggest source of revenue, and a crucial source of financing for its diabolical war in Ukraine. Most of the Western world supports Ukraine, including tough sanctions meant to strangle Russia’s economy. President Biden has asked Saudi Arabia to pump more oil, to stabilize energy markets amid wartime disruptions. The Saudi rebuke is a win for Russian President Vladimir Putin and a political embarrassment for Biden just ahead of midterm elections. It also means consumers in all the countries supporting Ukraine will pay more for gasoline and other oil products during the coming months.

Biden has said there will be “consequences for what they’ve done with Russia,” without spelling out what those might be. But Saudi Arabia, like it or not, retains tons of leverage over the US and world energy markets, even as many nations move to curtail the use of fossil fuels and boost renewables.

“We are still going to be having to make asks of these countries when we need more oil,” Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy for RBC Capital Markets, said at an Oct. 12 Columbia University energy conference. “Who’s going to be sitting on spare capacity? It’s going to be a small number of Gulf producers and a handful of national oil companies that continue to invest on a really big scale. That means we’re going to have to continue to have dialogue with these countries.”

Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman walks during a meeting with Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in Saint Petersburg, Russia June 16, 2022. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

Saudi Arabia has been a US ally for decades, but outraged Washington heavyweights now feel spurned—and vindictive. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who chairs the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, wrote Biden an open letter calling the OPEC move “reckless” and demanding that the US ramp up its own energy production to counter OPEC. Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wants to “immediately freeze all aspects” of US-Saudi cooperation, including US arms sales to the kingdom. There’s growing support in Congress, among both parties, for “NOPEC” legislation that would give the US Department of Justice more tools for addressing OPEC price hikes.

Saudi Arabia, for its part, issued an unusual rebuttal on Oct. 13, saying the OPEC+ production cut was based on economics, not political support for Russia. Saudi Arabia also said the US-Saudi relationship “is a strategic one that serves the common good interest of both countries.” But the production cut stands.

The slow shift away from fossil fuels

Many Americans hear that the United States is the world’s largest oil and gas producer—which is true—and think there must be something wrong with government policy if we can’t keep domestic energy prices low. For the most part, however, the problem is not government policy. It’s the rapidly changing nature of world energy markets and the risks investors face if they make the wrong bet.

The world is shifting away from fossil fuels, toward renewables, and government policy may only affect how quickly that happens. Consumers are demanding this shift, as the ravages of climate change become more apparent. Innovative companies such as Tesla are giving consumers what they want and earning billions. Many businesses, sensing the next big thing, aim to follow. Government incentives, such as those in the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, will be a powerful force drawing private capital into renewables and speeding the pace of innovation.

Elon Musk attends the opening ceremony of the new Tesla Gigafactory for electric cars in Gruenheide, Germany, March 22, 2022. Patrick Pleul/Pool via REUTERS

Fossil fuels, meanwhile, are a still-profitable business, but one that seems destined to decline over the next 20 or 30 years. We will need oil and natural gas for a long time to come. But less and less of it. That makes a lousy case for big investments that could expand supply, such as new wells or refineries.

Americans tend to forget that the US energy industry is largely a private-sector business driven by the profit motive and capitalist dynamics. Energy firms have shareholders and investors and contractual obligations, which means they have to deploy capital where it gets the highest returns. They don't produce extra energy just because consumers or politicians demand it. One of the biggest concerns at fossil-fuel companies now is the risk of “stranded assets”—big projects that could rapidly lose value as the market for fossil fuels dries up. In that type of environment, nobody wants to invest in assets that could become obsolete before they’ve generated a return.

The advantage of state-run companies

This is where the OPEC+ nations have an advantage. Those nations typically have nationalized oil companies that are basically run by the government. The biggest is Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia, followed by Rosneft in Russia. Other big producers include the national oil companies of Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Qatar, the UAE, Brazil and Mexico. China doesn’t export much oil, but it has two giant state-run companies in the oil and natural gas business.

State-run energy companies don’t have to worry about shareholder returns, and sometimes they don't even need to worry about profits. They operate, instead, as levers of government policy, and can make investments to expand capacity if that aligns with government goals. In many cases, it does. Saudi Arabia is diversifying its economy beyond energy, yet Saudi Aramco said earlier this year it will boost capital expenditures by up to $50 billion this year, and by similar amounts until 2025 or 2026. That could make Saudi Arabia an even more important “swing producer” able to dial output up or down as the government wishes.

In the United States, high prices are swelling profits at energy firms, just as at Aramco. But oil companies are cautious about making investments, and US production is creeping up only gradually. Nobody in the oil and gas industry wants another boom-bust cycle driven by excess supply that ultimately tanks prices. There’s more excitement about cashing in on booming demand for renewables.

There are ways Biden could impose some pain on Saudi Arabia. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut wants Biden to move US Patriot air-defense missiles that are currently in Saudi Arabia to Ukraine or to NATO allies in Europe, and to redirect a forthcoming sale of air-to-air missiles from Saudi Arabia to Ukraine, as well. The Saudis face a militant foe across the Persian Gulf—Iran—and could feel vulnerable without US weaponry. Of course, the Saudis could also retaliate by cutting oil supplies even more.

Manchin, in his letter to Biden, listed a series of things Biden could do, some involving Congressional legislation, to encourage more US oil and natural gas production: fast-track permitting for pipelines and other types of infrastructure, speed oil and gas leasing, fully staff all the federal agencies with energy oversight. Even if he did all that however, it wouldn’t change much about the financial risk of investing in a declining industry.

What might really ease US reliance on non-democratic nations such as Saudi Arabia is a sharp cutback in fossil fuel use. That’s coming, as more people drive electric cars and install solar roofs, and efficiency measures get better. But the transition to renewables will take a long time and face many barriers, such as the difficulty building high-voltage transmission lines able to quickly move power around the country. For years to come, we will still need energy from producers we don’t like who face fewer constraints that we do here at home.

Explainer-What is 'FDPR' and why is the U.S. using it to cripple China's tech sector?

 OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - They did it to Huawei. They used it on Russia. Now, the United States is going after China's advanced computing and supercomputer industry.

The weapon? A little-known rule that enables U.S. regulators to extend their technology export control powers far beyond America's borders to transactions between foreign countries and China.

The provision called the foreign direct product rule, or FDPR, was first introduced in 1959 to control trading of U.S. technologies. It essentially says that if a product was made using American technology, the U.S. government has the power to stop it from being sold - including products made in a foreign country.

On Friday, U.S. officials applied the rule to China's advanced computing and supercomputer industry to stop it from obtaining advanced computing chips.

The rule took center stage in August 2020, when it was used against China telecom company Huawei Technologies Co Ltd. American officials had tried to cut off Huawei's supply of semiconductors but found that companies were still shipping to Huawei chips made in factories outside the United States.

Eventually, U.S. regulators found a choke point: Almost all chip factories contain critical tools from U.S. suppliers. So they expanded the FDPR to control trade of chips made using U.S. technology or tools. That move was a blow to Huawei's smart phone business, and U.S. regulators used it on Russia and Belarus after the invasion of Ukraine to cut off chips.

Dan Fisher-Owens, a specialist in export controls on chips at law firm Berliner Corcoran & Rowe, said the expansion in FDPR closed a gap in U.S. export control jurisdiction.

However, he said the United States has been cautious about using the rule as it can drag foreign companies into the process and "create friction" with allies who may disagree with the application of U.S. law.

Senior U.S. officials said on Friday the new application will stop advanced chip use in Chinese supercomputers, which can be used to develop nuclear weapons and other military applications.

The United States had already placed a number of Chinese supercomputing companies on a restricted entity list, cutting them off from buying U.S. chips. But those companies started to design their own chips and seek to have them manufactured - a strategy that the U.S. action on Friday were designed to thwart.

The latest move would ban any semiconductor manufacturing firm that uses American tools - which most do - from selling advanced chips to China, said Karl Freund, a chip consultant at Cambrian AI who watches the supercomputing space.

"They will have to develop their own manufacturing technologies, and they'll have to develop their own processor technologies to replace the missing U.S. or Western technologies that they're using today," said Freund, a chip consultant at Cambrian AI who watches the supercomputing space.

In that case, it could take China five to 10 years to catch up to today's technology, he added.

(Reporting by Jane Lanhee Lee in Oakland, California; Editing by Peter Henderson and Richard Chang)

Success denied: Finding ground truth in the air war over Ukraine

Maximillian K. Bremer, Kelly A. Grieco

Ukraine’s recent two-front counteroffensive has dealt a heavy blow to the Russian military. Contrary to Western military orthodoxy, air superiority was not a prerequisite for battlefield success. Ukrainian forces advanced rapidly despite the absence of aerial cover and fire support from high-end fighter jets and bombers—two mainstays of the American way of war. Some observers may conclude – all too hastily – that the air domain and airpower is less relevant to future wars, or that Russian ineptitude renders lessons about airpower’s role unhelpful.

This is a dangerous misreading of events.

Far from irrelevant, control of the air domain was the battle’s center of gravity. By adopting an air denial strategy, that is, maintaining an air defense in being to keep Russia’s manned aircraft at bay and under threat, Kyiv thwarted Russia’s ability to not only to ascertain the disposition of Ukrainian forces but also to respond rapidly to events once it became obvious where the counterattacks were taking place. Quite simply, air denial – not the traditional concept of air superiority – was a prerequisite for Ukraine’s battlefield success.

For months, Kyiv telegraphed its plans to launch a counteroffensive in the southern Kherson region. But Ukrainian forces had a surprise in store for the Russians: they not only counterattacked in the south, as expected, but they also pushed north in the Kharkiv region. This second – surprise – counteroffensive caught the Russians off guard: they had redeployed many units in anticipation of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kherson and left their defenses in the northeast too thin. As Russian forces fled, Ukraine liberated more territory in a few days than the adversary had captured over the last five months.

How did Ukraine manage to catch the Russians unawares? Ukraine’s strategy of air denial enabled its counteroffensive in two key ways:

First, it facilitated Ukraine’s use of military deception to pin down Russian forces in the south. Without air superiority, Russia could not freely operate its manned intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft over the battlefield, which limited its ability to track Ukrainian movements. The alternatives, employing unmanned aircraft (drones) and space-based assets in ISR roles, were not effective. Though less costly than manned aircraft, ISR drones’ high attrition from both being shot down and electronic jamming meant they were needed in mass. Russia, however lacked sufficient numbers of ISR drones, particularly the Orlan-10 which took heavy losses early in the war, and have become problematic to replace due to Western sanctions.

Russia’s only other “eyes in the sky” are its space-based capabilities. But Russian satellites lacked the coverage and resolution required to detect a coming counteroffensive. Pavel Luzin, a Russian military expert, admits as much, explaining: “Our two optical reconnaissance satellites yield such [low] resolution [images] they can only map flight missions [for launching] missiles.” These satellites, he added, “pass the same point only once every 16 days. There’s no possibility to quickly receive data.” Far from limiting Ukraine’s military effectiveness, a strategy of air denial made operational deception possible by effectively blinding the Russians.

Second, Ukraine’s air denial strategy prevented Russia from responding rapidly to halt the Ukrainian advance even once it recognized a second counterattack was underway in the Kharkiv region. The comparative advantage of airpower is the ability of aircraft and other airborne systems to bypass terrain that would otherwise impede the movements of ground forces for the rapid maneuver of firepower over significant distances. This combination of lethality and responsiveness makes airpower particularly effective against mechanized ground forces operating offensively. Whereas a defender in position is harder to detect from the air, an attacker on the move generates noise, heat, and electronic signals that makes it easier to find and attack. Ukrainian tanks and military vehicles rumbling down highways and across open fields in broad daylight should have made easy work for the Russian air force. But Ukraine’s air denial strategy made Russian pilots wary of flying into Ukrainian airspace at all, much less loitering and hunting for targets on their own.

Instead, Russian warplanes reportedly only attack targets with known coordinates, as called in by Russian ground forces. But Russia’s shortage of reliable tactical reconnaissance drones means many of its ground units cannot see what is over the next hill, further degrading reconnaissance-strike capabilities. In sum, Ukraine’s air denial strategy in combination with insufficient quantities of attritable Russian drones were critical enablers of Ukraine’s counteroffensive success.

Airpower’s contribution to victory was perhaps more subtle and indirect but no less vital than the role it played in recent U.S.-waged wars. To be sure, Ukraine’s strategy of air denial resulted more from military necessity than deliberate stratagem, given the relatively small size of the Ukrainian air force. But the key point is that Ukraine’s success stemmed from more than merely capitalizing on Russian failure.

Russia’s suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) campaign failed, but Ukraine’s employment of vertical depth, layering the effects of air defenses, electromagnetic jamming, drones, and missiles in increasing degrees of strength together with the advantages of dispersion and mobility suggest the defender now has the advantage. Put simply, the widespread diffusion of advanced technologies indicates the SEAD mission is harder than many Western air forces and defense analysts fully appreciate. It may be possible to suppress the adversary’s air defenses for a while or in a small area, but not to the point of making the airspace operationally useful as in the past. To maintain combat credibility, modern air forces – built around smaller numbers of expensive and exquisite systems operated by highly skilled crews – need to avoid attrition risk. But procuring large numbers of these high-end systems is a losing game against cheaper and more sustainable networked air denial technologies. Today, and for the foreseeable future, it is exceedingly difficult, nigh impossible, to deny a strategy of air denial.

Two significant policy implications follow from this recognition. First, Ukraine ought to avoid an attempt to gain air superiority outright against Russia. The United States has sent Ukraine high-speed anti-radiation missiles (HARMs), fitted for MiG -29 fighters, to allow the Ukrainian air force to hunt Russian air defense radars in Ukraine. In addition, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl has said the transfer of fourth-generation Western fighter jets to Ukraine is not “inconceivable.” These capabilities raise the prospect of Ukraine shifting operational objectives from air denial to the achievement of air superiority outright. Such a change misses the real lesson of the air war – the success of Ukraine’s air denial strategy stems not from Russian shortcomings but a more fundamental and systemic shift from offense to defense dominance. Any attempt by Ukraine to achieve air superiority would thus likely fail for the same reasons that Russia’s did.

Second, the United States Air Force ought to pay attention. Instead of insisting on expensive and exquisite capabilities – such as next-generation fighter jets and stealth bombers to conduct deep strikes and pulsed operations – it ought to move more rapidly toward unmanned and autonomous systems and swarming tactics with thousands of small and cheap drones. Otherwise, the Air Force runs the serious risk of repeating Russia’s mistakes by holding tight to a force structure centered predominately on manned aircraft, creating a situation where the force is too costly to risk and too small to sustain losses during a prolonged war of attrition.

Future attempts to overcome defense dominance are likely to falter, because air denial favors defense. Ukraine’s recent battlefield success is no exception to this rule. Russia is on strategic offense, and the Ukrainian counteroffensive is precisely that – a response to Russian aggression.

Critically, air denial enabled Ukraine to survive and regroup. Ukraine traded time for space to grind down the Russian offensive, weakening Russia’s attacking forces and rendering them vulnerable to counterattack. As Clausewitz wrote, “the defensive form of war is not a simple shield, but a shield made up a well-directed blows.”

Similarly, a strategy of air denial aligns well with U.S. strategic objectives. The United States is on the strategic defensive in both Europe and the Indo-Pacific, and it seeks to preserve the territorial status quo. If the Air Force moves away from the few and exquisite high-end fighters and bombers it continues to favor, and invests instead in low-end, attritable capabilities, it will make it next to impossible for future adversaries to succeed on offense. But if it clings to an offense-first, air superiority mission, it may share the fate of Russia’s air force: surprised, unprepared, and largely sidelined from the fight.

U.S. Air Force Col. Maximillian K. Bremer is the director of the Special Programs Division at Air Mobility Command. The opinions in this commentary do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Defense Department or the U.S. Air Force.

Kelly A. Grieco is a senior fellow with the Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center and an adjunct associate professor of security studies at Georgetown University.

Biden leaves no doubt: ‘Strategic ambiguity’ toward Taiwan is dead

 President Joe Biden has further stoked U.S.-China tensions by unambiguously pledging a U.S. military response if China tries to invade Taiwan.

The U.S. military would defend Taiwan “if in fact there was an unprecedented attack” on the self-governing island, Biden said in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS’ “60 Minutes.”

Biden didn’t define what an “unprecedented” attack on Taiwan would look like, but his comments marked the fourth time since August 2021 that he has stated that the U.S. would militarily defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion attempt. And in every case, aides have walked back comments that appear to reverse the longtime policy of “strategic ambiguity” regarding U.S. willingness to defend Taiwan.

Biden’s assertion reflects his administration’s recognition that the U.S. must apply a more robust deterrence to Beijing given its worsening military intimidation of Taiwan. That harassment is rooted in China’s concerns that the island is on an irreversible course toward independence.

“I think we can all be pretty certain at this point that it was not a gaffe — four times in a row … [means] what’s happening is there are people in the administration who think that by demonstrating a greater willingness to defend Taiwan, that'll help reestablish deterrence,” said Oriana Skylar Mastro, center fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Biden’s pledge of U.S. military defense of Taiwan breaks new ground in his administration’s willingness to take a more uncompromising approach to the possibility of Chinese aggression. And it reflects deepening concerns about Beijing’s intentions following the live-fire military drills it launched around the island after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s contentious Taiwan visit last month, as well as ongoing violations by Chinese military aircraft of the median line between Taiwan and China.

“No previous president has chosen to prejudge the decision that he will take in the event of a hypothetical Chinese military action,” Daniel Russel, former assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs and vice president for international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told POLITICO. “[It] doesn't really have the hallmark of an off-the-cuff remark — this was a sit-down interview in which it seemed the White House would have understood that this topic would be certainly fair game and one would have expected to prepare the president for the answer that he wanted to give.”

Face-off over Taiwan

Biden’s remarks sparked cheers in Taipei.

“[Taiwan] extends its sincere appreciation to President Biden for once again emphasizing the staunch and rock-solid US security commitment to Taiwan,” the island’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

But his comments infuriated Beijing.

“The U.S. remarks … severely violate the commitment the U.S. made not to support Taiwan independence,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Monday.

The Chinese Communist Party considers “reunification with Taiwan,” a territory that the CCP has never ruled a “historical task.” It’s also key to Xi Jinping’s credibility as he seeks a third term as China’s leader next month. Liu Jieyi, director of the Chinese government’s Taiwan Affairs Office, in July described “national reunification” — Beijing’s shorthand for a Taiwan takeover — as an “inevitable requirement” of Xi’s hawkish “national rejuvenation” policy.

“We will not renounce the use of force, and we reserve the option of taking all necessary measures,” said a Chinese government white paper on Taiwan published last month.

The U.S. relationship with Taiwan is spelled out in the U.S.-China Three Communiqués, the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act and the 1982 Six Assurances. The TRA commits the U.S. “to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan.” None of those documents specifically obligate the U.S. to military intervention to protect Taiwan in the face of a Chinese invasion. But the TRA suggests an active U.S. role in maintaining the island’s status quo.

Some Republican lawmakers welcomed Biden’s comments.

“I’m glad the president has once again taken a clear position on Taiwan’s defense. … I hope this is the end of flip flopping on U.S. security interests for Taiwan,” Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the lead Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement.   

No surprises in Beijing

White House officials rushed to defuse Beijing’s anger by insisting that Biden’s remarks were in line with U.S. commitment in the Three Communiqués.

“The president's remarks speak for themselves, [and] I do think our policy has been consistent and is unchanged and will continue,” Kurt Campbell, the U.S. National Security Council’s Indo-Pacific coordinator, said on Monday at a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace event.

That response reflects an effort by the administration to warn Beijing of the potential consequences of an attack on Taiwan while insisting that the U.S. remains committed to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.

“Call it a two-pronged approach in terms of the administration statements and the President's speech on this … to increase the deterrent effect on China and enable us to keep tensions at a somewhat reduced level,” Ret. Vice Adm. Robert Murrett, professor of practice at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School for professional public policy, said in an interview.

Biden’s comments will come as no surprise to the People’s Liberation Army, whose planning for possible military action against Taiwan has long factored in the likelihood of U.S. military intervention.

“The PRC is pretty well convinced that we would come to Taiwan’s aid and I think they're planning on the assumption … so I'm not sure how much [Biden’s statement] adds to deterrence,” Aaron Friedberg, former deputy assistant for national security affairs in the Office of the Vice President and professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, told POLITICO.

Bluster and danger

Biden’s comments have prompted calls from some China experts for the administration to rethink existing U.S. government commitments to China regarding Taiwan’s status due to Beijing’s worsening bellicosity toward the island.

“So far, everything Xi has done since 2012 is to make it even less desirable for Taiwan to be part of his grand ‘rejuvenation’ experiment,” David R. Stilwell, former assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said in an interview. “The question is, why do we continue to insist on this one China policy? Why don't we update it?”

Beijing has long warned that any attempt by the U.S. to try to alter the status quo across the Taiwan Strait would reap a fierce response.

“The Taiwan question is the most important and most sensitive issue at the very heart of China-U.S. relations,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement last month. The ministry has warned that any U.S. moves to change its relationship with Taiwan are “like playing with fire, are extremely dangerous.”

That may be more than bluster.

“Each action on the part of the U.S. or on the part of the president of the United States that seems to reaffirm the worst-case scenario in Beijing's eyes strengthens their hostility, their paranoia, their anger [and] reinforces their most extreme right-wing elements,” Russel said. “It works against the prospect of any kind of reconciliation or of cooperation between us, and accelerates the downward spiral of strategic rivalry.”

The Biden administration’s challenge is to balance its desire to deter a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan with a clear understanding of its willingness to sacrifice blood and treasure to keep the island out of Beijing’s clutches.

“Most people assume the U.S. will do something to defend Taiwan. The big question is, what are the costs we're really willing to pay?” Stanford’s Skylar Mastro said. “Are we going to stick it out after 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 casualties? There’s nothing about Biden’s statement that adds any clarity to the Chinese on that issue.”

Debunking the idea viruses always evolve to become less virulent

 As evidence mounts that the omicron variant is less deadly than prior COVID-19 strains, one oft-cited explanation is that viruses always evolve to become less virulent over time.

The problem, experts say, is that this theory has been soundly debunked.

The idea that infections tend to become less lethal over time was first proposed by notable bacteriologist Dr. Theobald Smith in the late 1800s. His theory about pathogen evolution was later dubbed the "law of declining virulence."

Simple and elegant, Smith's theory was that to ensure their own survival, pathogens evolve to stop killing their human hosts. Instead, they create only a mild infection, allowing people to walk around, spreading the virus further afield. Good for the virus, and, arguably, good for us.

But over the past 100 years, virologists have learned that virus evolution is more chaotic. Virus evolution is a game of chance, and less about grand design.

In some cases, viruses evolve to become more virulent.

Continued virus survival, spread and virulence are all about the evolutionary pressures of multiple factors, including the number of people available to infect, how long humans live after infection, the immune system response and time between infection and symptom onset.

Unfortunately, that means it's nearly impossible to predict the future of the pandemic, because viruses don't always evolve in a predictable pattern.

There have been thousands of identified COVID variants, each with unique mutations. But most new variants emerge and then quickly die out, unable to compete with the reigning dominant variant.

Some variants, however, have clear "advantages to continued survival, such as those that evade the immune system and spread easily," said Dr. Abir Hussein, associate medical director for infection presentation and control at University of Washington Medical Center.

Experts warn that it is important to assess the severity of omicron in the context of existing immunity through vaccines and prior infections.

"It is difficult to determine with new variants like delta and omicron if variants are evolving to be more or less virulent. This is because these variants emerged at a time when we had a good deal of immunity to SARS-CoV-2 in certain countries," said Andrew Pekosz, a professor of microbiology at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

People who are vaccinated or recently infected will have milder symptoms if they experience a breakthrough infection or a reinfection, studies show.

"This is not because the variant is less virulent, but because your immune system was primed from prior vaccination and infection," said Pekosz.

Experts say omicron should not be taken lightly or thought of as a less lethal form of COVID. Even if less deadly, the omicron variant is also significantly more transmissible, leading to more deaths overall.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predict that 22,000 more people could die of COVID-19 over the next two weeks.

People who are unvaccinated remain significantly more at-risk, with officials estimating they are 17 times more likely to be hospitalized and 20 times more likely to die of COVID-19 compared to people who are vaccinated.

"The available COVID vaccines provide immunity for a range of variants and continue to be the first line of defense," said Dr. John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children's Hospital and an ABC News contributor.

As for the future of the pandemic, experts say new variants may emerge in the future, but they won't be easy to predict.

Jess Dawson, M.D., a masters of public health candidate at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.

EXPLAINER: Why is China so angry over UN report on Xinjiang?

 BEIJING (AP) — China has responded furiously to a United Nations report on alleged human rights abuses in its northwestern Xinjiang region targeting Uyghurs and other mainly Muslim ethnic minorities.

The report has been in the works for years and was released despite Chinese efforts to delay or block it, aware of how it could validate claims that more than 1 million ethnic minority members were forcibly sent to centers it says were for vocational training.

Those who were held, their relatives and monitoring groups describe them as prison-like reeducation centers where inmates were forced to denounce Islam and their traditional culture, while swearing fidelity to the ruling Communist Party.

The camps have been part of a widespread campaign of repression in Xinjiang, allegedly including involuntary sterilizations of women, forced labor, the demolition of mosques and other religious sites, the separation of Muslim children from their families and the harassment of minority members living abroad.

WHERE IS XINJIANG AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO CHINA?

Xinjiang is a vast but sparsely populated region of mountains, forests and deserts in far northwestern China that borders Russia, Pakistan and several Central Asian nations. The ancient Silk Road ran through parts of it and various nationalities and Chinese empires controlled its cities and oases over the centuries, with the Communist Party taking complete control following its 1949 victory in the Chinese civil war.

The region contains a wealth of natural resources, including oil, gas and rare earth minerals, but perhaps its most important value is as a strategic buffer that extends China's influence westward. While China and Russia have largely aligned their foreign policies in recent years, Xinjiang was on the front line of their Cold War rivalry and remains important as an assertion of Chinese influence in Moscow's back yard.

WHAT PROMPTED CHINA'S CRACKDOWN ON MINORITIES?

Xinjiang's Uyghurs, along with the closely related Kazakh and Kyrgyz, are predominantly Turkic Muslims who are culturally, religiously and linguistically distinct from China's dominant Han ethnic group. Repression under Communist rule, particularly during the violent and xenophobic 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, stirred deep animosity in Xinjiang toward the government, aggravated further by the migration of Han to the region and their domination of political and economic life.

Uyghurs established two short-lived independent governments in Xinjiang prior to the Communist Party's seizure of power, and the desire for self-rule endured and was nurtured by resentment against heavy-handed Chinese rule. A protest movement began in the 1990s and remained at a relatively low level until simmering anger exploded in a 2009 riot in the regional capital of Urumqi that left an estimated 200 people dead. More violence followed within Xinjiang and as far away as Beijing, prompting Chinese leader Xi Jinping to order a massive crackdown starting in 2014.

WHAT IS THE BASIS FOR THE UN ACCUSATIONS?

With Xi's blessing, Xinjiang's hard-line leader, Chen Quanguo, who took office in 2016, began sending Uyghurs and others into a vast network of fortified camps without legal due process. It remains unclear what criteria were used to determine if a person needed to be sent for what the authorities called retraining or de-radicalization, but those who showed religious tendencies, the well-educated and anyone with foreign connections were especially susceptible.

Conditions in the camps have been described as overcrowded and unhygienic, with those inside forced to renounce their religion and culture and praise Xi and the Communist Party. Harsh punishments were meted out for those who refused to comply and the length of sentences were indeterminate. While China says it has closed the camps, many of those held have since received lengthy prison terms within a system that remains overwhelmingly opaque. The U.S. and others have labeled China's policies against Xinjiang minorities as “genocide."

WHAT HAS BEEN CHINA'S RESPONSE?

China has always denied targeting Uyghurs and others for their religion and culture, denouncing the accusations as a confection of lies by the West and saying its crackdown was aimed at quashing separatism, terrorism and religious extremism. It has said camp attendance was voluntary and no human rights were abused, although internal Chinese documents have frequently contradicted such claims.

Beijing has also cited carefully choreographed visits by journalists, diplomats and, most recently, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, as validating its claims. Some observers say the tide of criticism may have prompted Beijing to wind down the detentions earlier than planned to salvage its reputation among Muslim nations and in the developing world.

In a note accompanying the U.N. report, China’s diplomatic mission in Geneva registered its strong opposition to the findings, which it said ignore human rights achievements in Xinjiang and the damage caused by terrorism and extremism to the population.

“Based on the disinformation and lies fabricated by anti-China forces and out of presumption of guilt, the so-called ‘assessment’ distorts China’s laws, wantonly smears and slanders China, and interferes in China’s internal affairs,” the note said in part.

WHAT WILL BE THE OUTCOME FOR CHINA?

China's authoritarian leaders have outwardly defied criticism of their policies in Xinjiang, but have been unsuccessful in thwarting international sanctions on officials who were involved and bans on cotton and other commodities from the region. The report's release comes despite China's growing influence within the U.N. and its pressure campaign against critics in the human rights community.

China has maintained its defiance and appears to believe its policies have been effective and should continue, despite any costs to its international reputation. On Thursday, its Foreign Ministry scoffed at the U.N. report, saying it was “orchestrated and produced by the U.S. and some Western forces and is completely illegal and void."

“It is a patchwork of false information that serves as political tool for the U.S. and other Western countries to strategically use Xinjiang to contain China," ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said.