There are few things that serve to focus the mind as sharply as a looming existential threat, and minds in Taiwan are focusing rather sharply these days.

Alexander Tah-ray Yui, Taiwan’s ambassador to the U.S. (of course we can’t call him that), made a quick, quiet trip to Denver a fortnight ago, during which he spoke to the Denver Council on Foreign Relations delineating the threat his nation faces and — at least as importantly — why Americans ought to care.

Much of what Ambassador Yui relayed was not entirely new to long-time Taiwan Strait observers, but there were a few surprising nuggets sprinkled in, and the details were delivered as artfully as one would expect from as skilled and seasoned a diplomat as Ambassador Yui, whose knowledge of his country, his adversary, and his audience proved both deep and equal.

He began with the most basic and necessary question: What does China want? (For clarity, when referring to “China” I mean the People’s Republic — “Red China” — not the free Republic of China that remains Taiwan’s official name. Ignoring nuance has been known to start wars…) It is important to remember, and Ambassador Yi reminds us, China’s goals have not changed in the nearly 80 years since the Chinese Communists won the Civil War. The first is the ultimate victory of communism over capitalism. We have been lulled into something of a sense of complacency, or perhaps false hope, Red China has long given up the “red” part, and is communist in name only, the word bearing no greater meaning than “democratic” does in the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” (that’s the North one). But though that insidious ideology may adapt and camouflage itself from time to time, it is a mistake to dismiss the grasp it holds over whichever society it parasitically invades. And under the current regime in Beijing, there has been a fair amount of returning to the fold.

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Attendant to the ideological imperative, China has two other concomitant goals: increasing regional domination (anyone who has taken even a parochial interest in what China has been up to for the last couple decades cannot help but notice the scale of Chinese external ambition), and the “absorption” of Taiwan. The one other thing, aside from ideological fealty, that has never changed in Communist China since their nationalist foes retreated to Taiwan in 1949 has been their stubborn, unyielding insistence Taiwan is theirs, a ludicrous position the CCP continues to cling to with near delusional madness. Whether this is out of ideological compulsion, a perceived strategic necessity, or simply a severe case of wounded pride, it is dogmatically ingrained within the DNA of China’s ruling party.

OK, so it’s pretty clear what China wants; how are they pursing these objectives? Ambassador Yui lined out what he termed as China’s “Grey Zone Tactics” — again, nothing particularly new, but it is helpful to have it catalogued in one space.

China’s short-of-total-war aggressions can be filed under five headings: 1) economic coercion, including against countries that dare to trade with Taiwan; 2) increasing frequency and assertiveness of military drills around Taiwan; 3) diplomatic efforts, again, mostly directed at nations that have the audacity to formally recognize Taiwan; 4) Cyber-attacks, which are becoming a nearly constant fact of life; and 5) an also-constant flood of disinformation into Taiwan, which Ambassador Yui brilliantly termed “digital amphetamine”, aimed at undermining Taiwan’s democracy and unity of purpose. Each of these could bear an entire column on their own, but the picture of a coordinated, increasingly aggressive campaign of pressure against Taiwan is rather unambiguous.

The primary question Ambassador Yui sought to address, of course, is why should America care? It is one thing to be cognizant of the scale and scope of the threat posed to a prosperous little democracy on the other side of the world, quite another to ask American Marines, sailors and pilots be sent out on American aircraft carriers to risk their lives trying to stop it.

Here, the economic numbers speak loudly. We all know, but it bears repeating, 90% of all advanced chips in the world come from Taiwan, as do 90% of the AI servers. Taiwan is the United States’ seventh-largest trading partner, and U.S. service exports to Taiwan came to $11.9 billion in 2023, an increase of 20% over previous years. Taiwanese trade was responsible for creating some 360,000 American jobs that year, 2,321 in Colorado. More than a fifth of the world’s trade goes through the Taiwan Strait.

But it is about more than just the numbers, impressive and important as those are. Ambassador Yui made the imperative point in his speech; what is happening to Taiwan today is a reflection of what could happen to the United States tomorrow. We are already getting a taste of what China is willing to do, in terms of economic coercion, cyber-attacks, and Beijing’s critical role in fueling the fentanyl epidemic — which even CCP officials have admitted is a kind of reverse opium war on the U.S.

In his book “On China”, Henry Kissinger warned about being lulled into that false sense of security where Red China is concerned, writing “it would be dangerous to equate acquiescence to circumstance with agreement for the indefinite future.” Ambassador Yui understands this better than many, and we do ourselves and our progeny an immense favor by listening to him.

Kelly Sloan is a political and public affairs consultant and a recovering journalist based in Denver.