Hillary Clinton says Ukraine war has pushed back China’s plans for Taiwan

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine has set back China’s ambitions to invade Taiwan.

In a wide-ranging interview at the FT Weekend event in Washington on Saturday, the one-time Democratic presidential candidate who served as America’s top diplomat under Barack Obama discussed Ukraine, US-China relations and Russia’s invasion of the US. But offered a harsh assessment. Chances of President Joe Biden being re-elected next year.

Clinton warned that Donald Trump’s re-election in 2024 would be “the end of democracy” in the US and “the end of Ukraine”.

He described Putin as a “complex, messianic, egotistical authoritarian”. He said the Russian leader believed Trump would pull the US out of NATO if he won the 2020 presidential election.

“It literally would have been a cake walk for them, and so when Trump didn’t win, they felt they had to move on.”

It turned out to be “absolutely miscalculated”, he said.

Clinton said she believed Xi was re-evaluating his approach to Taiwan in light of Putin’s failure to swiftly annex Ukraine.

She said she had previously assumed that Xi would “make a move against Taiwan” within three or four years of consolidating his power in China. But she added: “I think Ukraine has really set it back. I mean, what happened in Ukraine has had a significant impact on the Chinese leadership I think.

Clinton attacked the man who defeated her in the 2016 election, saying, “Look, Trump was the gift that kept on giving to people like Xi and Putin.” “He was .

Clinton said she did not “believe” that Trump would win the presidential election in 2024. But he cautioned that if he did, it would be “the end of democracy in the United States” and “the end of Ukraine”. US out of NATO.

Clinton acknowledged that Biden’s age, at 80, was “an issue” that voters had “every right to consider”. But she explained the president’s oft-quoted phrase: “Don’t judge the Almighty by running against it, but against the alternative.”

Clinton supported Biden’s effort to push the Democratic National Committee to overhaul the party’s nominating process after the 2020 Iowa caucuses after a glitch in the vote-counting app delayed results.

Clinton said of the Iowa caucuses, “Thank God they’re over, at least for the Democrats, because they deserve to be over.” “I won Iowa, but still, it’s not a good idea. You know, let my people vote.