China, Iran are on the march

There is so much focus on the COVID-19 pandemic right now that Americans can’t be blamed if they’re not spending much time studying other developments.

That’s understandable, but inattention may be as dangerous as the virus itself. That’s because America’s adversaries are taking advantage of the situation by challenging U.S. interests in a set of geopolitical hot spots.

They believe we’re too distracted by the virus containment effort to mount a firm response…

This appears to be the case with China and Iran right now.

China in particular is trying to divert attention away from its own cover-up of the pandemic, which allowed it to spin out of control. So it’s engaging in a global propaganda campaign to try to blame the U.S. for the spread of the virus.

Both China and Iran have lied about the damage caused by the virus in their own countries. China officially reported about 4,600 fatalities and Iran officially reported about 6,200. But reliable sources suggest that the actual count of fatalities may be at least 10 times greater in both countries.

This could put actual fatalities in China and Iran about equal to the U.S. (over 70,000 dead).

Meanwhile, the U.S. has been reeling economically, and there’s no reason to believe that China and Iran are feeling any less pain. Let’s first consider China…

Not surprisingly, China has tried to take advantage of the situation by acting aggressively in the South China Sea and threatening Taiwan.

The South China Sea is a large arm of the Pacific Ocean surrounded by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia.

All six countries have claims to exclusive economic zones that extend several hundred miles from their coastlines.