He is, indeed, being tested, and the world is, indeed, watching carefully. The editors over at The Wall Street Journal made a point of emphasizing that Tuesday, regarding the rocket attack on a military base the US and our coalition partners use in Erbil, Iraq.

But then the editors said this:

Mr Biden doesn’t need to escalate to Mr Trump’s level….

Yes, he does, and more. Every Iranian attack needs to be answered with a response more severe than the Iranian attack, and more severe than our prior response to a prior Iranian attack.

Thugs understand only force, and their force and force capability must be crushed.

The Obama-Biden finger wagging didn’t work then, and the Built Back The Same current Biden administration’s finger wagging won’t work any better.

That’s how President Joe Biden described the People’s Republic of China’s treatment of the people under PRC President Xi Jinping’s control and those Xi wants under his control, compared to how American citizens are treated by ourselves and the government we hire.

Culturally, there are different norms….

The treatment of Hong Kong citizens, who only are struggling for the freedoms they used to be allowed under the PRC’s handover agreement with Great Britain is just the PRC’s different norm. Because jailing some protesters, kidnapping others and sending them to the mainland, seizing escapees on the high seas—isn’t at all rank despotism. It’s just the PRC’s different way of doing things, it’s their different norm.

The treatment of the Uighurs in, as Biden put it, “the western mountains of China,” who only want the freedoms nominally promised in the PRC’s own 31-page, 138 Article …constitution…, much less actual liberties, is just the PRC’s different norm. Because jailing millions of Uighurs in Maoist “reeducation” camps, forcing abortions and sterilizations on Uighur women, attempting genocide against the Uighurs at large isn’t at all a demonstration of the intrinsic evil of the PRC’s government and the men and women populating it. It’s just the PRC’s different way of doing things, it’s their different norm.

The threats of war against the Republic of China, which only wants to be left alone to make its own way in the world is just the PRC’s different norm. Because conquering and occupying the island nation isn’t at all rank invasion, occupation, and destruction. It’s just the PRC’s different way of doing things, it’s their different norm.

Still, Biden did say that the PRC would face repercussions for those things. But all Biden has done and is doing is spout vapid rhetoric. For instance, here’s what he said through his Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, on Blinken’s telecon with “a senior Chinese official:”

I made clear the US will defend our national interests, stand up for our democratic values, and hold Beijing accountable for its abuses of the international system[.]

Not a word about those PRC domestic and PRC wannabe domestic crimes.

And here’s a claim more directly from Biden, a statement following his own telecon with Xi:

Biden underscored his fundamental concerns about Beijing’s coercive and unfair economic practices, crackdown in Hong Kong, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and increasingly assertive actions in the region, including toward Taiwan.

Finger-wagging, nothing to be taken seriously, by anyone.

Correction: Originally misnamed the Republic of China in the paragraph regarding threats of war. Bad mistake.