If China can successfully absorb Taiwan while limiting the military, economic, and diplomatic costs, it would vindicate President Xi’s vision of an ascendant China undoing past humiliations, represent a milestone in China’s campaign to establish hegemony in the most important region of the world, and, perhaps, collapse the credibility and global position of the United States.

On the other hand, a debacle in Taiwan could have devastating economic and diplomatic consequences for China, threatening Xi’s rule.

In other words, attention must be paid — the trajectory of the modern world is conceivably at stake.