The “serious” wingnut defense of Trump has been “This is aimed towards China, to get them to do something about North Korea.”

Well Beijing spoke up today…and the result was Donny Two Scoop’s further emasculation:

Beijing put down its DPRK marker today. If Trump keeps crazy-tweeting at Pyongyang we could easily wind up in WW3. https://t.co/mJ0xBHLOrr

— John Schindler (@20committee) August 11, 2017

Indeed, China just publicly said as much. Today’s Global Times, an influential state-run Beijing daily, ran an editorial with the memorable title “Reckless game over the Korean Peninsula runs risk of real war.” It minced no words and made two highly significant statements.

First, noting that “Neither Washington nor Pyongyang really wants war, but a war could break out anyway,” it made Beijing’s position crystal clear: “If North Korea launches missiles that threaten U.S. soil first and the U.S. retaliates, China will stay neutral.” However, the editorial stated, “If the U.S. and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so.”

In other words, any preemptively aggressive moves by Trump against North Korea will be regarded as casus belli in Beijing, whose contempt for our president is something China’s not hiding any longer. Indeed, another editorial in today’s Global Times mocked him: “Trump is good at bluffing, but he is just a paper tiger,” citing the infamous phrase used by Chairman Mao at the height of the Cold War to throw stones at the United States.

At this point, there’s no real way to extricate ourselves from this in a fashion that will avoid a loss of face.