When, at the height of the Arab Spring, Syrian troops began gunning down peaceful protestors, the country’s ruler falsely claimed that his victims were terrorists. He then strove to make reality resemble his lie and, as Michael Totten writes, “created a terrorist menace to fight.”

For years Bashar al-Assad had been keeping radical Islamists quarantined in his jails, many of whom had fought returned home after fighting with al-Qaeda in Iraq, and in the most cynical “criminal-justice reform” in history, he let them out of their cages. They did exactly what he knew they would do—coalesced into terrorist armies out in the [Syrian] desert.

One of them was the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and the other was Islamic State (IS), forged from the shattered remnants of al-Qaeda in Iraq whom the world hadn’t heard from in years. . . . Assad . . . finally had the war that he needed. . . .

Assad is nothing if not a brilliant manipulator. Against all evidence, he managed to convince the secretaries of state John Kerry and Hillary Clinton that he was a “reformer” at a time when he was precisely the opposite, and he managed to convince [many others in high levels of government] that he’s fighting IS even though he and [his Russian allies] have spent more than 99 percent of their time, energy, and ammunition on every rebel army in the country except IS.

[Assad] still has plenty of supporters in the West, though, because he’s “secular” and therefore preferable to Islamists. As an individual, yes, Assad is secular. . . . The problem is, his chief political and military backers—Hizballah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps—are radical Islamists. His own army has been reduced to a shattered husk of its former self and will likely never again be able to impose secular rule on the entire country.

On Tuesday, representatives of Hamas met with their counterparts from Fatah—the faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) once led by Yasir Arafat that now governs parts of the West Bank—in Beijing to discuss possible reconciliation. While it is unlikely that these talks will yield any more progress than the many previous rounds, they constitute a significant step in China’s increasing attempts to involve itself in the Middle East on the side of Israel’s enemies.

By contrast, writes Tuvia Gering, Taiwan has been quick and consistent in its condemnations of Hamas and Iran and its expressions of sympathy with Israel:

Support from Taipei goes beyond words. Taiwan’s appointee in Tel Aviv and de-facto ambassador, Abby Lee, has been busy aiding hostage families, adopting the most affected kibbutzim in southern Israel, and volunteering with farmers. Taiwan recently pledged more than half a million dollars to Israel for critical initiatives, including medical and communications supplies for local municipalities. This follows earlier aid from Taiwan to an organization helping Israeli soldiers and families immediately after the October 7 attack.

The reasons why are not hard to fathom:

In many ways, Taiwan sees a reflection of itself in Israel—two vibrant democracies facing threats from hostile neighbors. Both nations wield substantial economic and technological prowess, and both heavily depend on U.S. military exports and diplomacy. Taipei also sees Israel as a “role model” for what Taiwan should aspire to be, citing its unwavering determination and capabilities to defend itself.

On a deeper level, Taiwanese leaders seem to view Israel’s war with Hamas and Iran as an extension of a greater struggle between democracy and autocracy.

Gering urges Israel to reciprocate these expressions of friendship and to take into account that “China has been going above and beyond to demonize the Jewish state in international forums.” Above all, he writes, Jerusalem should “take a firmer stance against China’s support for Hamas and Iran-backed terrorism, exposing the hypocrisy and repression that underpin its vision for a new global order.”