Sometimes what US politicians utter in public makes one wonder if they are plain stupid or just want to be in the news.

Vivek Ramaswamy is a case in point. At the three-day annual meeting of the National Rifle Association, the "Republican presidential candidate" proposed the opening of an NRA branch in China's Taiwan island, handing over AR-15 rifles to every family, and training them to use it. That was his idea of how to "protect Taiwan" without going to war with the Chinese mainland.

His words offer a peek into what politicians in the United States have in their minds: They claim that the US is committed to the three Sino-US joint communiques, and the country upholds the one-China policy, but in reality they can go to the extent of exporting the malaise of rampant gun culture that is eroding their own social fabric to the Chinese island to make it a pawn of the US.

Those US politicians who are attending the NRA meeting are fully aware how loose gun control policies have hurt their own people, as at least three shootings were reported across the US even as they held their meeting. Instead of correcting the fault lines, they want to spread it to Taiwan, which is a part of China, and create chaos there.

The central government of China has long stressed the pursuit of the island's peaceful reunification with the mainland. It is the US that dreams of taking Taiwan to war, either against its compatriots on the mainland or among the island's inmates. That Ramaswamy is a "Republican presidential candidate" explains everything. As the 2024 presidential election approaches, one politician after another is making controversial statements in the hope that voters will remember them on voting days.

But in doing so they are only showing the lower threshold of their political IQ and conscience.