Putin boasts that he could have sunk a British warship and nothing would have happened. Xi Jinping says he'll take Taiwan, an independent nation, when he wants. Testing the waters for a response. And?
Everyone saying "it's just words" will act surprised when action follows words, as it did in Ukraine and Hong Kong. Deterrence is based on standing up to the smallest aggressions to prevent bigger ones.
Putin and Xi know well that the West has the power to stand up to them. So when they choose not to, it's interpreted as a green light, and the "grave concerns" as performance.
The danger is when this goes on for so long, they start to run yellow lights and then red lights, creating a real crisis and forcing a response when the stakes are far higher.
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