China calls US bluff over Taiwan
The US and China prepare for war
The confrontation between the US and China led blocs of imperialist powers is now moving inexorably towards war in the Asia Pacific over Taiwan. The US is in terminal decline as China continues to win the race for global economic supremacy. All US attempts to catch up economically have failed as economic sanctions designed to break up the China bloc by weakening Russia in the war in Ukraine have backfired and Russia and China have strengthened their strategic partnership. NATO is exposed as a paper tiger as its proxy, Ukraine, is losing the war. Yet the fate of Ukraine can only be decided by the dual defeat of both imperialist powers engaged in the proxy war.
The war over Palestine that threatens West Asia has also backfired as the Zionist state threatens to drag the US into an unwinnable nuclear showdown between the two blocs. The war is unwinnable because Hamas and the Axis of Resistance led by Iran proved that it can wipe out Israel short of using nuclear weapons and the US has reigned in Netanyahu and is trying to find two state settlement. The futility of a free Palestine co-existing with the genocidal Zionist state means the fate of Palestine is in the hands of the Arab and world masses winnng the struggle for socialist revolution.
Meanwhile, the real target of the US, China, as leader of the rapidly growing trading bloc of the BRICS, is poised as the rising hegemonic imperialist power staking its economic dominance on the global stage. The shift in economic power from West to East leaves the US with no moves left other than an all-or-nothing war with China over Taiwan, or an ignominious climbdown leaving China as winner to take all. It is this ultimate test of hegemonic power that is now making war over Taiwan the epicenter of inter-imperialist war.
Taiwan the Epicenture of Asia Pacific war
We are approaching this dangerous inflection point, if we are not already there. Taiwan’s new President Lai Ching-te in his inaugural address, “Building a democratic, peaceful, and prosperous new Taiwan”, called for Taiwan’s resistance to ‘annexation’ by China, with the assistance of ‘outside powers’, meaning the US and its allies. This official crossing of the ‘red line’, that Taiwan is part of China, clearly violates China’s sovereignty and puts China’s response to the test.
So China holds this speech to be a blatant provocation to test its response and has acted accordingly. The rapid deployment of its forces in an exercise to blockade Taiwan and the other ‘inner circle islands’ by air and sea is calculated to ‘strongly Punish’ and hence deter President Lai’s secessionist provocation. For a detailed analysis of China’s blockade see ChinaPower. This puts the ball back into the US court.
So far there has been no official US response to what is a clear escalation by China to ‘punish’ Taiwan. Why? The global balance of power is shifting. The Western bloc is falling apart as the EU is riven by disputes between countries divided over support for both blocs. The global South (including ASEAN) is accelerating towards the Eastern bloc with China on the strength of its economic growth and the new BRICS currency which will challenge the US$. Perhap’s its bluff has been called as it has been in Ukraine and Palestine. But solong as the imperialist powers fight over who will rule the world the danger of the declining hegemonic power taking the rising hegemonic power to a nuclear war remains.
Who can stop WW3?
Where to we go from here? Taiwan originated as a pawn in the civil war in China after 1949 when the defeated bourgeoisie leader Chiang Kai-shek of the KMT retreated to what was then Formosa. The indigenous people of Taiwan have a right to their self-determination against both sides of the Chinese revolution. Now that China is a restored capitalist imperialism, any national grouping over which China claims sovereignty, has a right to self-determination. But this is not possible while Taiwan is being used as a proxy by the two global imperialist rivals. In the event of ‘annexation’ by China claiming its sovereignty, the US would intervene and any escalating war would be between two rival imperialist powers. In such as war workers must reject both sides and call for the defeat of their imperialist ruling classes, and their allies dragged into the war on either side, as the main enemy of the global working class.
There is only one way to stop WW3 between the rival imperialist powers and that is the revolt of the masses against imperialist war by turning these wars into class wars. When the rule of the imperialists depends on genocidal wars including nuclear war, workers have nothing to lose but their lives. Like the Palestinians, the Yemenis and the Kanaks, armed resistance is the road to liberation. Workers in every country have to unite across borders and refuse to fight other workers. We refuse to allow our bodies to be used as cannon fodder for the ruling classes. We have to create workers’ militias to defend ourselves. We need to take power from the warmongers, create workers’ governments and a new international party of socialist revolution to lead the struggle for a socialist world and put an end to the destruction of nature and humanity.
