Taiwan - A Pawn for US War on China

[Bill Totten]

Taiwan - A Pawn for US War on China

by Sara Flounders

https://covertactionmagazine.com (April 27 2023)

https://www.globalresearch.ca (May 03 2023)

https://www.globalresearch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/taiwan-us-china.jpg

Featured image is from youtube.com {1}

While the US-Nato war against Russia in Ukraine continues unabated,
the US is preparing at breakneck speed for war with China, using
Taiwan as the excuse. Taiwan, like Ukraine, is a pawn. The military
and economic threats on both China and Russia are a desperate bid to
quash the emergence of a multipolar world.

US imperialist hegemony is being challenged from every side.
De-dollarization among major economies of the Global South is a
component of trade agreements among the powerful emerging economies of
China, Russia, Iran, Brazil, India, Malaysia, and South Africa. Even
Saudi Arabia, a reactionary bulwark of US domination in West Asia, is
willing to seek new agreements with Iran and is interested in trading
its oil in Chinese yuan renminbi, rather than being wholly dependent
on US dollars.

Even more threatening to US capitalists is that China is developing
trade relations with the 40 countries sanctioned by Washington, and
they are doing this by barter and direct currency exchanges. This
works around the almighty dollar, the international reserve currency
that has dominated global trade and capital flows for 100 years.

These are not the first efforts to find a replacement for US dollar
domination. There is no crime that US imperialism will not commit to
preserving the US dollar. Both oil-rich Iraq, which proposed a
currency based on the dinar in 1990, and Libya, which attempted an
African currency in 2010, found they had fabulous resources but no
protection from US bombs. Their efforts at sovereignty led to their
brutal destruction by US imperialism.

The aspiration to break free from US corporate control is today being
challenged by many more countries. China is a more formidable
opponent, surpassing the US in gross domestic product and the
development of its economy. China is the top trading partner to more
than 120 countries and the largest external trading partner of the
European Union.

The ability of China to provide trillions of dollars in development
funds through the Belt and Road Initiative means that developing
countries can now have more favorable trade relations without the
International Monetary Fund and World Bank's onerous conditions. This
option is a threat to every US bank and US-controlled financial
institution.

China and a growing number of countries are in an increasingly
stronger position to resist the US's unequal demands. Countries with
three-quarters of the world's population refused to go along with
sanctions on Russia. Will they be willing to accept US sanctions on
China?

All of this poses a threat to the hegemony of the US, the center of
world imperialism. The capitalist system is relentlessly driven to
expand or die - and now it is shrinking. For multi-billionaires and
corporate CEOs, this is a life-or-death crisis.

Provoking Conflict to Retain Hegemony

US strategy is to sabotage Taiwan and its trade with China by creating
conflicts and imposing sanctions. These desperate efforts to reverse
Washington's declining global position will disrupt the global
economy.

Presently, Taiwan's trade with China is far bigger than its trade with
the US. Mainland China and Hong Kong accounted for 42% of Taiwan's
exports last year, while the US had only a 15% share, according to
official Taiwanese data.

For Taiwan's imports, mainland China and Hong Kong again ranked first
with a 22% share. The US only had a 10% share, ranking behind Japan,
Europe, and Southeast Asia. South Korea and Japan have greater trade
levels with China than with the US (cnbc.com {2})

The problem US imperialists face is how to reverse this - how to force
countries in the Asia Pacific to act against their own economic
interests.

The US-Nato war in Ukraine was a strategy to impose sanctions on
Russia and to break the EU's trade with Russia. In 2020 the EU was
Russia's leading trading partner {3}; 36.5% of Russia's imports came
from the EU, and 37.9% of its exports went to the EU. The EU was the
largest investor in Russia {4}. Russian trade with the EU has since
been reduced {5} to 5.8%.

The US-Nato war in Ukraine has failed to destabilize and collapse
Russia, as the US had hoped. But the war devastated the economy of
Ukraine and disrupted the EU, which went along with the sanctions
demanded by the US The economies of Europe have suffered greatly.
Inflation, recession and supply-chain chaos due to sanctions have
harshly cut into the EU's own markets and increased European
dependence on the US.

US threats and escalating demands to sanction China will severely
damage the economies of Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and the
Philippines.

To force high-tech companies to decouple from the People's Republic of
China, US imperialism needs a political-military crisis with China.
Every US plan for sanctions on China starts with a manufactured crisis
over Taiwan.

https://i0.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/word-image-55688-6.png?w=468&ssl=1

Source: reddit.com {6}

The US is frantically seeking to stop China's economic rise by
militarily encircling it. Utilizing Taiwan, Japan, South Korea,
Australia, and the Philippines, US strategy is to create an Asian
version of Nato, a military alliance to disrupt economic cooperation
in Asia. This is a terrible danger to the people of Taiwan and the
People's Republic of China. Throughout the entire region, people face
a US-created crisis that can destroy their lives and futures and ruin
their economies.

Poor and working people in the US will be forced to pay for this war,
as they pay for every war with steadily deteriorating conditions.

China Is One!

In the drive to find an excuse for war, the US government is reversing
the position it agreed to and signed with China more than 50 years
ago.

China has spent decades developing its economic relations with Taiwan;
trade between the island and mainland China has grown, along with
political and cultural relations. To counter this effort at peaceful
reunification, the Pentagon is turning Taiwan into a porcupine,
bristling with billions of dollars in military equipment. Another $10
billion in military aid was just promised.

Washington is openly violating three signed agreements - joint
communiques it made with China in 1972, 1979, and 1982 - affirming
that China is one country and Taiwan is a province of China. Such
commitments are the political foundation for China's diplomatic
relations with the US and with every country.

China has not threatened Taiwan. China has only asserted what is
recognized by the US and 181 other countries, as well as the United
Nations and all international bodies: Taiwan is part of China.
Taiwan's own constitution affirms that Taiwan is a province of China.
It is the US that has broken its promises not to interrupt China's
efforts to reunify the island peacefully.

Instead of adhering to the One-China Policy, dangerous mobilization is
taking place on military and political levels. The recent manufactured
crisis over a Chinese hot air balloon followed by congressional
hearings grilling the CEO of TikTok represent new levels of
psychological war propaganda, designed to convince the US population
that China is an enemy and a threat.

Democrats and Republicans try to outdo each other in condemning China.
Taiwan was referred to {7} as "the beating heart to our Indo-Pacific
strategy" by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez,
a Democrat.

Military preparations against China include US pressure for Japan to
double its military budget and become the third largest military in
the world, in violation of the Japanese Constitution.

A new agreement, announced on February 2, granted the US military
access to nine bases in the Philippines to counter China. Foreign
bases are in direct violation of the Philippines Constitution. In 1992
a massive people's movement forced the US to close its bases in the
Philippines.

More ominously, in early February, four-star Air Force General Michael
Minihan, head of the Pentagon's Air Mobility Command, in a "leaked
memo" predicted {8} war with China over Taiwan in two years. General
Minihan oversees 107,000 airmen and 1,100 cargo, tanker, and transport
planes. The memo includes training, drills, and preparations for war
in 2025 and specific orders: "Defeat China" and "Be prepared for
deployment at a moment's notice".

Another threat was the largest-ever launch from a US base of huge C-17
transport aircraft on January 5, as training for a naval blockade of
China. This is the opening round of a massive missile-and-air assault
on mainland China - the Pentagon's Air-Sea Battle strategy.

The US Pacific Fleet consists of approximately 200 ships and
submarines, nearly 1,200 aircraft, and more than 130,000 sailors and
civilian workers. The US regularly sends naval patrols and destroyers
through the 180-kilometer-wide Taiwan Strait (about 112 miles).

China condemned these arrogant displays of US military power as
reckless, provocative, and meant to apply pressure.

https://i0.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/word-image-55688-12.jpeg?w=474&ssl=1

US Pacific Fleet. Source: twitter.com {9}

Inflated media coverage greeted the visit to New York City of Tsai
Ing-wen, the so-called "president" of Taiwan. ("President" is in
quotation marks because Taiwan is recognized as an island province of
China and not as an independent country by the UN and 181 countries.)

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning objected to this
Taiwanese delegation visit and the receptions held in Tsai Ing-wen's
honor, as a violation of the One-China Policy: "China firmly opposes
any form of official interaction between the US and Taiwan". Mao Ning
said the US was "conducting dangerous activities that undermine the
political foundation of bilateral ties".

Xu Xueyuan, charge d'affaires at the Chinese embassy in Washington,
said China does not accept the US claims that Tsai's trip is merely a
"transit", saying "the so-called 'transit' is merely a disguise to her
true intention of seeking a breakthrough and advocating Taiwan
independence" and accuses the US of allowing Tsai to "make a splash"
and of arranging her meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

https://i0.wp.com/covertactionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/word-image-55688-13.jpeg?resize=1068%2C601&ssl=1

Tsai Ing-wen with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (Republican,
California) during visit to the US earlier this year. Source: ketk.com
{10}

While in New York City, Tsai Ing-wen was treated to a banquet and
"Global Leadership" award from the Hudson Institute, an influential,
right-wing think tank funded in part by Taiwan. The Brookings
Institution, the Center for American Progress, the Center for a New
American Security, the Center for Strategic and International Studies,
and the Hudson Institute actively promote expanded arms sales and
trade agreements with Taiwan and anti-China propaganda. These five
prominent think tanks receive substantial funding from Taiwan.

The visit reinforces Tsai Ing-wen's standing, at a time when she is in
a seriously weakened political position. She was forced to resign as
head of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party of Taiwan (DPP), after
her party suffered a major setback in local elections in November,
which was the DPP's worst performance since its founding in 1986. The
election debacle confirms that the DPP's aggressive stand on
independence is losing support in Taiwan.

Tsai Ing-wen's visit to Guatemala and Belize, two of only 13 remaining
countries that recognize Taiwan, was overshadowed by the Honduran
Foreign Ministry's announcement that its government now recognized
"only one China in the world" and that Beijing "is the only legitimate
government that represents all of China".

The statement added that "Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinese
territory, and as of today the Honduran government has informed Taiwan
of the severance of diplomatic relations, pledging not to have any
official relationship or contact with Taiwan". Honduras is the ninth
diplomatic ally Taiwan has lost since the pro-independence Tsai first
took office in May 2016.

China has held a consistent, well-understood position on its
sovereignty and territorial integrity that is recognized
internationally in all world bodies. China has repeatedly asserted its
right to resolve this unfinished national reunification. China's
long-held position is that cooperation, trade, and development can
overcome differences; it is the only way forward.

The preparation of US imperialism for a possible war with China -
surrounding it with military bases, nuclear weapons, and military
vessels - is a highly dangerous provocation. US wars are for corporate
profit.

We must mobilize! US hands off China!

Links:

{1} https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXFeDbdXUoQ

{2} https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/05/taiwans-trade-with-china-is-far-bigger-than-its-trade-with-the-us.html

{3} https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-country-and-region/countries-and-regions/russia_en

{4} https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-country-and-region/countries-and-regions/russia_en

{5} https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-country-and-region/countries-and-regions/russia_en

{6} https://www.reddit.com/r/InformedTankie/comments/12jft2v/as_the_us_holds_its_largest_ever_military/

{7} https://www.foreign.senate.gov/

{8} https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/02/us-general-gut-feeling-war-china-sparks-alarm-predictions

{9} https://twitter.com/USPacificFleet

{10} https://www.ketk.com/news/world/china-military-displays-force-toward-taiwan-after-tsai-trip/

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Copyright (c) Sara Flounders, Global Research, 2023

https://www.globalresearch.ca/taiwan-pawn-us-war-china/5818030


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