While insisting they don’t support “unilateral changes” to the status quo, US and EU officials won’t criticize Taipei’s blatant provocation
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) initiated a significant event, Operation Joint Sword-2024A, on Thursday. It involved the creation of a simulated blockade around the self-governing island of Taiwan, as well as areas around the islands of Kinmen, Matsu, Wuqiu, and Dongyin. It’s worth noting that this is the largest military drill of its kind in a year and follows the recent inauguration of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, who has made it clear that he will escalate the issue of formal independence.
During his address, Lai broke his promise of maintaining the status quo with the mainland. As Kathrine Hille, writing for the Financial Times, noted, he “used conspicuously different language, while also spelling out some of the facts that most jar Beijing.”
While Tsai Ing-wen, Lai’s predecessor, would reference “the Beijing authorities” or “the other side of the Strait,” which do not explicitly state that China and Taiwan are separate entities, the new leader mentioned “China” throughout his address.
He referred to “Taiwan” and “the Republic of China, Taiwan,” saying that “some call this land the Republic of China, some call it the Republic of China Taiwan, and some, Taiwan; but whichever of these names we ourselves or our international friends choose to call our nation, we will resonate and shine all the same.”
Referring to Taiwan as a “nation,” Lai quoted the Republic of China’s constitution – the state that lost control of the mainland to Communist forces during the Chinese Civil War in 1949 but still remains in Taiwan – to say that “the Republic of China Taiwan is a sovereign, independent nation in which sovereignty lies in the hands of the people” (of ROC nationality). “This tells us clearly: the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other,” he concluded.
Officials from the Kuomintang (KMT) party, the long-time ruling party before the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)’s electoral success in recent years, were quick to criticize Lai’s speech. For instance, former Taiwanese leader Ma Ying-jeou’s office harshly criticized him for introducing a “new two-country theory,” adding that his “direct and explicit stance is tantamount to leaning towards Taiwan independence, leading to an unprecedentedly dangerous situation between the two sides of the strait.”
The opinion is less interesting than the facts, the increasing rhetoric from the new leader of the rebellious province taken with US angling, taken with the fact that RAND study said the US had until 2026 before China overtook them militarily and it certainly seems like the stage is being set for a near term independence declaration and conflict in the SCS over Taiwan.
Given that there are elements of the bourgeoisie and state desperate to take down China and force the reluctant elements of the bourgeoisie/corporations to join in decoupling, the most realistic plan for that is instigating a conflict over Taiwan, declaring that the US and EU must “stand with democracy” as they did with Ukraine and forcing companies and countries in the case of the EU to decouple suddenly and harshly from China over it while blasting propaganda at the citizenry to get them riled up in an anti-China fervor so they don’t even notice or get angry at anyone but China for the first couple years as prices skyrocket, as supply shortages cripple the economy and so on.
Unfortunately such conditions will not likely lead to enough class consciousness for a progressive revolution of any kind but rather lead to isolationism, reaction, the working class in the imperial core being chained even further, forced into lower living conditions, forced into a kind of rentier-serfdom as the powers that be try and reshore and friendshore. The real problem with this plan occurring in time for the US to think it can win is that US foundries for chips and such won’t be anywhere near operational by 2026.
But ultimately winning a military conflict against China is not necessary for defeating it according to the plans they have. Those plans call for economic isolation of it, embargo, sanction, strangle. And for that they need outrage, they need a cause celebre, they need war propaganda. Though another problem with Taiwan is that unlike with Ukraine it won’t hold out for months. If the PLA decides to swoop in they can crush it with incredible violence and secure it within a week. If they decide to embargo and turn the screws to save lives versus an invasion while bombing military targets and formations it still likely won’t hold out for more than a few months and communications will likely be cut very shortly into things meaning they won’t have as much video propaganda to go on. At least I hope the Chinese are wise enough to cut submarine cables to Taiwan to isolate it from the western internet and propaganda as part of such a strategy. Though I suppose the western media can simply rely on making up Ghost of Kiev type stories about the break-away rebels fighting back, perhaps use video AI to “illustrate” such ideas and not disclose that it is the case right away along with lots of scary shots of Chinese military ships in formation and any initial videos that get out.
No matter how you dice it, it seems likely if not certain that Americans and probably Europeans are within the next 5 years going to find themselves without access to many Chinese goods, certainly the electronics market everything from hard drives to motherboards to graphics cards and smartphones will see spiking prices and probably severe shortages depending on how bad it gets. Just look at an artificial, engineered shortage in the prices of SSD’s because Samsung cut production to drive prices up and Micron of course did nothing to increase production because they like higher prices too. Check the price of a 1tb ssd 18-24 months ago compared to now, dramatic increases, from $60 to $100 often.
Even if the US doesn’t pull off a dramatic decoupling by war, they’ve shown with the solar panel tariffs that they’re willing to destroy the planet in some vain, idealistic hopes that they can forcibly revive domestic manufacturing and consumption by keeping out Chinese goods which only shrinks the market, hits the proletariat, etc so there’s no reason to expect that cheaply priced quality Chinese goods and components in goods from other countries will continue to flow.
The date may be much later but the US is definitely pulling out all the stops to try and make it happen eventually and slap up a hard wall for high technology. The recent comments by the occupied Korean government about their need to invest in chip-making shows the US doesn’t want to put all its chips so to speak in making chips in the US and realizes they may need help with that. Sacrificing Taiwan still means they have the puppets of occupied Korea and Japan to put such production into. Both of which they can manipulate to have lower prices than US production. I could see such a plan in Korea bearing fruit in 5-6 years easily.
China sees at least most of these moves hence their movements to move to Linux and risc architectures before the US can pull the ripcord and leave them stranded within 5-8 years at most.
May their plans fail spectacularly, may the people turn on them sooner than later. However we should all be realistically prepared for a crucible ahead of us that will mean much worse than the loss of cheap electronics treats.