The New Cold War: Growing Towards a Hot War?

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Shifting stances between China and the U.S. on Taiwan and its international status are fueling tensions between the U.S. and China as a new global arms race begins

Vincent Kolo China Labour Forum

Are we bracing for a temporary de-escalation in the US-China conflict? That idea gained traction in September after Canadian authorities released Huawei's Meng Wanzhou, arguing that it was the result of a deal between China and the United States (despite official denials by both countries). But a closer look at the "heat map" of global imperialist tensions reveals that positions on both sides are actually hardening. Especially on the Taiwan issue.

In October, U.S. President Joe Biden said in an interview with CNN that the U.S. was "committed" to defending Taiwan militarily in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan. Biden's remarks stunned some as it was a clear departure from Washington's long-standing strategic ambiguity, which means the United States "protects" and sells arms to Taiwan without an explicit commitment to war. White House officials quickly issued a corrected statement. "The president has not announced any change in our policy, nor has our policy toward Taiwan changed."

This is the second time Biden has crossed the blurred lines of his strategy, the first in August, which prompted a similar clarification from the White House. On the Taiwan issue, diplomatic language is often deliberately vague and ambiguous. This helps avoid military conflict because it masks apparent contradictions. All parties, the ruling classes in China, the United States and Taiwan, have their own reasons for maintaining this strategic fog. As a result, Taiwan was relegated to a "non-state", with only 15 small countries in official relations, but otherwise had all the attributes of an independent state.

a dangerous balance

Although successive CCP regimes since Mao Zedong have accepted this status quo, until now, it has reluctantly accepted this reality and has never given up its goal of “unification.” "Taiwan is an inalienable part of China" is the core belief of Chinese nationalism, and therefore the core idea of the Chinese Communist Party. China's capitalist restoration process, and the consequent dismantling of basic welfare support and job security, as well as the growth of extreme inequality, have made the CCP dictatorship more dependent on nationalism as the political backbone of its rule. Under Xi Jinping in particular, nationalist propaganda has been ramped up whenever the regime feels threatened by social unrest, with Taiwan and its "separatist forces" often targeted.

In this regard, if the party emblem and historical baggage are put aside, the Chinese Communist Party has actually become the authoritarian nationalist and capitalist KMT of the 21st century. This also explains why, in recent decades, the CCP and Taiwan's Kuomintang, the former enemies of the civil war, have cooperated more closely with each other. However, this cooperation has recently become more complicated, as the general hostility of the Taiwanese masses towards the CCP has forced the KMT to take a more critical stance towards the CCP.

The CCP’s vision of fomenting nationalism and the rise of a great Chinese power through deafening propaganda has made Beijing readily accept that Taiwan’s official declaration of independence is unthinkable. This and related issues, such as the U.S. presence in Taiwan, could lead to war. So, as tensions mount and a Biden administration begins to implement a more confrontational Taiwan policy, we are entering a danger zone.

In the past, the United States has considered the balance achieved by its strategic ambiguity theory to best serve its interests. This is a sufficient deterrent to China's attacks, and at the same time restrains political groups that support Taiwan's independence from "going too far", so as not to make them feel that the US military will come to the rescue at any time. Today, however, a growing number of voices in the American capitalist establishment are in favor of abandoning the policy, as Biden may have inadvertently said.

Growing anti-China sentiment

In early October, The Wall Street Journal disclosed that a small group of elite U.S. troops and Marines had been stationed in Taiwan since last year to train local troops, a decision made by the Trump administration and continued by Biden. The timing of the announcement was clearly chosen to increase pressure on China and test its response. Beijing responded that the presence of U.S. troops violated a 1979 agreement between the United States and China.

The shift in high-level positions has coincided with a shift in American public opinion. Of course, this is also being manipulated by the bourgeois media, which has only recently begun to pay attention to the brutal repressive tactics of the Chinese state apparatus and its coercive policies against small countries. This is simply to advance US imperialism's own coercive and often oppressive foreign policy.

In an August poll (Chicago Council on Global Affairs survey), 52% of respondents for the first time supported the use of U.S. troops to defend Taiwan should China attack Taiwan. A significant majority also favors U.S. recognition of Taiwan as an independent state (69 percent) and support for Taiwan's membership in international organizations (65 percent).

Socialists make a distinction between: on the one hand the underlying progressive consciousness of parts of the population in the United States and other countries, who dislike Xi Jinping's dictatorship and "wolf warrior" nationalism, and who agree with the right of the people of Taiwan to determine their own destiny; and On the one hand, the hypocritical tactics of the ruling class, for whom issues such as dictatorship, democracy, the right to self-determination, etc., are all tradable commodities, and only the continued dominance of U.S. imperialism is the only firm and unchanging principle. As socialists have explained many times, U.S. imperialism is not committed to the cause of democracy; it supports two-thirds of the military dictatorships in the world today, as well as those in Taiwan and China in the past.

Taiwan's DPP government and bourgeois Taiwanese nationalism don't see and don't want to see this distinction. The DPP sees no choice and is content to play the pawn role that the US uses against China. In doing so, it lulls the people of Taiwan into a dangerous false sense of security. Like the methods of CCP and Chinese nationalism, the DPP/Taiwanese bourgeois nationalism uses the defense of Taiwan and fear of Chinese attack to suppress class struggle on the island, and to protect the DPP in the face of growing dissatisfaction pro-capitalist agenda.

moving goal

For economic reasons, but also especially for geopolitical reasons, Taiwan has been pushed to the center stage of the new Cold War. As we explain, “Both Chinese and American capitalists want to control the Taiwan pawn. More precisely, they must stop the other from seizing control at all costs. Because of this, the geostrategic stalemate is still a possibility for both sides. Accepted.” (“Will a war break out in the Taiwan Strait?” China Labor Forum, July 13, 2021)

The decades-long stalemate is increasingly under new pressure from all sides that threatens to upset the delicate balance in the Taiwan Strait and the wider region. In the worst case, this could lead to a military conflict. The Chinese regime is alarmed by the direction of the Biden administration’s Taiwan policy. This will almost certainly provoke a stronger military response from Beijing, both as a warning to Washington and Taipei and as an attempt to incite domestic nationalism. Regardless of whether Biden's latest remarks are a slip of the tongue or a conscious stance shift, it is clear that his administration has embarked on a strategy to gradually move the "goal" of the Taiwan issue.

The U.S. will not formally support Taiwanese independence because it would likely lead to war. But as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently stated, US policy now is to actively support Taiwan's "meaningful participation in the affairs of the United Nations." What does this mean and why is there such a proposal?

Blinken knew that Taiwan's membership in the United Nations was out of the question, largely because of China's veto power as a permanent member of the Security Council. Taiwan was kicked out of the United Nations in 1971 as part of a historic deal between the Chinese and American regimes, a realignment of the old Cold War against the Stalinist Soviet Union. Thus, a new wave of U.S. action seeks to champion Taiwan's right to participate in institutions around the United Nations: such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Chinese regime’s inevitable opposition to these plausible proposals will further weaken the Chinese Communist Party’s position in global, especially Western, public opinion, and give the United States an advantage in the global power struggle.

Shift in the EU

The United States has had some success in diplomacy, playing the Taiwan card and advancing Biden's strategy of building a "democratic" coalition against China. This year, Japan, Australia, and the "G7" of advanced capitalist economies have all issued statements focusing on Taiwan's peace and security (a first for some countries), worded only to provoke insistence that this is China "Internal affairs" of Beijing. An example of the success of the US strategy is the recent shift in the European Union, which the Xi regime had hoped would take a neutral stance in the ongoing Cold War.

In October, the European Parliament (admittedly a largely powerless body like China's National People's Congress) passed its first-ever resolution on Taiwan by an overwhelming 580 to 26, with 66 abstentions. Report. The report is a political boost for Taiwan's Tsai Ing-wen government, although it is "non-binding" at the top of the European Union, so symbolism trumps practical effect. Still, it is the latest in a series of setbacks to Xi's Cold War strategy to counter U.S. pressure.

The parliamentary report calls for closer ties between the EU and Taiwan, renaming Taiwan's European Economic and Trade Office as the EU Office in Taiwan (a verbal prod to Beijing), condemns China's "military belligerence" and declares solidarity with EU member states Lithuania, Lithuania has drawn Beijing's ire for promoting its relations with Taiwan. At the same time, Taiwanese Foreign Minister Wu Zhaoxie visited Lithuania and EU member states Czech and Slovakia, further demonstrating the changes in relations within the EU. These developments in Europe reflect a power struggle between different bourgeois elites and states, fighting for trade, investment and their own national interests in this 27-member bloc.

Some countries like Lithuania have right-wing governments leaning toward the U.S.-led camp, others like Hungary’s right-wing governments leaning toward China — which they see as quite lucrative, while others try to strike a balance between Beijing and Washington, too. is for profit. Previously, the Xi regime could count on German Chancellor Angela Merkel to speak for China, reflecting the desire of German capitalists, especially in the auto industry, to maintain stable relations with their largest market. But after elections in September, Berlin is likely to see a government that is not very friendly to China.

The March dispute between China and the EU over human rights in Xinjiang was an important turning point. From Xi Jinping's standpoint, this is a big misjudgment, causing some political elites in the EU to follow the Chinese regime's nationalist tone and protest against the CCP's "interference in the EU's internal affairs." While Taiwan's DPP government will take this example of "solidarity" by the EU's capitalist government as a political victory, socialists warn that it's really just an empty show designed to fool the people.

The EU's diplomatic exercises say nothing about the struggle to promote genuine democracy and peace in Taiwan, China or elsewhere, including Europe. The "democratic" decisions of the capitalists are under the guise of economic plunder at the expense of the working people.

capitalism is the problem

The vast majority of workers and young people in Taiwan do not want to be ruled by the CCP dictatorship, which brutally suppresses trade unions and all democratic rights. Fear of dictatorship forms the basis for support for Taiwan independence. Socialists recognize this and support the Taiwanese people's right to self-determination.

At the same time, we warn that Taiwan's independence, peace and security is an unattainable goal based on capitalism and imperialism. Chinese and American capitalist regimes, for their own reasons, are opposed to independence, and Taiwanese capitalists will sell themselves to the highest bidder.

Therefore, the democratic and national rights of the Taiwanese people can only be realized as part of the revolutionary class struggle against Taiwanese capitalism, and together with the working masses in China and globally, against Chinese and American imperialism. This will mean making demands for a socialist Taiwan as part of a wider regional and global struggle to abolish capitalism and imperialism and build a truly socialist society with full democratic rights, including the right to determine national borders.

Taiwan's DPP repeats all the mistakes of Hong Kong's bourgeois pan-democrats, whose illusions have now been brutally shattered. The pan-democrats aim to confine a limited form of democracy to Hong Kong, and even such a "moderate" form would be impossible under China's continued dictatorship. They mistakenly believe that the capitalism they support prefers democracy as its "natural" form of rule, but in China and Hong Kong, capitalists have long chosen authoritarianism as their best tool for rule.

The pan-democrats pin their hopes of salvation on the governments of the United States, the European Union, and the "international community" (i.e., global capitalism). But the most important, powerful and only true ally in resisting dictatorship is the extremely oppressed working class in mainland China, Asia and the globe. From the perspective of American and Western capitalism, the difference between Taiwan and Hong Kong is that they are prepared to devote greater resources to containing Chinese power in the case of Taiwan for their own economic and geopolitical interests.

new militarism

While there have been major shifts in diplomacy, the most notable recent development is in the realm of "hard power"—the military side of the new Cold War.

In the first five days of October, the PLA Air Force conducted its largest-ever aerial incursion into Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone, dispatching a total of 150 fighter jets and bombers. This brings the total number of intrusions by Chinese military aircraft so far this year to 600, up from 380 in 2020. The drills are designed to train pilots for future wars and keep pressure on the DPP government and the US-led coalition. Actions by both sides will only escalate tensions.

Far from weakening support for Tsai Ing-wen's government, CCP pressure has strengthened her influence at home and prolonged the crisis of the opposition Kuomintang, which was forced to pander to the prevailing sentiments of Taiwanese nationalism and reduce support for closer ties with China . In an article in Foreign Affairs (October 5), Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen called for international support, claiming that Taiwan is on the "front line of a new ideological conflict."

Of course, in reality, the current world conflict has nothing to do with ideology, but is all about which imperialist ruling class will dominate the future global economy. American imperialism and Taiwan's capitalist tycoons had no problem with Chinese authoritarianism, at a time when Beijing was content to play the role of a global subcontractor based on its vast pool of cheap labor.

The sharpening of Taiwan's rhetoric, which is also an inevitable part of Taiwan's internal political struggle, could have dangerous repercussions by fueling Beijing's anxiety over Biden's shift in Taiwan policy. The Financial Times (October 12) warned in an editorial that "the danger of conflict over Taiwan is high".

As the Cold War stance hardened, a new kind of militarism was dominating the situation. This includes the development of a terrible new generation of nuclear weapons. China's successful test of a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile in August has sparked more debate at the Pentagon for increased arms budgets. A Pentagon report in November warned that China is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal and could have 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, three times the number today. Even so, however, it still pales in comparison to the U.S. nuclear stockpile of 3,750 nuclear warheads.

Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party announced a plan to increase the country's defense budget from 1% to 2% of GDP after the launch of the anti-China defense pact AUKUS, in which Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. are involved. Japan's official "pacifist" stance since 1945 is now a thing of the past. The imperialist cold war is a threat to working people everywhere, to democratic rights and to world peace. The answer is not to stand on the side of a fictional "lesser of two evils", but to build a mass socialist alternative to eliminate imperialism and war.

Meng Wanzhou is released, but Huawei is not so lucky

When Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of telecom giant Huawei, was released in September, she had been detained by Canadian authorities for nearly three years and awaited possible extradition to the United States to face charges of violating sanctions orders.

Meng Wanzhou is the eldest daughter of Huawei boss Ren Zhengfei (the 150th richest person in China in 2020), the equivalent of a "royal member" of the CCP. On the same day she flew back to China, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig boarded a flight back to Canada from Beijing. Chinese officials released them, citing unspecified "diseases". While to many it looked like a typical Cold War prisoner swap, both the U.S. and Canadian governments have vehemently denied there was any deal. Most likely, however, Biden facilitated Meng Wanzhou's release, throwing a non-strategic bone at Xi Jinping's regime to make room for the real strategic business of US imperialism, including strengthening its policy of containment towards China .

"we love you!"

Meng Wanzhou's welcome back home reveals some of the developments taking place in China today. State media were the loudest — 100 million people were said to have watched the live broadcast of Meng Wanzhou's arrival at Shenzhen Airport, and among the specially mobilized crowd, someone chanted: "You are a hero. We love you!" Senior officials from the Shenzhen and Guangdong provincial governments The official presided over the reception. The Communist Party's People's Daily declared Meng Wanzhou's return to China a "major victory for the Chinese people", suggesting that "no force can stop China's progress".

For propaganda purposes and the CCP regime's long-standing need for nationalism, Meng Wanzhou, a representative of a company associated with the brutal "996" work system (12 hours a day, 6 days a week) and "wolf culture", was transformed became a national hero. From the perspective of official media, the return of "Huawei Princess" is like the Chinese version of "Mandela Moment", or even the moment when Lenin arrived in Finland in 1917!

"Without a strong motherland, I would not have the freedom I have today," Meng Wanzhou said to the camera: "Thanks to my dear motherland, to the party and government, it is the splendid Chinese red that ignites the fire of faith in my heart, Light up the darkest moments of my life and lead me the long way home."

This flamboyant display of nationalism is not universally popular, as can be seen from the backlash on the Internet, especially when many netizens object to the Shenzhen government's severe power outages across China, with "Meng Wanzhou, welcome home!" "The slogan of the decision to illuminate the city's skyline. Meng Wanzhou has emerged from a bizarre legal case, but that's not the case for Huawei, which remains on the front lines of the U.S.-China tech war. The move by the U.S. and other Western governments to ban Huawei's 5G infrastructure from global telecom markets has only intensified since the U.S. blacklisted Huawei in 2019. In August, Huawei Chairman Xu Zhijun said its "purpose is to survive" as he reported a 30% drop in the company's revenue in the first half of 2021.

The Meng Wanzhou incident had a great impact on Canada-China relations. A poll released after Meng's release found that 76% of Canadians (up from 53% in 2019) want the government to ban Huawei from the country's 5G network. Almost as many are opposed to negotiating a trade deal with China. The Chinese regime’s decision to imprison the “two Michaels” is the result of Xi Jinping’s continued need to adopt a hard-line nationalist stance at home (the so-called “wolf warrior diplomacy”), which will only further weaken China’s global standing and alienate ordinary people , and fuels the anti-China strategy of Biden and U.S. imperialism.