A CHINESE attack on Taiwan is not imminent, the top US general Mark Milley has told the BBC, but the US is nervously watching it ‘very closely’.
Taiwan is where the remnants of the defeated Kuomintang fled in 1949 after the victory of the Chinese revolution, led by the working class and the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese government correctly states that Taiwan is a breakaway province of China and that it must be re-unified with the mainland, by force if necessary.
It has accused the US of supporting Taiwan’s independence and vowed to ‘resolutely crush’ any such declaration of independence.
The decision by the US-UK axis to supply Ukraine with billions of dollars and pounds of military equipment has brought the issue of ‘whither China’ to the fore.
Recently, China has been sending scores of warplanes into Taiwan’s air defence zone, while the US has sent naval ships through Taiwan’s waters, with US President Joe Biden stating that China was ‘flirting with danger’, by flying its warplanes close to Taiwan.
Beijing responded by accusing the US of ‘violating its promise on Taiwan’ and ‘interfering’ in China’s affairs, adding the country ‘would not hesitate to fight’ to prevent Taiwan from formally declaring independence.
Asked whether he thought China would attack Taiwan, General Milley, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, told the BBC: ‘Could, should, would, those are key words there.
‘In terms of capability, I think China clearly is developing a capability. President Xi has mentioned that in public forums, he’s mentioned it in speeches, that he has challenged the PLA, (China’s People’s Liberation Army) to develop the capability to attack Taiwan at some point in time. And whether they would or not, it’s a political choice. It’s a policy choice, that will be based on of how the Chinese view the cost risk benefit at the time.
‘There’s no indications or warnings of anything imminent at this time. But again, we watch it very, very closely,’ General Milley added.
The US has no official diplomatic recognition of Taiwan, but sells arms to it as part of its Taiwan Relations Act, which states that the US must provide the island with the means to defend itself.
At the same time, it maintains formal ties with China and also diplomatically acknowledges China’s position that there is only one Chinese government.
However, the current crisis with Russia has shown that the period of more or less peaceful coexistence with Russia and China, with the exception of the Korean and Vietnam wars, is over.
The capitalist world has developed an oil addiction as far as Russia is concerned and is struggling to break it, with price inflation soaring as the export of Russian and Ukrainian wheat and oil to the world market has stalled.
The capitalist world has also determined to follow the UK-US example of confronting Russia by supplying masses of military equipment to the Ukraine, and dismissing the rampant inflation that has followed and is pauperising millions of workers in the UK, US, the EU and Asia, as a ‘price worth paying’ to ‘defend the freedom’ of the UK, the EU and the US to exploit and dominate the planet
Russia supplied the world with its oil, and wheat, while since the end of the Vietnam war China had become the workshop of the world, supplying the US, EU and the UK with its basic factory produced commodities.
The US is now leading the charge to drive Russia back and prevent China rivalling the USA itself.
Capitalism is now fighting for its life. We have seen with the galloping inflation that its Ukrainian tactic has stoked up, that its target is the living standards of the working people of the planet, who have now been told by PM Johnson that they are lucky to be ‘free’ and in this case to have the freedom to starve.
It was Lenin who predicted in his book ‘The Awakening of Asia’ that the masses of Asia with their drive for communism would set the seal for the victory of the world socialist revolution.
China is right to assert that Taiwan remains its province, that must be returned to it. Russia is right to sense that this time round the imperialists are seeking to maintain their world system by destroying it.
One thing is certain. This is that the working people of the world will reject the diktat of Johnson and Biden that they must sacrifice their living standards so that capitalism can survive. Now is the time to build sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International worldwide to complete the victory of the world socialist revolution, consigning capitalism to the dustbin of history!
