U.S. and Chinese Imperialisms Face Off at the Taiwan Strait Pt. 1

The worsening of the crisis of world capitalism increases tensions between the two main imperialist powers: China and the United States. In addition to the trade war that did not end with the agreement signed last January, they are deployed in arms in the waters of the Pacific Ocean. The confrontation unfolds in an area that includes the East and South China Seas, the control of which is disputed, particularly in the straits and on the tiny islands which have become important strategic positions.

Also in the area is the large island of Taiwan, which plays a crucial role.

The island, following the events of the civil war fought at the end of the Second World War between the armies of the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang, still proclaims itself the “real China”, as opposed to the People’s Republic. But its current status, quite peculiar, should not be considered on the basis of historical or diplomatic rights, with all the consequent ideological paraphernalia, but as the product of a relationship of forces – and not between Beijing and Taipei but between the two centers of world imperialism, the People’s Republic and the United States. The Taiwan issue represents an open rift in the clash between the two powers, and the ongoing skirmishes in the area reveal the fierce struggle to determine its fate, which can only be resolved by force, in the general clash between bourgeois states.

The role of Taiwan

Although only 150 kilometers off the Chinese coast, Taiwan has belatedly developed stable relations with the mainland. Inhabited for about thirty thousand years by Austronesian peoples, it remained for centuries on the margins of the Chinese imperial power, unitary since 221 BC, which did not care about this large island, instead used by merchants and continental pirates as a refuge against the imperial center and base of their operations throughout East Asia. The Chinese Empire, which based its economy on well-organized agricultural production, had no relevant interests in maritime trade, much less expansion towards the lands beyond the surrounding seas: with its political strength it had established a subjugation of its peoples resembling a modern tax system. Instead, it had to fear the threat of invasion by nomadic peoples from the north.

Taiwan’s importance emerged with the beginning of the maritime and commercial expansion of the European powers. Dutch merchants arrived there in 1623, built fortifications there, and attempted to enslave the local population. Nascent European capitalism needed commercial bases in the Far East, but was not yet able to touch a solid and well-organized power like that of the Chinese Empire. In fact, the Dutch stay in Taiwan lasted less than forty years: in 1662, after nine months of siege, the Dutch were expelled by the forces of Koxinga, a military leader from a wealthy family of merchants also dedicated to piracy. A kingdom was born that lasted until 1683, when the Manchu dynasty of the Qing, now ruler of China, subdued the island of Taiwan.

Imperial rule over Taiwan lasted two centuries, but was unstable due to the presence of proud indigenous peoples in the mountains of the hinterland, who could never be compelled to pay imperial taxes.

When inter-imperialist pressure on the Chinese Empire led to wars, Taiwan was invaded: in 1840 by the British during the First Opium War, and by the French in 1884 in the Franco-Chinese War. Between 1894 and 1895 the island was involved in the Sino-Japanese war: with yet another “unequal treaty”, the Treaty of Shimonoseki, China, in addition to renouncing any claim on Korea, ceded the Liaotung peninsula, the Pescadores Islands and Taiwan to Japan.

The Japanese ruled Taiwan for 50 years, until the end of World War II. The Taiwanese resistance displayed two different trends: Chinese nationalism and the Taiwanese self-determination movement. But the strong Japanese military was able to crush any rebellion. Under Japan, industries and infrastructures were built in Taiwan: towards the end of its rule, industrial production had overtaken agricultural production.

U.S. Protection

With Japan’s defeat in World War II, Taiwan returned to China, then ruled by the Kuomintang. The civil war between the CCP and the Kuomintang, which had fought together in an anti-Japanese alliance, soon resumed. The nationalist government of the Kuomintang, after its defeat by the armies of the CCP, which proclaimed the birth of the People’s Republic on October 1, 1949, withdrew to Taiwan along with what was left of its army, the bureaucratic apparatus, and many leading lights of the Chinese bourgeoisie. Taiwan, ruled by the Kuomintang, became an independent state with the name of the Republic of China. Since 1949, Taipei has claimed the territory of mainland China and Mongolia, while Beijing considers the island of Taiwan to be its own rebel province. The PRC grants diplomatic relations only to states that do not recognize Taiwan’s sovereignty.

Washington has entered this opposition, guaranteeing the existence of Taiwan against the otherwise safe aggression and annexation to the PRC. The events from 1949 to the present show that only the protective umbrella of American imperialism has prevented the PRC from extending its control over Taiwan.

The Kuomintang, in retreat, had occupied and left armed forces on the islands of Hainan, Kinmen (or Quemoy), and Matsu, a few kilometers from the Chinese coast. A few months later, between March and May 1950, Beijing launched a military operation against the island of Hainan. Although the landing was carried out by fishing boats – Maoist China did not yet have a real navy – the operation was successful, and Hainan was snatched from the nationalists, an action made possible by American non-intervention.

But with the outbreak of the war in Korea in June 1950, the United States strengthened its position by identifying the island of Taiwan as a fundamental base for operations in Asia – “an unsinkable aircraft carrier”, in the words of General MacArthur. The United States imposed the “neutralization” of the Strait of Formosa and sent the Seventh Fleet there. In addition to guarantees of protection, the US began to supply Taiwan with armaments. From its earliest months, the survival of nationalist Taiwan depended on the protection of American imperialism.

This condition was confirmed between 1954 and 1955 during the so-called First Crisis of the Strait of Formosa when, in response to a massive mobilization of nationalist troops on the archipelagos of Kinmen and Matsu, the People’s Republic responded by bombing them. The protection of the United States took the concrete form of a Mutual Security Pact, which also gave a glimpse of the possibility of a total war with Maoist China, up to the use of atomic weapons. Faced with such a threat, Beijing stopped bombing.

The truce lasted three years: in August 1958, the Chinese army resumed striking with Quemoy artillery, starting a Second Crisis in the Strait. Along with the massive bombings, preparations for a landing also began. But, in addition to the strenuous resistance of the Nationalist army, the Americans responded by strengthening the Seventh Fleet in the waters of the Strait. Weapons, ammunition, and supplies reached the Taiwanese army. Already, towards the end of September, Beijing was forced to negotiate a truce, and on October 6 declared a unilateral ceasefire.

Hostilities between Beijing and Taipei continued until 1979, but the armed clashes were replaced by a propaganda war between the two governments. Meanwhile, in 1971, the People’s Republic had achieved an important diplomatic victory, with the approval by the UN General Assembly of a resolution that withdrew the recognition of Taiwan and recognized the People’s Republic as the only legitimate government of China.

In the 1970s, relations between Beijing and Washington stabilized on the basis of three conditions imposed by the People’s Republic: respect for the principle of “one China”, which prohibits any country from having diplomatic relations with Beijing and Taipei at the same time; cancellation of the previous mutual defense treaty between the United States and Taiwan; and withdrawal of American troops from the island. After the further rapprochement that took place in 1972, the communiqué for the normalization of bilateral relations between the United States and mainland China arrived in 1979.

But in the same year Washington enacted the Taiwan Relations Act, a series of bilateral relations – formally “with the people of Taiwan”, not with the State of the Republic of China – which guaranteed their safety by committing to the supply of armaments. The clear ambiguity of the United States was motivated by its desire to use Beijing against Moscow, without, however, abandoning Taiwan, a fundamental pawn for maneuvers in the Far East.

In any case, towards the end of the seventies a new phase began in China that gradually led to its integration with the world economy. The new bourgeois China put aside the ardor of its early years, in need of commercial relations to give vent to the development of national capitalism. With respect to Taiwan, there was a commitment to the United States for a peaceful and long-term reunification, in exchange for the reduction of arms supplies to the island. Obviously, the proclamations of diplomacy only serve to conceal the real interests of the states, and their agreements are ready to be torn up for the needs of capital or as soon as their balance of power changes.

That pacification in the area is not possible was demonstrated by a Third Crisis of the Strait in the mid-1990s, originating from a series of Chinese missile tests between 1995 and 1996 in order to influence the first presidential elections in Taiwan. Also on this occasion the United States intervened by sending two aircraft carriers into those waters: once again China had to retrace its steps. The time for a confrontation was not yet ripe – the gap that separated it from the enormous war power of the United States was too great.

But China has continued its economic growth at a dizzying pace, and at the same time has been able to invest huge resources in the modernization of its army and navy, achieving, even if not a strength comparable to that of the United States, a rearmament capable of competing with its rival. Influence in the Western Pacific, control over “its” seas and islands is only possible by countering the military presence of the United States. In this context, Taiwan represents the main objective of Chinese expansionism: annexing Taiwan means wresting that “unsinkable aircraft carrier” off its coasts, opening the way to full control of the South and East China Seas first, then to expansion into the Pacific.

So, although China officially aims at a peaceful reunification with Taiwan, proposing the formula of “one country two systems”, there are documents in which it states that one of the main purposes of its rearmament is to develop an apparatus sufficient to take Taiwan by force. And in recent times, official tones have also shown greater aggression, comparing Taiwan to separatist regions such as Xinjiang, and denouncing it as a threat to national security. The latest defense “White Paper”, dated July 2019, states that it has become necessary to oppose the “independence of Taiwan”. Xi Jinping himself at the 19th CCP Congress referred to Taiwan in particularly harsh tones: “Separatist efforts will be condemned by the Chinese people and punished by history […] every inch of the territory of our great homeland cannot and must not remain separate from China ”. If the “resurgence of the nation” promised by China’s false “communists” is to succeed in its goal of national unification, Taiwan will be the first of what nationalists in the PRC call the “six wars” that China will have to fight to regain “unredeemed” territories.But a war for Taiwan cannot be confined to a local war, due to the nature of the place, due to the size of the states involved, because fighting for Taiwan means competing for dominance in the Pacific: there would not only be the intervention of the United States, but of all the other forces in the region interested in countering Chinese hegemony…

To be continued in the October edition of The Communist Party.