- “The US is creating military assistance packages for Taiwan similar to those it creates for Ukraine ahead of a Ukraine-style proxy conflict Washington seeks to create with Beijing;”
- “The US is also passing legislation serving as a stepping stone toward pushing its Taiwan proxies toward declaring “independence” and triggering a conflict with the rest of China;”
- “Meanwhile, Russian and Chinese warships approach “US shores,” however upon closer examination, these incidents are happening near the Aleutian Islands closer to Russian than to the continental US;”
I love how US isn’t even done losing their proxy war in Ukraine before trying to get into a war with a much more powerful opponent on whom they depend on economically. 🤡
It may not be as many think. Sure there are those delusional types who think they can beat China.
But there is a more important thing at hand. Just as the Ukraine conflict allowed the US to force Europe to decouple from and embargo Russia at the expense of themselves (economic suicide), I am now certain that certain prominent thinkers in the US are certain a conflict over Taiwan regardless of outcome, especially in fact with decisive Chinese victory and reclamation will allow them to force Europe to decouple from China at least to a larger degree than they have and to speed up tech embargoes against them.
Do not miss the grand strategy on the chessboard for the movements of individual pieces (US victory or defeat over another military power). The US may not even get directly involved. If anything I’d suspect they’d plan to stick mainly to pulling something to humiliate China like say arranging for the looted treasures from the mainland the KMT took with them to be loaded onto US military ships just before the fighting starts to deny China it’s national treasures. Crate them over to the US in full British style and claim they’re safer with the US than the ebil history hating gommies. That plus bombing TSMC by missile strikes as any PLA assault begins would be a less risky playbook. They could claim the PLA attacked the foundry or that Taiwan’s forces themselves destroyed it heroically to deny the ebil gommunists it or just not report on it. The main reporting would be in the vein of “the r*pe of democracy, evil Chinese communist invasion of peaceful, western-style Taiwan democracy” to stir up public sentiment. Demands for China to be isolated and punished, claims of atrocities being committed, of imposition of the horrible Chinese dictatorship on the poor westernized honorary whites of Taiwan, etc.
The US cannot make Europe decouple from China otherwise. It would just be too bad for them, they have their own interests but Ukraine has shown them to be fools easily taken in the name of upholding liberal values and if anything may have been a test run for Taiwan to test the obedience and reaction. Because make no mistakes, the US knows it is doomed, its hegemony at an end if it cannot encircle and destroy China.
The population at large would be upset and restless by a sudden unexplained decoupling because of the damage it would do. But as shown by Europeans enduring harsh winters without gas, they will most likely grumble and shift the blame for their woes to China if the US can first justify such a harsh decoupling with preserving democracy and liberal values. Maybe the US won’t decouple as much, maybe they’re just soaking Europe and will try and force industry that had relocated from Europe to China to the US instead. Maybe they intend to go all the way. Plunge the proles into a lower quality of life while having a prepared excuse for blaming the evil communist foreign power.
That plus some “worker disciplining tools” (treasury dept official quote) like inflation could mean the ability to slowly re-shore some small amount of stuff to the US, oh most of it would be moved to “friendly” capitalist nations like India and other places in south-east-Asia. That the proles no longer have as nice of a quality of life, that there are shortages would be a short-term problem for a decade that they are sure their propaganda would ensure the proles would endure while blaming anyone and everyone but them.
There are two things standing in the way of this. 1) the financial bourgeoisie in the US have invested heavily in China, a full embargo and decoupling would be disastrous. Unfortunately for them, the industrial bourgeoisie representing the domestic defense and intelligence industries seem to have the ear of politicians on matters of foreign policy, ooops. 2) China refusing to be drawn and just giving up Taiwan for the time being (likely decades). This would be an incredible sacrifice and not one I am even sure they should make because if they allow the US this bottom line to cross the US will attempt to cross all others and show them not a bit of respect in a desperate attempt to goad them into something else should this fail. It would also mean China would eventually have to retake Taiwan by force decades into the future when more of its population is westernized, has been taught to hate China, hate their Chinese heritage, identify as something else and is otherwise heavily propagandized and divorced from the mainland.
I very much agree with your rationale here, and I recall listening to Michael Hudson talk about something similar as well recently. He pointed out that US simply can’t compete with China in terms of cost of production, so instead they want to prevent western countries from trading with China and effectively become a monopoly manufacturer for the west.
I really hope they don’t succeed. It will without a doubt allow capitalism to limp on longer, western hegemony and dominance to last another 20-50 years. It could lead to unforeseen things like revolutions in Europe as a result of hollowing them out buuut I’m pessimistic about that, I think the US will point to Africa and tell Europe if they don’t want to starve, they better get those Africans under their boot again, get to exploiting, and get them away from China and Russia’s orbit, start stealing, installing fascist dictatorships, start up the mass murders again, we know the playbook as do they, Indonesia, occupied Korea, Chile, etc.
Because Africa too is a threat to this plan. It’s a developing continent, full of young people, full of potential, minerals, China is forming partnerships, that has to be stopped, African markets cannot be allowed to be grown and opened up to Chinese goods or kicking them out of Europe will merely slow China and drive them and Africa closer together. So a lot of moving pieces but it does center on Africa in a way. If China wins Africa, can with Russia keep them from controlling the continent (big IF), it won’t matter if Europe is under the US boot and obediently not buying a thing, it maybe set’s China’s final triumph and the west’s complete demise back a decade but it locks them out of a lot of resources and makes decoupling from the new China/Russia sphere rather hard for them but relatively easier for Russia/China/free-Africa to do.
Same, ideally Europeans will suffer an outbreak of common sense in the next couple of years and start pursuing their sovereign interests instead of continuing to act as a doormat for the US. I think that EU has to die in order for that to happen though. EU is basically a bureaucracy that isn’t accountable to the people of any individual member of the EU, and it’s very clearly become the biggest enforcer of pro US policy over the course of the war. Countries have to break out of EU in order to normalize relations with Russia and China again. I also think that something like EU can only work in times of economic prosperity because different members have very different economies. For example, tourism is a large part of Spain’s economy while it’s manufacturing in Germany. They necessarily have different economic interests because of that. When the pie is big and there’s enough to go around, this isn’t a problem. However, when it shrinks then there is disagreement where the remaining funds should be allocated. As Europe slides into recession, there’s going to be a lot of infighting since each country will want to prevent further slide in conditions of their own people at the expense of others. Southern Europe got fucked over to prop up northern Europe back in 2008, and I don’t think the same trick will work this time.
I hope the Taiwan “proxies” take America for all it has. “Oh yeah, sure, we’re totally gonna declare independence. We just need more aid first!”
I think Ukraine kinda played that game and now they’re sending their young men into a meat grinder…
I’m not suggesting there’s a “good” choice here. If the US placed a country between itself and another large power like Russia or in this case China the proxy country is gonna get fucked over horribly in some capacity.
It’s wild to me that any non-US in the world still believe the US gives a flying shit about their countries after witnessing how the US purposely courted Ukraine for years dangling NATO over its head but when the shit got real they just threw their hands up and said “best we can do is some supplies!” Literally led them down a path that antagonized their neighboring country, got invaded, and then did the classic con job of putting their hands up like “woah woah woah this is your problem. Hey, I didn’t invade you! That guy did! Now sign this paper and trade all your valuables for some guns and bombs.”
I understand why capitalists and the evil fucks in charge of countries would go along with such plans (money), but if any normal people with no capital or power trust the US at this point they’re probably beyond reaching.
Unfortunately, the separatist government on Taiwan has a 40% core base who firmly believe that the USA, Japan, and South Korea will definitely come help them fight the PLA. In fact, they rely upon it, because in actuality they themselves are NOT joining the army, which is having difficulties with recruitment. But they sure believe that the US with its awesome navy will crush the PLAN, since the mainland is practically falling apart in some type of 1970s communist dystopia.
While there may have been legitimate reasons for these folks’ reluctance to change their life and become a part of the mainland–many of which could probably have been addressed and negotiated if everyone were calm and relations were frequent and friendly as they were 15 years ago–they are also the product of intense anti-mainland propaganda that includes rewritten history books and rampant media misinformation.
So yeah, that’s why these things always work so well. First they have a whole system of information warfare that salts the ground, and then they use people’s genuine hopes and wishes against them, and even though everyone knows they’re being used, they still believe they can get what they want as a result of being used.
I don’t think any of this aid is given but lend-leased. At worst they’re debt traps.
Debt is only a trap if you intend to repay it 🤫
Just get Taiwan to join the EU, then it’ll be paid back same as Ukraine.
The American economy cannot survive for long without conflict, without the risk of stalling and collapse.
I fucking dare you america
