For several years now, the world economy has been showing signs of a global crisis, affecting not only underdeveloped economies but also fully developed states such as the US or the EU. One of the signs of instability and unease increasing around the world is the rapid growth of the arms trade.

Data on arms transfers are often concealed, and so there are several versions of how they have evolved over the past few years. In March 2022, for example, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) published its report on the global arms trade. According to its data, the global arms trade declined slightly between 2017 and 2021, primarily due to lower deliveries to Latin America (LA). This news could be to the advantage of the US, as many blame Washington for the extrajudicial killings of Colombian and Mexican drug traffickers, which led to a struggle between the surviving drug lords for vacated spheres of influence. This struggle has turned into a real war, which claims thousands of lives every year in LA. The decline in arms shipments to Latin American countries suggests that this war may have been on the wane. Probably until the next US force actions.

However, as mentioned above, according to SIPRI, arms trade declined only marginally between 2017 and 2021, as the decline in shipments to LA was almost entirely offset by a rapid increase in arms exports to East Asia, Europe and Oceania.

But there are other data as well. For example, the Russian Center for Analysis of World Arms Trade (CAWAT) gives the following picture for 2018-2021: in 2018, global trade in “conventional weapons” (that is, all weapons and military equipment not related to weapons of mass destruction) was over $76 billion. In 2019, this figure was $79.7 billion, and in 2020 it was over $85.4 billion. In 2021, according to various sources, the global arms trade was about $100 billion. It is believed to be the largest volume since the Cold War.

Given the secrecy of the subject, it is hard to say who provides more reliable information: the pro-Western SIPRI or the pro-Kremlin CAWAT. It is much more interesting to see where they agree. SIPRI and CAWAT are unanimous on the following points:

As always, the US topped the list of arms suppliers, accounting for about 40% of all arms exports by the end of 2021.

Russia comes next in the top ten arms exporters. It should be recalled that the Russian defense industry, established back in Soviet times, was originally “geared” primarily towards national defense and aid to friendly states, with commercial interests being a secondary consideration.

France, Italy, China, Germany, Spain and Israel are next in the top ten according to CAWAT. Interestingly, there has been a movement in this group between 2018 and 2021, with China moving from sixth to fifth place. As for SIRPI, as of the end of 2021, it gives the Celestial Empire an even higher, fourth place after France. Thus, despite significant differences in information from SIRPI and CAWAT, both organizations agree that the PRC has been very successful in the arms trade.

Having developed into a superpower with the world’s second largest economy, in recent years China has been actively building up its military might by developing and producing modern weapons and military equipment in large quantities sufficient for both the Chinese army and for exports. According to some estimates, China’s arms exports are growing faster than those of other countries, and a new reshuffle of the top exporters’ rankings is not long in coming.

It should be noted that, despite all the negative elements that are associated with periods of growth in an economy sector such as the military trade, it should be recognized that arms production is a very high-tech, knowledge-intensive industry that stimulates scientific and technological development and generates large revenues. Therefore, military technology and its exports are not only means of competition between states, but also spheres of that competition.

Of course, to win in arms export competition, the quality of the arms produced and their price are important: every state that cares about its security wants to provide its troops with effective weapons in the right quantities. However, the relationship between the purchasing state and the arms supplying country also plays a significant role. No one understands certain types of weapons better than the manufacturer, and by purchasing weapons, especially high-tech ones, the importer makes his defense dependent on equipment whose characteristics are all known to the exporter. Therefore, arms are usually bought from countries with which, at the very least, one is not in conflict. Often the purchase of arms is a friendly gesture on the part of the importer towards the supplier, a demonstration of trust, and so arms are often bought from those countries with which they want to maintain friendly relations, sometimes even if the weapon is not the best in terms of price/quality ratio. Thus, arms exports can be used to assess current international relations.

In 2020, for example, the main purchasers of weapons from the PRC were from the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East. China is competing with the US for influence in both of these regions, and the success of Chinese sales suggests that its struggle with America is also going well. The situation in South Asia is also revealing: India is the most powerful and wealthy state in the region. It does not buy weapons from China because it is its old and bitter rival. Instead, the People’s Republic of Bangladesh has acquired many Chinese weapons, which is interesting: for a long time it was considered a zone of Indian influence, then there was a competition between India and China for it, and now it seems that China is prevailing. Pakistan, another South Asian state, also purchases a lot of Chinese arms. On the one hand, this is not surprising, as Pakistan has very strained and even hostile relations with India. On the other hand, in past years, the US was considered Pakistan’s main military and technical partner. Now, Pakistan prefers to cooperate with Beijing.

It can be concluded that the state of the arms market clearly reflects the situation in international relations: China is steadily gaining weight on the world stage, gradually overtaking its competitors, and its arms exports serve both as a means of increasing Chinese influence and as an indicator of it.

Dmitry Bokarev, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

February 28, 1972 was marked by a major event that would shape the development of global political trends for decades to come. We can still notice the impact that this event had today, but it is now viewed very differently by the major powers that were behind it some five decades ago.

The author is referring to the signing of the so-called Shanghai Communiqué by US President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai that represented the PRC. The document was but one of the three fundamental agreements that defined the development of bilateral ties between the US and China.

The other two were the joint communiqué signed on 16, 1978, which established full diplomatic relations between the US and China in two weeks’ time. (in effect since January 1, 1979), and the communiqué issued on August 17, 1982, which regulated a rather minor issue (which has now become a stumbling block of the modern bilateral ties) of US arms supplies to Taiwan. It should be noted that official relations with the island (one of the most loyal allies of the US in the region) were severed by Washington at the time of signing the second communiqué.

All of these documents have a significance, but it was the first that marked a turning point in US-China relations, putting an end to a period of confrontation to launch a phase of increasing (comprehensive, which should also be noted) cooperation. This cooperation undergoes radical changes since the second half of the 2000s, with these changes defining the nature of the current stage of the “Great Game”.

The signing of the Shanghai Communiqué was preceded by a brief period, when the parties were mapping each other’s positions on key issues in both bilateral relations and global politics, a process known as “ping-pong diplomacy”. This period was marked by Henry Kissinger’s visit to China, six months prior to the signing of the Shanghai Communiqué. The parties must have agreed on the contents of the communique in advance during Kissinger’s stay in China. Visits to China paid by top US officials at six-month intervals since the early 1970s represented the first official tie established between the two countries since the founding of the PRC, that took place in 1949.

The principal notion of the Shanghai Communiqué was an acknowledgement of the need for a complete normalization of US-China relations based on respect for individual interests of the parties. This document already maked a shift towards a radical change in the US position on the Taiwan issue, which resulted in the establishment of US-China diplomatic relations seven years later. The part of the text that reflects the US position on the issue acknowledges that all Chinese living on both sides of the Taiwan Strait agree that there is but one China and that Taiwan is part of China. The US also announced the withdrawal of all US forces from the island, which finished by the time the diplomatic relations between the PRC and US were established.

The part when the parties opposed the establishment of a dominant force in the region was also noteworthy. Experts agree that this statement was influenced by a dramatic rise of influence that  the USSR enjoyed in the Southeast Asia as a consequence of its all-out support of Vietnam against the armed US aggression. In fact the very signing of comunique implied there were prospects of bilateral cooperation between the US and the PRC in the fight against the USSR.

This, in the author’s view, predetermined the negative outcome of the Cold War for the latter. It is important to ackonwledge, however, that no one in the US at the time could predict the exact date of the final victory over the USSR. The process of rapprochement with the PRC outlined in the Shanghai Communiqué was therefore seen as a long-term strategy that was to last for decades.

Without taking the above mentioned facts into the consideration, it is impossible to understand the current neutral-negative attitude in the US towards the document that looks like one of the country’s biggest foreign policy victories. The current US administration paid no attention to the aniversary. At the regular press conference held on February 28, this year, Department of State spokesman Ned Price clearly wasn’t looking too confident when a persistent journalist tried several times to get an explanation for such a disregard towards such a memorable date.

But at the expert level, both Kissinger (who lived to this day) and Nixon are held in contempt, with the main accusations leveled against them being: “We have nurtured our strongest enemy with our own hands.” Putting emotions aside, those accusations are not without merit, since the US provided full support to Deng Xiaoping’s rapid economic development course, leaving ideological differences aside for the moment being. Nine months after the establishment of diplomatic relations, China already gained the status of “the most preferred trade partner of the United States.”

It is not uncommon in the American expert community to see statements like “we would never have made those concessions to the PRC (particularly on the Taiwan issue) if we had known in advance that our main opponent was to crumble in late 80s, early 90s.”

But it’s easy enough to say that with the wisdom of hindsight. It is not unusual for recent allies in the fight against a common enemy to find themselves opposing each other in the next round of the Great Game. The period of World War II is an illustrative example of this, and the decades that preceded it (including World War I) as well as a significant stretch of the post-war period should also be taken into consideration.

A striking contrast to the current attitude in the US towards this anniversary date was a massive celebration organized in the PRC. There was even a concert where ‘the young represent our shared future’ (. Moreover, a videoconference was held with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Henry Kissinger as the main participants. That is, China was represented at the event by one of the top government officials, while the US representation is difficult to describe in any meaningful way. These days Henry Kissinger is almost a hundred years old and he’s no more than an exhibit in a museum of US diplomatic history.

In general, the commemorative events held by the PRC represented one of the signals from Beijing towards Washington that it wanted to restore the “spirit of the early 1970s” in the bilateral ties with the preservation, of course, of all the cornerstone positions that Beijing was able to secure at that time. This is particularly relevant to the One China Principle and the Taiwan issue. It should be noted that there are signals from US businesses, too, that the bilateral economic potential should be preserved.

As for the PRC, the report that the PRC-controlled Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is not about to go break the anti-Russian sanctions regime imposed by the collective  West is particularly noteworthy. And there’s no complaining about it, as Beijing has its own interests, and Russia’s should be the one solving its own problems. In the current configuration, the countries are standing “back-to-back”, which not the same as standing “side-by-side” (with the latter posture being desirable).

What lessons can Russia draw from the 1979 Shanghai Communiqué? It should be noted that it’s nowhere near the situation in which China found itself in the second half of the 1950s, which demanded very unorthodox and rather unexpected moves from its leadership.

It’s noteworthy in its recent history there were moments where Russia was in a similar position (specifically, in the first half of the 1920s) to the one that China manged to escape. And the present situation requires as much diplomatic prowess from its representatives, as we’re in the period of “inter-imperialist contradictions” yet again, and the divergences in the positions of the major players on virtually all issues of world politics (including the prospect of relations with Russia) are visible to the naked eye.

The current proponents of the USSR 2.0 project, however, should not lose sight of the role of the “external factor” both in getting out of the foreign policy blockade and the phenomenal process of industrialization of the USSR 1.0. The actors that played the role of the “external factor” back then were not only the US, but also its future enemy – Germany.

It cannot be ruled out that, for present-day Russia, contemporary China, its regional rival Japan, and India could all serve the role of an “external factor”. Generally speaking, this would be consistent with a process (seemingly irreversible) of shifting the focus of global political processes from the Euro-Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific region. However, this trend would not be contradicted by the involvement of the US. All the more so since Washington itself is increasingly positioning itself as an “Indo-Pacific power”.

These are, in brief, the history and the modern interpretation (including for the Russian Federation) of the 1972 US-China Shanghai Communiqué, one of the most remarkable political documents of the second half of the last century.

Vladimir Terekhov, expert on the issues of the Asia-Pacific region, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Against the backdrop of the seriousness of Ukraine’s Western-backed preparations for a dramatic escalation and aggression against Donbass and Luhansk, including with US-funded biological weapons, China has rolled out its defense budget for 2022. It happened on the opening day of the fifth annual session of the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC). Usually these annual announcements of Chinese military expenditures hit the headlines, but in 2022 Beijing’s 7.1% rise in defense expenditures is overshadowed by a war unleashed by the West in Europe.

In monetary terms, China’s defense expenditures for 2022 is 1.45045 trillion yuan ($229.39 billion). Indeed, the budget released on March 5 confirms the continuing rise in expenditure. Last year, China increased expenditures by 6.8% to 1.355 trillion yuan ($209.4 billion).  The total increase of around $20 billion this year is actually the biggest ever (the second highest was $13.4 billion in 2021 and the biggest was $13.6 billion in 2014).

Two years ago, China approved an increase in defense expenditures of only 6.6%, a drop due to the start of COVID-19. In previous years, the budget has increased by 7.5% (2019) and 8.1% (2018) each year. Also, this is the seventh consecutive year that the defense budget has only grown in single-digit percentages, highlighting that the serene days of double-digit growth are long gone. Threat perceptions may change over time, but China continues to prioritize spending on the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) regardless of pretexts for the increase.

Anonymous analysts quoted by China’s Global Times said the budget was “steady and reasonable at a time when China needs to modernize its military capabilities to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity amid severe external threats and an unstable security environment.” Chinese commentators also cited “provocative” US actions, such as warships sailing through the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea. The border confrontation with India has also not been resolved, even after almost two years, and this requires additional money to maintain stability in the region.

Chinese analysts argue that despite military threats from the US and other countries, “China is not interested in joining an arms race, and the country’s defense policy is defensive in nature.” In the future, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will expect the PLA to have more military capabilities so that it can effectively confront its neighbors, such as India, as well as South China Sea claimants and the US. Chinese leaders say they are prepared to use force to defend their territory, so the PLA must be a credible tool of deterrence.

There is a striking difference between the PLA and the quality of the bewildered Ukrainian conscripts, who now only scatter at the sight of Russian troops or willingly surrender, asking to be fed. The PLA is taught that their composition must serve Xi Jinping, the CCP and the nation. With such strong ideological indoctrination among Chinese soldiers, there would be no hesitation if they were ordered to attack any enemy.

China has the second largest defense budget in the world after the US, although Beijing still spends less than a third of what Washington does. President Joe Biden has requested a budget of around $770 billion for the coming financial year. In fact, the US spends more than the other ten largest countries combined trying to demonstrate its willingness to remain a superpower, ready to solve any domestic, and especially foreign, policy issues with brute force. Of course, it is difficult to compare China and the US directly. The PLA benefits from a non-market economy where equipment is cheaper and the military has greater purchasing power than in competitive markets such as the US. Moreover, the Pentagon also deploys troops and assets around the world, while China largely stays at home.

Beijing has not given any details on how the money will be distributed. According to some estimates, about 40% will go for equipment, both new and to maintain existing stocks. Total secrecy makes it impossible to determine exactly what China’s actual defense budget is. Many areas, such as the space program, extrabudgetary revenues from military commercial enterprises, defense mobilization funds and maintenance costs of provincial military bases, are not reflected in its defense budget. Additional funding such as military pensions and allowances, civilian/double-use research and development, and Central Military Commission responsibilities such as the People’s Armed Police and the Chinese Coast Guard are also not part of the defense budget. Both latter paramilitary organizations will support the PLA during the war.

Foreign analysts agree that the true budget is much higher than the stated amount, although there is some debate as to how much. According to some estimates, the real budget is 25% higher than declared, while others say it could be almost 40%. Undoubtedly, the difference between Chinese and US expenditures is much smaller than it appears on paper.

Beijing said in its government performance report that in 2021, China made major strides in strengthening national defense and the armed forces, getting off to a good start in this endeavor in the 14th Five-Year Plan period, and in 2022, China will work toward the goals for the centenary of the People’s Liberation Army in 2027. The report adds that the PLA will upgrade military logistics systems and establish a modern weapons and equipment management system more quickly. In addition, emphasis will be placed on continuing the reform of national defense and the armed forces; enhancing innovation in defense science and technology; and implementing a strategy to strengthen the armed forces by training competent personnel for the new era. Not forgotten are the precepts for managing the armed forces in accordance with law and strict discipline; promoting the qualitative development of the armed forces; and improving the structure of defense science, technology and industry.

A prime example to be seen this year will be the launch of the PLA Navy’s next generation aircraft carrier, Type 003, which is currently under construction. It differs from the two aircraft carriers in that it dispenses with a ramp and instead uses catapults to launch aircraft. Other priorities for 2022 are increasing production of J-20 stealth fighters and modernizing the nuclear arsenal of the PLA’s missile force.

China is closely monitoring the Russian special operation in Ukraine. Just as it scrutinized the lessons of the two wars unleashed by the US against Iraq in 1990-91 and 2003, it will be analyzing the results of this fierce special operation between Russia and the collective West led by an aggressive US for years to come.

The current fashionable priorities in the CCP are mechanization, informatization and intellectualization, the three components of the PLA’s modernization as it seeks to dominate the digital, cyber and networked world of military operations. These are some of the areas where Russia has expertise, especially in terms of a possible joint war. The latter is a priority for the PLA, even if it still has a long way to go to coordinate land, sea and air forces into a unified and integrated force.

In recent decades, given the experience of the Russian army, the PLA has prioritized airborne command and control through such means as KJ-500 aircraft, plus the introduction of electronic warfare aircraft such as the J-16D and various types of Y-8 / Y-9. The PLA Air Force has already more than 700 modern fighter jets in service.  China has a large number of air-launched cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, but, importantly, its stockpile of precision-guided munitions is limited. For example, it has only one type of 500kg laser-guided bomb in service. The 500kg bomb is overkill for many missions, and China has yet to move to a range of 250kg and 100kg precision-guided munitions, so it will have to rely on blunt bombs and unguided missiles.

The PLA has numerous strike aircraft to carry these high-precision weapons, including nearly 100 J-20 fighters, 200 J-16 fighters, 250 J-10B/C fighters and 300 J-10A fighters; 200 JH-7A fighter-bombers; and 120 H-6J/ K/N bombers, many of which are equipped with targeting pods. Add to this unmanned aerial vehicles such as the WZ-7 and the Wing Loong 1/2 family, and one can see that China can deliver the necessary flow of weapons early on in a future conflict.

The successful overcoming of international sanctions by Russia and the fact that the US, by exerting brutal pressure on NATO and Europe as a whole, forced them to follow, against their will, the fairway of Washington’s policies in support of the fascist rulers of Ukraine is an invaluable experience for China. The whole world is well aware that the massive supply of the most modern weapons to Kiev by the West is only adding petrol to the burning fire of the agony of the current Ukrainian regime and contributing to a flood of new victims.

Viktor Mikhin, corresponding member of RANS, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Ukraine-related events in recent days have clearly exposed Washington’s criminal policy and its desire to solve its financial and geopolitical problems by unleashing armed conflicts on foreign territories. It is quite remarkable that the crisis around Ukraine itself, according to even US analysts, was engineered by the US and they are fully responsible for it.

The military action that has begun in Ukraine has been prepared by the White House for a long time and was intended to draw Russia and China into a destructive confrontation with the US and the UK. The only question was when and on what occasion the next heated battle would begin. Unfortunately for Ukraine, it was the country that, having succumbed to the “rotten carrot” of empty promises of EU and NATO membership, stepped on this rake itself, in order to please Washington, fueling its Russophobic fervor, strengthening the Nazi position in the country, and blackmailing the whole world with the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons. Again, it was the US that managed, by its refusal to discuss security guarantees for all, to provoke the Russian Federation into a forceful solution to the Ukrainian problem. And to do so now, otherwise it would be too late. In this situation, Washington has a chance to pull France, Germany, Israel and several other “permanent US satellites” into its camp by inclining them to openly support the Nazi authorities in Kiev. Meanwhile, Ukraine has become nothing more than a bargaining chip for the US.

In addition to pursuing a provocative policy against Russia, the US, against the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis, has blatantly adopted similar tactics against China, speculating on the situation around Taiwan, openly provoking Beijing against Taiwan, demonstratively arguing about the “need” to cross the “red line” drawn by the PRC. In addition to arming Taiwan, Washington has also chosen another, no less hypocritical trick for China – the pseudo-diplomatic one: speculation about “recognition” of the island’s independence. And such policy is already becoming national, with support from the two major parties, Democrats and Republicans, as well as from antagonist presidents Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump.

As for Moscow’s confrontation with Kiev, one US delegation after another is being sent to Taiwan to discuss further deepening relations and new US arms supplies. By analogy with Ukraine, there is an opposition between the island and mainland Chinese populations, and there are active attempts by “democratic teachers from the US” to create a new Chinese gene pool that benefits the current US political establishment.

And this, in particular, is confirmed by the arrival on March 2 in Taiwan of two American delegations representing key US foreign policy agencies – the Army Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Department of State. Despite their representation by “retirees” Michael Mullen and Mike Pompeo, nevertheless their level and former status already speaks volumes. As, indeed, do the tactics of official Washington’s call, first by M. Pompeo on March 4 in Taiwan to recognize the island’s “independence”, under the pretext of the supposedly already existing “de facto sovereignty” of Taiwan and the “democratic choice of its 23 million inhabitants”. And then a March 5 proposal by Michele Sison, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations Affairs, to restore Taiwan’s rights at the UN, which it lost in 1971 along with the mandate given to the PRC to become a permanent member of the Security Council. And all this is happening against the blatant contradiction of the official US position recognizing the One-China principle!

Meanwhile, in the context of Pompeo’s ambition for the upcoming presidential election, he has even deployed active criticism of the “passivity of the current head of state Joseph Biden” in acting against Beijing, not ruling out the use of force to resolve the “Taiwan issue”. Meanwhile, the White House’s hands are tied by the US-PRC agreements of the 1970s, under which Washington severed diplomatic relations with Taipei, established them with Beijing and recognized the island as part of China. However, the law passed in the US allows them to help Taiwan with arms, but does not oblige them to send their soldiers to defend the island.

Beijing, naturally, could not fail to react to Pompeo’s trip. The newspaper Renmin Ribao, an organ of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, called Pompeo an extremely vulgar anti-Chinese politician. Taipei has also responded to Washington’s policy adjustment on China, with the Legislative Yuan (parliament) adopting a reinforced budget to mass-produce 18 types of weapons and military equipment by 2026. Moreover, ground-to-ground missiles, which are controlled by artificial intelligence, and ground-to-air missiles should be ready for delivery to troops between 2024 and 2025.

It is understood in Washington that reuniting China with Taiwan with force support would cost Beijing dearly. Moreover, they do not rule out that at a critical moment, the US 7th Fleet, which is based nearby, in Japan, could come to the rescue of Taiwan. Meanwhile, the US also expects the PRC to face swift and globally coordinated economic retaliation from the US and its allies. However, American experts believe that Beijing, realizing the difficulties faced by Russia, will still not give up the option of a military takeover of the island.

In Washington’s plans for China, the US also expects to use Moscow’s capabilities to its advantage, assuming that Russia will be “more compliant” and receptive to Washington’s interests as a result of the multiple sanctions already imposed on it. However, a similar policy to Washington’s use of China in countering Russia in recent months has not brought the US the result it had hoped for. Washington has failed to persuade Beijing to press Russia, despite holding unsuccessful secret talks with China over the past three months to persuade Xi Jinping to dissuade Russia from military action in Ukraine. This, in particular, was reported by the Daily Mail.

According to The New York Times, the Biden administration’s contacts with Beijing began in November, after the president held a video summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. A few days later the White House met with the Chinese ambassador. According to the newspaper, US officials told the Chinese diplomat that the United States was planning to impose strict sanctions against Russian companies and officials in the event of a Russian invasion – far more severe than in 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea. At the same time, officials reportedly said Beijing’s commercial ties with Russia could also “feel some consequences”. The New York Times pointed out that US officials had spoken to the Chinese ambassador at least three more times, but Ambassador Qin said Moscow had legitimate security concerns. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has also spoken to his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on this issue several times, but he has failed to use China in the plan of interest to Washington either.

As for the new US strategy in the Indo-Pacific region, it poses, as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a conversation with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on February 22, an open challenge to China. “The attempt to incorporate “Taiwan in strategy to contain China” into US regional policy is a wrong signal,” the Chinese Foreign Minister said, noting that US calls for long-term competition with China could escalate into an “all-out confrontation”. Washington’s support for Taiwan’s independence aspirations threatens an armed conflict between the US and China, the Chinese ambassador to the US, Qin Gang, told US radio station NPR. “If the Taiwanese authorities, emboldened by the United States, keep going down the road for independence, it most likely (will) involve China and the United States, the two big countries, in a military conflict,” he said. At the same time, the diplomat called Taiwan “the biggest powder keg” in relations between Beijing and Washington and stressed that China was seeking peaceful reunification with the island, but would not give up force, as it was a deterrent.

As for Washington’s advertised readiness to intensify confrontation simultaneously with Russia and China, including the use of military instruments such as NATO, the Chinese edition of the Global Times recently bluntly pointed out: Forget about two wars, US is reluctant to fight even one!

Professor Shen Yi of the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University recalled in this regard: “Former president Richard Nixon had long ago done the math for the US – it could not afford to fight two wars at once.” As for current American power, its best days are long behind it: even Washington itself is not sure that it can win even a single regional war. Proof of this is the US decision not to send its armed forces to the front lines in Ukraine. Other examples come to mind: how they got bogged down in conflicts in Vietnam, Afghanistan and failed to win anywhere. Against this background, it is suicidal for the US to fight two wars at the same time. Plus, it must not be forgotten that the US economy is in a catastrophic state. Even when they got up the courage to impose so-called “nuclear-level sanctions” by disconnecting Russia from the Swift system, they had to carefully circumvent banks linked to the energy sector. Compared to World War II era, America’s sun is setting.

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Expansionism knows no bounds. After taking Europe to the verge of a major war by pushing for NATO’s expansion further into Eastern Europe to encircle Russia, the US is now increasingly focusing on Taiwan for what the US officials have been, for over a year now, calling an ‘increasing possibility’ of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. There is a flurry of activity going on around Taiwan to prevent it from suffering what Mike Pompeo, the former US Secretary of State and a possible candidate for presidential elections in the US in 2024, said during his recent visit to Taiwan the ‘Ukraine like fate.’ Again, even though Joe Biden, when he became POTUS last year, vowed to reverse Trump’s policies, China is one case where he is very much following in Trump’s footsteps. In fact, various officials of Biden administration have vowed to continue Trump’s policy vis-à-vis Taiwan and China, showing anti-China policy is embedded within the US “deep-state” and that it is not simply dependent upon POTUS.

A high-profile delegation sent by Biden arrived in Taiwan on March 2 to express firm US commitment with Taiwan’s security and future. “The United States will continue to oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo and will continue to support a peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues, consistent with the wishes and best interests of the people of Taiwan”, told former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, who is leading the delegation, to the president of Taiwan.

The visit actually follows US efforts to arm Taiwan vis-à-vis China. On February 8, Joe Biden approved a US$ 100 million contract aimed at strengthening Taiwan’s missile defense systems. In early February, the Biden administration unveiled its Indo-Pacific strategy to contain China. As the document stresses, “We will also work with partners inside and outside of the region to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, including by supporting Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities, to ensure an environment in which Taiwan’s future is determined peacefully in accordance with the wishes and best interests of Taiwan’s people.”

This rhetoric is being facilitated by Taiwan’s top leadership as well. As president of Taiwan said, “China’s military threat to the Taiwan Strait and to the region continues to rise, whether by working to limit Taiwan’s international participation or by using cognitive warfare tactics and disinformation to divide Taiwanese society and erode our democracy.”

As an administration following the Trump administration’s policy, the delegation’s visit manifests what Mike Pompeo, as Secretary of State, said in 2020 that the US will no longer adhere to its traditional level of political contact with Taiwan. That the US is invariably enhancing its political – and military – contact with Taiwan also means that the US is keen to expand its overall ties with Taiwan – something that China resents. This is quite similar to how the US efforts to push NATO into Ukraine provoked the Russia-Ukraine war in the first place. Enhancing political and military contacts with Taiwan against China is qualitatively similar to NATO’s expansion in Europe against Russia.

A simultaneous crisis surrounding two of the US’ most formidable military and economic peers will have many consequences for Washington.

First, it will keep both Russia and China involved military conflicts in their own backyards rather than thousands of miles from their mainland. Secondly, by provoking both of its strategic peers into wars, the US might be able to develop an anti-Russia and anti-China global coalition it has been seeking to build for almost a decade now when the ‘Asia Pivot’ was launched by the Obama administration. Thirdly, such a coalition will inevitably be led by the US. As it stands, taking Ukraine as a playbook for entrenching US hegemony in Europe, many states in Europe, including Germany, have decided to increase their defense budgets to spend more on common defense. This means that the European drive to establish a European security system is now effectively out of focus for the next few years and the US remains central to the European security. Fourthly, the US hopes that by engaging Russia and China in wars and by demonising them, it might be able to restrict their ability to challenge the US-centric, dollar dominate global financial systems with their alternative model of finance that places local currencies, rather the USD, at the centre of most financial transactions. By restricting the Russian-Chinese payment systems, the US can maintain the global relevance of its own system.

A full provocation is, thus, at play here. China’s response to these efforts must be nothing but a good news for the hawks occupying the White House. As China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said in a regular media briefing on March 1, “If the US tries to intimidate and pressure China in this way, then we have this stern warning: the so-called military deterrence will be reduced to scrap iron when facing the steely great wall of the 1.4 billion Chinese people,” Wang said. “The trick of sending vessels to sail through the Taiwan Strait should be better saved to entertain those obsessed with hegemony”, Wang added.

These provocations are very much consistent with how the US very largely portrays the Russian and Chinese leaders as ‘expansionists’ driven by the desire to expand their empires, although it remains that the actual reason for the trouble we see in Europe today or might see in Asia in near future is tied directly and unambiguously to the US efforts to preserve its hegemony. This is one key reason why the US got out of Afghanistan in an absurdly haphazard manner, because staying in Afghanistan any longer would not have served the US purpose of tackling its rivals. By extracting itself out of Afghanistan, the US “deep-state” is now in a better position to sell fresh wars to the US public against the ‘authoritarian’ states of China and Russia as ‘wars for democracy.’

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi told US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in a phone conversation that took place on February 22 about China’s concerns over the worsening of China-US relations that in his opinion was a direct result of Washington’s actions. According to the Chinese foreign minister, Beijing is ready to build relations with the US “based on three principles: mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation.” However, as you can see, Washington’s hegemonic ambitions result in the US taking a very different approach, in particular by naming China its principal rival in America’s new Indo-Pacific strategy and by taking all actions to contain China, up to those leading to the destruction of PRC’s state identity.

And in this regard, Washington’s use of the “Taiwan card” against Beijing is just one, albeit a quite striking example. Today the status of Taiwan is the key issue in the relations between the two countries. The PRC is known to consider the island its territory, but several countries have recognized it as an independent state. The US itself has not officially recognized Taiwan’s independence, but it maintains close ties with it, including in the defense sphere, increasing the amount of weapons sold to the island and promising Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen its aid in the event of an attack by Beijing.  Qin Gang, the Chinese ambassador to Washington, in an interview with US radio station NPR recently warned that the US support for Taiwan’s independence aspirations threatens an armed conflict between the US and China. The Chinese diplomat called Taiwan “the biggest gun-powder barrel” in the relations between the US and China, noting Beijing’s desire for peaceful reunification with the island, but stressed that it would not give up force as a deterrent.

“Washington is making the historic mistake of pushing China and Russia too far at the same time,” the Chinese newspaper Global Times points out. “It has overindulged the expansion of egocentrism, and fabricated lies that China and Russia have “broken international rules” and “challenged the international order.” It has created strong faith in these lies in the West, forcing itself to engage in dangerous confrontations with China and Russia… To contain China and Russia simultaneously is arrogant thinking. Although the US has an advantage in terms of strength, it cannot crush either China or Russia. Having a strategic collision with any of the two countries will bring unbearable costs to the US. It’s a nightmare for Washington when China and Russia join hands,” the Chinese newspaper warned Washington.

But separating Taiwan from China is not the only goal in Washington’s current policy, which seeks to fragment the PRC into smaller principalities to facilitate the task of completely defeating it. In doing so, the US is trying to exploit the sharp differences between China’s regions, which are most pronounced in the rivalry between Northern and Southern China. Despite belonging to the same country, Chinese regions have significant linguistic, cultural, historical, economic, and even geopolitical differences. Each region has its own development paradigm. Apart from South China, with its special language and mentality, the Shanghai region, Northwest China or “the Silk Belt”, North China, Central China and the Sichuan region stand out. Thus, people from Beijing and Guangzhou will not understand each other in a conversation, but they can engage in written correspondence without difficulty, because the characters are the same. The written language unites the multilingual population of China into a single community, enables them to communicate with each other, to feel a sense of belonging to a common civilization. Case in point – the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where 53 languages and many different religions coexist, unlike other regions of China.

Based on these and some other specific features of the PRC, the subversive strategies of the US and the UK, its main assistant in the struggle with Beijing, intend to stimulate the self-identification and isolation of various Chinese regions and to maximize socioeconomic diversification up to and including maximum federalization and transition to a confederal system. This has always been the classic Anglo-Saxon divide and conquer tactic. However, this successful implementation will require a Chinese leader, ready to make concessions to the West, primarily in opening the Chinese society to the Western “liberal values.”

It is not surprising therefore that the current “crusade” by Washington has focused on undermining Xi Jinping, whom American billionaire and financial adventurer George Soros called “the greatest threat that open societies face today” on Twitter. In his anti-Chinese rhetoric, George Soros went so far as to compare China’s leader to… Hitler. According to Soros, Xi Jinping is allegedly using the 2022 Olympics in the same way as the Führer of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler, did in 1936, i.e., “to win a propaganda victory for his system of strict control.” At a lecture at the Stanford University and at a lecture at the Hoover Institution on January 31, 2022, Soros expressed hope that the current Chinese leader would be removed from power by his intraparty rivals and replaced by “someone less repressive at home and more peaceful abroad.” The above assessments certainly reflect the position of not only Soros himself and his Open Society Foundations, deemed undesirable in Russia, which can be assumed to have very serious transnational backing, but also the political program of the current US political establishment.

However, the US does not seem to understand that the world has already changed irreversibly, and its threats, as well as its insidious plans, no longer scare anyone. Especially in the light of a strong rapprochement between China and Russia, as well as the political positions of leaders of those two countries, which may turn into a real “nightmare” for Washington itself.

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Tensions between the United States and China exist across a wide spectrum of areas, from economics to geopolitics. Among the many flashpoint issues defining this growing confrontation is the “Taiwan question.”

Officially, the United States recognizes what is known as the “One China Policy.” The US State Department’s own webpage regarding US-Taiwan relations explicitly states:

The United States and Taiwan enjoy a robust unofficial relationship. The 1979 US-PRC Joint Communique switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. In the Joint Communique, the United States recognized the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal government of China, acknowledging the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China. 

The US State Department also claims that, “the United States does not support Taiwan independence.”

And yet unofficially the US maintains the American Institute of Taiwan (AIT) serving as a defacto embassy for a territory the US does not have “official” relations with. The US also sells millions of dollars of weapons to Taiwan’s administrative authorities creating a military threat almost exclusively directed toward the Chinese mainland.

A 2021 Voice of America article titled, “US Nearly Doubled Military Personnel Stationed in Taiwan This Year,” would admit:

Active-duty deployments now include 29 Marines as well as two service members from the Army, three from the Navy and five from the Air Force, according to the Pentagon’s Defense Manpower Data Center.

The stationing of US military personnel on the island of Taiwan, territory the US officially recognizes as “part of China,” or at the very least, territory the US recognizes China has claimed as its own – is an obvious provocation. US diplomatic, political, economic, and now military activity on and around Taiwan takes place thousands of miles from America’s own shores and helps illustrate that amidst rising tensions between the US and China, Washington is clearly the chief instigator.

And as the US has done in proxy conflicts around the globe and even in regards to China itself, the US has devised a strategy to use Taiwan against mainland China. If and when Taiwan finally provokes Beijing into action, this same strategy ensures nothing is left of Taiwan upon reunification.

The United State Army War College Press published a paper in late 2021 titled, “Broken Nest: Deterring China from Invading Taiwan.” It discusses a variety of options to “deter” a “Chinese invasion of Taiwan without recklessly threatening a great-power war.”

The idea is to use Taiwan as a point of contention for as long as possible and then sacrifice it entirely to deny it to China and any aspirations toward reunification.

At one point the paper claims:

To start, the United States and Taiwan should lay plans for a targeted scorched-earth strategy that would render Taiwan not just unattractive if ever seized by force, but positively costly to maintain. This could be done most effectively by threatening to destroy facilities belonging to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the most important chipmaker in the world and China’s most important supplier.

For Washington, such an option would easily satisfy US geopolitical objectives. For Taiwan, it would be a catastrophe, wiping out one of its most important industries. At the same time the US is planning to “scorch” Taiwan’s chip industry, it is attempting to move at least part of Taiwan’s chip-making capacity to the continental United States.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has been “encouraged” to build a $12 billion factory in Arizona. While articles published by American papers like the Washington Post attempt to depict the move in a positive light, it cannot be denied that TSMC faces labor, regulatory, tax, and cost challenges, some of which will take years to surmount, others are entirely insurmountable and likely to only worsen over time. Doing business in the United States obviously puts TSMC at a disadvantage and helps further illustrate the ongoing and ever increasing price Taiwan is paying for America’s “friendship.”

Conversely, the Chinese mainland represents Taiwan’s largest source of trade in terms of both imports and exports. Before the independence-tilting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) took power on the heels of the US-sponsored “Sunflower” protests in 2014, Taiwan counted the mainland as a major investor, source of tourism, and had sought to increase economic cooperation in all areas.

This was artificially stopped by the US and its DPP allies upon taking office, costing Taiwan and its economy dearly in the process. The tourism industry, for example suffered “a 59 per cent decline in tour group numbers and a 73 per cent drop for independent travellers,” according to the South China Morning Post.

As one can see looking at other US allies around the globe in recent years, Taiwan’s fate is almost certainly one of tragedy. Even in regards to China itself, and more specifically, the political opposition in Hong Kong, there are many examples for Taiwan to take note of. Hong Kong opposition parties, media platforms, and street movements were used by the United States to undermine peace, stability, and economic prosperity in the special administrative region. When Hong Kong’s government finally restored order many among the movement were either arrested and jailed, or decided to flee abroad to live in less-than-desirable conditions since.

The Hong Kong opposition for all intents and purposes no longer exists today. Many exhibit regret for participating in the movement, and perhaps most of all, regret trusting the United States government and its “assurances” that it would continue supporting the movement.

The US through its media and policy circles, has all but assured that the same fate awaits Taiwan. Only time will tell if the people and the government of Taiwan are capable of learning from these other increasingly numerous examples of US “friendship” in action, and whether or not they steer Taiwan back toward the status quo with the mainland which much more resembles a mutually beneficial relationship than the “scorched earth” future Washington has waiting for the island and its people.

Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

For the past 4 years – especially since the US ‘trade war’ on China started by the Trump administration in 2017 – Washington has been seeking ways to contain, roll-back on its gains and encircle China. The US ‘trade war’ was not something entirely new; in fact, it was a continuation of the Obama administration’s ‘Asia Pivot’ that focused on shifting the US military assets – especially Naval forces – from Europe to Asia i.e., the Indo-Pacific. As is evident in both cases – ‘Asia Pivot’ and ‘trade war’ – the US policy is premised more upon confrontation i.e., creating a fear of China among the relevant states, than creating geo-economic space to insert itself into the region. That the US rejected the policy of integration in favour of confrontation is evident from the Trump administration’s exit from the multi-lateral Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) treaty and initiation of an ‘economic war’ on China. The Trump administration issued an “Indo-Pacific Strategy” in late 2017 to buttress its confrontation with China and to build a grand ‘global coalition.’ It did not work, forcing the Biden administration to issue another – almost identical – policy document in February 2022 to renew its confrontation with China, hoping the persona of Biden – which is assumed to be better than the eccentric Trump – could make the Indo-Pacific nations jump on the US bandwagon to confront – and roll back on China’s gains.

But, while the US may have been correct, from its perspective, in betting on a China confrontation policy, the narrative it has been building i.e., “debt trap”, is mostly based upon misinformation and propaganda – a fact that is not lost on the Southeast Asian nations, who, unimpressed by this propaganda, continue to deepen and broaden their economic ties with China. A case in point to expose US propaganda may be Sri Lanka, which, in 2018, handed over the Hambantota Port to China after Colombo failed to generate enough revenue and repay the Chinese loan. The US said it was a classic case of Chinese “debt trap” and how Beijing was using its economic muscle to force countries into submission. A 2018 New York Times report said that China made Sri Lanka “cough up” the port, calling China’s “global investment and lending program” a real “debt trap for vulnerable countries around the world.”

In reality, however, the fact of the matter is that Sri Lanka, as of April 2021, owes only 10 per cent of its US$35 billion debt to China. The rest (90 per cent) is owed to West (or Western allies). According to Sri Lankan government’s own figures, Colombo owes China 10 per cent to China, market borrowings (mostly from the West) amount to 47 per cent, Asian Development Bank stand at 13 per cent, Japan at 10 per cent and World Bank stands at 9 per cent. Can China be held responsible for Sri Lanka’s fiscal troubles and the balance of payment crisis that gripped it in 2018, when Colombo decided to lease the port? A February 2021 detailed report of The Atlantic found that China cannot be held responsible, that there is no ‘dept trap’ diplomacy at work here either, and that China did most certainly not make Colombo ‘cough up’ the port.

But, from the US perspective, none of it really mattered; what mattered, for the sake of anti-China propaganda, was the fact that it was China that acquired the port; therefore, only China could be held responsible.

Similarly, for years Washington has been telling the Southeast Asian nations that China is seeking to become a hegemon in the region and that it will eventually take unilateral action to control the south and east China seas. For many, in projecting Chinese ‘unilateralism’, the US basically sees how it would have acted if it was China. But China is not the US; therefore, China has, so far, not taken any unilateral step to resolve the dispute in its favour solely.

There is no denying that China’s integration with the Southeast Asian nations is getting deeper and broader. But how precisely this is happening seems lost on the US policy makers. It is not the Southeast Asian nations simply joining China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI); it is China joining the Southeast Asian nations’ initiatives, such as the Regional Economic Comprehensive Partnership (RCEP) trade pact. The idea of RCEP was originally conceived in an ASEAN summit in Bali, Indonesia in 2011, with negotiations formally starting in the next ASEAN summit held in Cambodia in 2012. Calling RCEP a strictly Chinese network, therefore, takes away from the ASEAN its own agency – and sovereignty – and renders it only a rubber-stamp entity mindlessly following China. This projection, however, only reinforces ASEAN’s sense of staying away from the US-led politics of confrontation with China.

Even beyond ASEAN, China is not simply dominating regional geo-economics. After ratifying RCEP, China formally applied, in late 2021, to become a part of Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) trade agreement. Whether or not China will become part of CPTPP is up to the existing members, but the fact that China applied for it reinforces China’s bid to build a new regional – and globally – connected and interdependent, rather than Beijing led, geography of trade to create a ‘win-win’ scenario for all. Therefore, if ASEAN members are comfortable with China being part of RCEP and if they approve China’s members of CPTPP, it only means that the US narrative of China as an economic hegemon is only propaganda, which is already failing.

On the contrary, the fact that China, despite the devastating global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, managed to develop its economy on an impressive growth rate of 8.1 per cent in 2021 means that China, not the US or Europe with their struggling economies, will remain the best possible option for countries in Southeast Asia/the Indo-Pacific region as an economic partner and that these countries will let the logic of deep and broad economic interdependence with China and the region on the whole shape – and resolve – disputes around the south and east China seas.

Beijing Olympics were watched by over 2 billion people worldwide, including more than 100 million Americans. These numbers may not in themselves be impressive, but the fact that China managed to grab these views despite the US/Western boycott of Olympics means that the US is fast running out of options it can use to ‘contain’ China via systematic demonisation, and that its various policy measure – ‘Asia Pivot’, ‘trade war’, ‘Asia Pivot 2.0.’, military build-up against China (AUKUS), and China being “evil”, etc. – are failing to produce any meaningful impact for the US politics of maintaining its unilateral global hegemony.

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Soon after releasing the new anti-China Indo-Pacific strategy, the US secretary of state Antony Blinken embarked upon a significant tour to countries in Asia and the Pacific to reassure these countries of the US commitment – and ability – to protect and defend them against an ‘aggressive’ China. Even though US officials have been saying, at least ever since Joe Biden became the US president, that they do not intend to start a new cold war with China and that they do not want countries in Asia and the Pacific to choose between Washington and Beijing, the fact that the US continues to officially project China as a threat to these countries means, directly and unambiguously, that Washington wants these countries to reject China and embrace Uncle Sam as part of its overall politics of global hegemony.

In other words, even though Washington does not say it in so many words, its politics aims to drag these countries into a confrontation with China to limit the latter’s global influence and support, as the latest Indo-Pacific strategy document says, a global system that suits the US interests. Thus, the US is already fighting a war with China by means other than warfare. The fact that the US is doing this at the same time as the on-going US-led politics of encircling Russia via expanding NATO to Ukraine means that the US intention is to force the whole world into geo-political conflicts to maintain its own hegemony.

This was indeed pretty much the message the US officials gave before Blinken started his visit in the second week of February. When asked if Blinken’s visit could be cancelled in the wake of growing tensions around Ukraine, the White House official said that “We are a big country. We are a big department. We have a lot of challenges on our plate” and that the Unites States is very much capable of “walking and chewing gum at the same time.” This assertion, when seen against the larger backdrop of the US’ anti-China and anti-Russia geo-politics, translates into an aggressive pursuit of policies that could eventually throw the world into a new era of absolutely hostile environment.

The Biden administration’s increasing focus on Asia and the Pacific is a revitalisation of what came to be known as ‘Asia Pivot’ during the Obama administration – a government that included Joe Biden as vice president. For the Biden administration, therefore, ‘Asia Pivot’ is not only an unfinished agenda, but the fact that China’s economic and military power and its influence have massively increased in past few years means that the ‘Asia Pivot’ has become pivotal for the US’ own survival as a superpower capable of unilaterally shaping global politics.

This is very much a reflection of what Hillary Clinton, who was Obama’s secretary of state and one of key articulators of the ‘Asia Pivot’ thought was necessary for securing “America’s Pacific Century” – a dream that can be realised only via an aggressive projection of American military and diplomatic vis-à-vis its rivals in Asia and the Pacific.

Part of the US project involves creating strong, multilateral alliances like QUAD and AUKUS in Asia and the Pacific. It is for this very reason that Blinken’s tour also included a QAUD ministerial level meeting in Australia – a country that is involved in both QUAD and AUKUS and symbolises how the US is seeking to converge more and more countries around a US-centric vision of global political system.

But the problem for the US is that not all countries in Asia and the Pacific are unwilling to jump onto the US bandwagon. Even though the US, as various media reports have highlighted, was keen to “inform” the QAUD and other Pacific nations of the “threat” from China – and Russia – the QUAD meeting failed to produce a joint statement that could show a sense of US-led unity against either Russia or China.

The QUAD joint statement, while it mentioned the imperative of tackling “challenges” to the region, failed to mention Russia or China even once. A crucial reason for this is the fact QUAD countries like India have no desire to become embroiled too deep in the US-led geo-political tensions. Even though New Delhi’s ties with China are far from friendly since past two years, there is no appetite in India with regards to escalating tensions with its neighbour just because it suits the US interests.

This barren statement was issued despite the fact Blinken spent a lot of time in Australia highlighting that the US/West has a “bit of a challenge with Ukraine and Russian aggression. We’re working 24/7 on that” and that “more than ever before, we need partnerships, we need alliances, we need coalitions of countries willing to put their efforts, their resources, their minds into tackling these problems.” Yet, Blinken’s invocations failed to produce a “shared vision” that he said was indispensable to preserve a “rule based” world under the US leadership.

The question, for the US, therefore, is: how far can it go in realising its agenda? Short of starting an actual war with China in the Pacific or Russia in Europe, the US has not, so far, been able to use the threat of Russian and Chinese aggression to build a truly global coalition against its strategic peers. A crucial problem for the US is that most of the relevant countries have different priorities. Although some of them may have some issues with China, these countries remain focused on stabilising their national economies in the seemingly post-COVID world – a recovery that they see could become impossible if they reject economic interdependence – and trade – with China in favour of an expanded military alliance with the US. Their concerns are exacerbated by the fact that the US’ anti-China plan has no economic component, let alone a major one; hence, the bleak prospects for Washington’s policy to succeed in building a global coalition under its leadership.

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The previous chapter of this Chronicle discussed perhaps the most relevant question of all – how strong the position of the Democratic Progressive Party ruling since 2016 (its second consecutive term) and led by Tsai Ing-wen, the current president of Taiwan, is among the Taiwanese. The answer to this question will largely determine the answer to another question (one of the most critical in contemporary world politics, at that): How will Beijing restore sovereignty over Taiwan, which it owns?

It should be recalled that in 2005, the Chinese parliament passed a law granting the country’s leadership the authority to solve its main foreign policy problem by any means necessary, including through force.

However, back in 1979, when Washington, guided by the realities of the Cold War, established diplomatic relations with Beijing, thus de facto depriving one of its most loyal allies in Asia of its international status, the US Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act, which provided, among other things, for the US to “resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan.” It should be noted, however, that the TRA-1979, as well as the subsequent so-called “Six Assurances to Taiwan by President Reagan” are not acts of international law and are therefore ignored by Beijing.

This does not obviate the very problem of possible (let us stress it) intervention by the US in the Taiwan Strait if Beijing resorts to “military surgery” in order to finally remove the current most painful splinter from its own body of statehood. And the stronger the DPP’s position on the island (Tsai Ing-wen will not be able to run for president for a third time in early 2024), the more remote the prospect that the PRC will refuse to continue its policy towards Taiwan “by other means.”

Beijing itself is most certainly not happy about such a prospect. For a variety of reasons, including the need to use an inevitably highly sophisticated, almost jewelry-grade “technique,” which has almost nothing to do with the incomparable ratio of “absolute” military capabilities of the Mainland and Taiwan. The US Joint Chiefs of Staff have so far been rather skeptical about the availability of such tools in the current People’s Liberation Army (PLA). But, of course, everything in the world is changing and this is especially true of the quality of the PLA in general, and its technical equipment in particular.

Naturally, taking back control over a part of the territory that is still uncontrolled is a very important task in and of itself. But not at any cost, that is without devastating the island. Moreover, getting one of the world’s most advanced urban, transport, industrial and rural infrastructures in one piece, which all 23 million Taiwanese will continue to use, is equally important.

To give just one example, TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.) is a unique phenomenon in today’s global economy, accounting for some 56% of the global market for the manufacture and sale of advanced semiconductor devices. TSMC employs around 60,000 people (apparently including overseas subsidiaries), has a market capitalization of over $600bn and annual net profit of around $20bn.

The world’s leading powers (USA, Japan, Germany) are signing contracts with TSMC to build similar production facilities on their territories. At one time, President Trump approved paying TSMC $12bn to build such a facility in Arizona. What TSMC means for today’s global economy was shown by the forced restrictions (due to the Covid-19 pandemic) in the raw material and component supply chains. The world’s auto manufacturing giants were the first to feel the negative effects.

It is clear that TSMC as well as other important economic facilities in Taiwan and their employees should not be affected in any meaningful way in a future “jewelry operation.” The task is extremely difficult, even if the US refuses to militarily intervene directly (again, it is not obliged to do so) in a future armed conflict.

Especially since Taiwan itself has well-equipped and compact armed forces that are designed to repel amphibious landing attempts and fight paratroopers, should they happen to be on the island. Modernization of its armed forces has been the focus of the island’s leadership in recent years. Ms Tsai herself takes great pleasure in being photographed with her officers on the bridge of a frigate, in the cockpit of a modern fighter jet (standing, of course, on the ground) and at the missile and artillery positions. At first glance, this is no more than a common female weakness, encouraged, however, by the military. After all, they would not mind the island’s leadership paying attention to their problems.

But perhaps most importantly, a large proportion of Taiwanese not only disagree with the “non-peaceful” way of “returning to the motherland,” but also express their willingness to resist it with weapons. Note, however, that any poll on such a risky topic rarely has anything to do with real life since “everyone likes to believe they are a hero … ” Still, the Taiwanese are clearly not showing a willingness to roll out the carpets in front of Mainland paratroopers.

This brings us back to the original question of how likely it is that the current “separatist” regime on the island will be replaced by one that is more acceptable to Beijing. This would obviously spare the latter the necessity of resorting to the above “jewelry surgery,” since a much less risky “political therapy” will do. The main contender for the role of such “therapist” is the good old Kuomintang party. How realistic the prospect is for the Kuomintang to lead Taiwan’s parliament and government in two years can be judged by the current acts of democracy where the island’s leadership asks its people to voice their views on particular issues. There have been two such acts recently, whose outcome has largely confirmed the continuing split in Taiwanese society over preferences between the DPP and the Kuomintang, but with a steady trend of the former leaving the latter further behind.

The confidence of the party led by Tsai Ing-wen was demonstrated when she opened a library in honor of Taiwan’s former president (from 1978 to 1988), Chiang Ching-kuo (son of Chiang Kai-shek). Commentators have already drawn noted that not only did she dare appearing in the “den of political opponents,” but she also gave a speech during the event where she contrasted the former “anti-communist” leadership of the Kuomintang with the current one “ready to agree with the CCP.” ANd that despite the fact that all the relevant current leaders of the Kuomintang were in the meeting room.

It was a strong PR move that is sure to boost the already increasingly visible popularity of DPP among the Taiwanese. The latest opinion poll shows that the DPP’s support rating is already at 46.3%, compared to 23.7% for the Kuomintang. But even worse for the latter, its anti-rating level has exceeded 63%.

However, Tsai Ing-wen’s political charisma is only one factor contributing to the DPP’s popularity. The main thing seems to be the increasing level of support for the party and its leader from the US and some Washington allies. Among the latter, Japan and a number of European countries are becoming particularly prominent. While the activity of Eastern European “Tabaquis” in this respect is understandable (they trade what little they have), what the United Kingdom, France and even Germany are trying to find on the other side of the globe remains a mystery to the author. Unless, of course, they admit that they are simply following the instructions from Washington.

But in the end, that’s their problem. More importantly, the recent internal and external developments on the Taiwan issue make the prospect of a peaceful resolution increasingly vague.

Vladimir Terekhov, expert on the issues of the Asia-Pacific region, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.