Over the past several months, the danger of war between the U.S. and China has escalated significantly. No one should underestimate how serious this is.

In a 60 Minutes interview that aired on September 18, Joe Biden ratcheted up U.S. threats on China, and the possibility of conflicts between Chinese and U.S. armed forces, on and around the island of Taiwan and in the South China Sea. The U.S. and Chinese fleets that infest the South China Sea—jets and bombers, warships and submarines—bristle with nuclear weapons.

Biden was asked if "U.S. forces, U.S. men and women, would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion." He responded, “Yes.” This is the fourth time Biden has gone on record saying the U.S. would respond militarily, with its own weaponry and forces, in the event of a conflict between Taiwan and China.

Biden’s comments came in the wake of a deliberately provocative trip to Taiwan made by leading Democrat and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. China objected to Pelosi’s trip, but she went anyway, and said her trip sends “an unequivocal message: America stands with Taiwan.”

Soon after Pelosi left Taiwan, China conducted extensive military exercises around Taiwan, including “amphibious operations of the kind that would be necessary for a full-scale invasion of the island.” A month before her trip, a U.S. destroyer had conducted a “freedom of navigation” exercise in an area of the South China Sea claimed by China. Shortly after she left, the U.S. announced it would launch further air and sea operations in coming weeks, in response to what a U.S. official called China's “provocative and destabilizing behavior." Both sides continued to engage in behavior certain to infuriate the other.

Taiwan: Flash Point for Rivalry and Conflict… and Potentially War

Taiwan and the 80-mile-wide strait between it and China are two of the main and most dangerous flash points in the increasingly antagonistic U.S.-China rivalry.

China has long considered Taiwan part of its sovereign territory. The current capitalist-imperialist rulers of China view Taiwan as a core strategic interest for their domestic cohesion, national defense, and interests and ambitions in the Pacific and the world.

Since 1979 the U.S. has formally recognized the People’s Republic of China’s sovereignty over all of China, including Taiwan, and does not formally recognize the sovereignty of Taiwan and its government.¹ This is called their “one China” policy. But the U.S. imperialists have never ceased maintaining their economic, political and military connections with Taiwan. They consider Taiwan to be strategically vital to them, because of its location in a major manufacturing hub and one of the busiest trade routes in the world. Taiwan is highly militarized with U.S.-supplied weapons.

But now the U.S. is increasingly flouting the “one China” agreement they have had with the Chinese government. It has stepped up discussions with Taiwan’s rulers over increasing arms shipments, as Taiwan moves to further build up its military and move away from China economically. Taiwan is also increasing its military and political ties with other pro-U.S. governments in the region.²

In the same 60 Minutes interview, Biden said, “Taiwan makes their own judgments about their independence … that’s their decision.” Biden has made similar comments previously, as have a range of U.S. political figures such as Democrat Nancy Pelosi and Republi-fascist Mike Pompeo. Biden’s comment represents another potentially ominous shift in U.S. policy. All previous U.S. presidents have said they don’t support Taiwan’s independence. Biden reiterated that policy in the interview, but his response also deliberately left open the interpretation that the policy had changed.

Bonnie S. Glaser, director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, told a reporter that Biden’s statement could be seen by China as the real change in policy. She said, “I think that this is something that could truly lead the Chinese to decide to go to war, because they believe that the United States would actually support an independent Taiwan. As [Biden] keeps saying these things over and over again—and particularly these comments about letting Taiwan decide if it wants to go independent—I think that it's destabilizing .… We need to deter, not provoke, China.”

A Strategic Challenge

The U.S. ruling class as a whole has identified the rising capitalist-imperialist power of China as a main strategic challenge to their dominance, in the Asia-Pacific region and globally. Even as bitter divisions tear apart the Republi-fascist and Democrat wings of the ruling class over just about every issue—their united antagonism toward China is remarkable.

As an illustration of this, Democrats and Republicans were virtually indistinguishable in their agreement that Pelosi’s visit was “positive” from the standpoint of representing U.S. (imperialist) interests, their denunciations of China, and demands for tougher action. Both of them have made what Revolution described as reckless calculations “that pushing and goading China and simultaneously firming up/expanding U.S. military alliances is essential to thwarting” the challenge the U.S. faces from China.

Lloyd Austin, Biden’s Secretary of Defense, said, “Today, the Indo-Pacific is at the heart of American grand strategy.” As former Secretary of Defense James Mattis put it, “The number one national security priority and particularly defense priority for the United States is no longer terrorism, it’s the great power competition. This means above all China because of the scale and sophistication of its military … The rise of China is a tectonic shift” (in imperialist power relations).³

In this context, Taiwan has become a concentration and flash point of contention between the two imperialist powers. Colby described what’s at stake for U.S. imperialism: “If a state such as China could establish hegemony over a key region such as Asia, it would have substantial incentives to use its power to disfavor and exclude the United States from reasonably free trade and access to these wealthy regions in ways that would undermine America’s core purposes, shift the balance of power against the United States, and ultimately open the country to direct coercion in ways that would compromise Americans’ freedom, prosperity, and even physical security.”

If that’s confusing, let us translate from U.S. imperialist-ese: “We Americans have dominated this region and its resources and people for a long, long time and now some other imperialist power is challenging our domination. And that we must not tolerate.”

Their Interests Are NOT Our Interests

This situation—the clashing goals and provocations of both the U.S. and China—is explosive, and very dangerous for humanity. It is a clash between modern-day slave masters over who will be the dominant power in the world. Both of them must be opposed.

The people of the world have NO interest in siding with any of these predatory powers. Our interests lie in overthrowing them and getting beyond the dog-eat-dog, planet-destroying system of capitalism-imperialism.

And people in the U.S. have a special responsibility to oppose the crimes of “our” rulers, and welcome their difficulties and defeats—because such setbacks can weaken their grip on the people and the planet, and can hasten the revolutionary demise of their rule and system which has brought such horror and suffering—and now threatens humanity’s very existence.