US visits to Taiwan: Is there a strategy?

By Keith Lamb

Pelosi's visit to China's Taiwan region involved many causational elements. For example, her businessman son's presence highlighted family avarice which mixes politicking and profiteering. Furthermore, the millions paid to lobby Pelosi by Taiwan authority points to systemic corruption within U.S. democracy.

Adding causational gloss over material malfeasance was Pelosi's "standing with Taiwan democracy" excuse. Others explained her visit as grandstanding for the mid-terms. Incredulously, despite flying to Taiwan on official business and being third in line for the presidency, never was the explanation that the U.S. seeks to upend the official stance that "there is but one China" given as a causational element in the narrative.

Indeed, we are to believe that various organs of U.S. state power operate non-hierarchically and Biden could do nothing. As such, we are led to falsely conclude that there is no overall strategy in place and accept the liberal ideology that things are processing in "free motion." Of course, considering Biden's frailties, this perspective is easily swallowed by many.

However, there is strategy at play but being undemocratic it must be obfuscated. This strategy is set by the globalist moneyed interests behind Pelosi who are the éminence grise that control the U.S.'s overall strategy. Here the sending of a new U.S. delegation points to a further reinforcing of this gambit.

Regarding Taiwan region, there is a grand strategy and a micro strategy. The grand strategy is that the U.S. has always sought to dominate China, along with the rest of the world. As such, the U.S. always supported their proxies who fled to Taiwan since the founding of the People's Republic of China.

While the U.S. cooperated with China from 1978, it did so pragmatically for the sake of profits. Consequently, it still continued to support Taiwan through weapons sales. This shows the U.S. has always followed a strategy of contradiction where its principled rhetoric has never matched its actions and where the U.S. always seeks to have its cake and eat it.

The original U.S. strategy was that China would fall due to "market corruption and class contradictions" leading to the implementation of a U.S.-style liberal system. Instead, China developed and strengthened which led to the U.S. pivot to Asia which seeks to militarily contain China and protect globalist monopolistic interests.

Taiwan plays a key role in the U.S. strategy for world domination. The U.S. far from the rest of the world must dominate through trans-oceanic control and seeking relative de-development of rival inland powers. As such, through naval projection, it contains China by controlling the first island chain of which Taiwan is part. Cross-strait reunification would allow China to break through the first island chain and access the Pacific.

The problem for the U.S. is that its domination over Taiwan is tenuous. China is growing stronger both militarily and economically. Many analysts believe that China will have achieved local military parity with the U.S. by 2027. As the mainland's living conditions surpass Taiwan's, China's soft power will also grow. All these conditions will coalesce to make peaceful reunification a fait accompli.

As such, for the sake of maintaining control of the first island chain and preserving U.S. hegemony, this future fait accompli will not be tolerated by the U.S. However, the U.S. is running out of time. It faces economic and social woes at home and the U.S. has deindustrialised. The incessant and corrupt use of military power continues to diminish U.S. soft power leading to public disillusionment. Consequently, for the U.S., the faster it can use its remaining military advantage, and current economic and soft-power strength, the better.

U.S. strategic papers do overtly call for bringing Taiwan into some sort of unofficial military alliance through joint exercises and forming stronger "diplomatic relations." Acts like the America COMPETES Act seek to bring Taiwan's status closer to state-to-state relations. The CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which has already become law, seeks to bring advanced production out of any future conflict zone.

In this regard, the U.S. seeks to deny the reunification of China and maintain the first island chain by slowly "inserting the thin end of the wedge." This way the U.S. can also test China's response and make appropriate corrections to their future strategy. For example, Pelosi's visit led to combat military drills encircling Taiwan. Perhaps the U.S. wanted to see if these could be maintained and so sent another delegation – which did indeed lead to further drills.

This is a risky game of "chicken" that could lead to cross fire or embolden Taiwan independence forces to declare independence which would lead to war. However, this may be the button the U.S. wishes to push.

China will only get stronger so the U.S. globalist elites may see an early war as a strategic way to weaken China vis-à-vis itself. Let us not forget that the U.S.'s rise to hegemon status came about through sitting out two world wars and then coming in fresh to take the spoils. Of course, the U.S. would undoubtedly explain any conflict and any involvement in it through the lens of protecting democracy and the independence of "an underdog" which would be strategically leveraged by the globalist elites to rally their populations and distract from their own internal class contradictions.

The author is a University of Oxford graduate with a Master of Science in Contemporary Chinese Studies.