Washington bets $11 billion on Taiwan war

Washington has taken another step toward war with China. By approving the largest weapons package ever sent to Taiwan—$11.1 billion in advanced arms—the United States has intensified a long-standing campaign to militarize Chinese territory.

There is no unresolved sovereignty question in the Taiwan Strait. That question was settled in 1949 with the victory of the Chinese Revolution. What remains is the refusal of U.S. imperialism to accept that outcome.

When the People’s Republic of China was proclaimed, the Kuomintang regime fled to Taiwan under the protection of U.S. military power. That retreat did not create a second China. It created a temporary imperialist foothold on Chinese territory. Every development since then has flowed from that fact.

Restraint, not provocation

For more than seven decades, Beijing has acted with restraint. It asserted sovereignty while avoiding a direct military confrontation that would have given Washington a pretext for open intervention. That restraint was not weakness. It was a conscious political choice shaped by China’s assessment of the global balance of forces. It preserved peace in the Taiwan Strait even as Washington continued to arm, finance, and politically shelter the remnants of a defeated counterrevolution.

The so-called one-China policy did not rest on goodwill or compromise. It rested on the reality that the Chinese Revolution could not be reversed without war on a scale Washington was unwilling to fight. That restraint is now being stripped away.

From ambiguity to open militarization

The recent U.S. decision to approve more than $11 billion in weapons for Taiwan marks a qualitative change. The package centers on long-range strike systems designed for offensive operations, not local defense. 

It includes dozens of HIMARS launchers and hundreds of precision-guided missiles capable of striking targets far beyond Taiwan’s coastline. ATACMS missiles supplied under the deal have ranges of roughly 185 miles, with newer variants reaching more than 300 miles. At the narrowest point, Taiwan lies just about 80 miles from the Chinese mainland. 

Weapons stationed on the island would therefore be able to reach deep into China from the moment they are deployed. Their function is not to shield civilian life, but to fold Taiwan into U.S. war planning as a launch platform for sustained strikes against the mainland—a calculated provocation, not a defensive measure.

This shift did not emerge from misunderstanding or diplomatic drift. It reflects the deeper crisis of imperialism itself. As U.S. economic dominance erodes, military pressure becomes a substitute for lost leverage. Imperialism, unable to coexist with an independent socialist state that has developed its productive forces, turns to encirclement and militarization.

Taiwan is central to this strategy not because of concern for its people, but because of its location and its role in global production. The island is being treated as a fixed platform, a stationary arsenal placed directly on China’s doorstep. The danger to the population arises from this transformation, not from China’s insistence on sovereignty.

A striking feature of the current escalation is its recklessness. Many of the weapons announced will not arrive for years. Yet the provocation is immediate. Imperialism is willing to heighten confrontation today over capabilities that may not materialize until the next decade. This is not strategic foresight. It is the impatience of a system confronting its own limits as economic dominance gives way to military pressure.

Inside Taiwan, this external pressure has distorted political life. Alignment with Washington is presented as security, while the social costs are shifted onto working people. Increased military spending means fewer resources for housing, wages, and social services. The island’s legislature has repeatedly blocked funding for the arms package, revealing resistance within Taiwan’s legislature to increased military spending.

Who is creating the danger

China’s response has been firm but measured. Military exercises conducted by the People’s Liberation Army are not acts of adventurism. They are signals aimed at preventing the permanent militarization of Chinese territory. They are responses to interference, not its source.

This distinction is crucial. Imperialist commentary seeks to portray escalation as a symmetrical process, as if both sides were equally responsible for rising tensions. That framing serves to obscure the real line of motion. The initiative lies with Washington. Beijing’s actions are shaped by the need to block a threat, not to manufacture one.

The question before the world is not whether China will abandon restraint, but whether imperialism will continue to dismantle the conditions that made restraint possible. Peace in the Taiwan Strait was preserved for decades not by arms races, but by the recognition — however grudging — that China’s revolution could not be undone.

There is no progressive outcome in turning Taiwan into a battlefield. Working people gain nothing from being put at risk to preserve U.S. military dominance in East Asia. The drive toward confrontation serves only those whose power depends on dominance, not production; coercion, not cooperation.

Imperialism presents its actions as defense. In reality, it is attempting to reopen a historical question that has already been settled. The danger lies not in China’s unity, but in the effort to prevent it.

Ending the crisis requires ending the interference that created it. Until that happens, imperialism will continue to gamble with the lives of millions in an effort to preserve a world order that no longer corresponds to material reality.