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.

In a public statement issued in the wake of the U.S. criminal attacks on Venezuela and abduction of President Nicolás Maduro, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez reiterated that Washington’s military operation seeks regime change and control of Venezuela’s natural resources. According to the presidential line of succession stipulated by Venezuela’s Constitution, Rodríguez will become the president of the nation in President Maduro’s absence.

In the statement, VP Rodríguez demanded the immediate release of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores: “The only president of Venezuela is President Nicolás Maduro,” she said.

In a statement broadcast on publicly owned national radio and television on Saturday, January 3, at 3 p.m., Rodríguez reflected on the unprecedented military aggression carried out by the United States against Venezuela, perpetrated at 1:58 a.m. Caracas time, which culminated in the illegal abduction of President Maduro and his wife.

Accompanied by senior officials from the Venezuelan government, representatives of the public authorities and military high command, and other authorities, the vice president led an emergency meeting of the National Defense Council (Codena) at Miraflores Palace. Rodríguez recalled that the administration had warned of attacks under “false excuses and pretexts,” noting that “the mask has fallen.”

The vice president reported on the activation of the Citizen Security Agency and “all national power” in Venezuela. This seeks to activate the defense of national independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity, which she described as “savagely attacked.” She also added that “the people of Venezuela have taken to the streets,” following a previous call by President Maduro for the activation of the armed forces (FANB) and the civil militias.

VP Rodríguez also announced the activation of a decree of “external commotion” signed by President Maduro and delivered to the president of the Supreme Court of Justice for endorsement by the Constitutional Chamber. This decree is expected to obtain judicial approval in the coming hours and effectively places the country in a state of emergency, permitting special measures to be carried out under the Constitution.

The vice president reiterated that the real objective of this operation is “regime change in Venezuela,” which would allow the United States to take over “our energy, mineral, and natural resources.” She called on the international community to stand up for justice.

The vice president highlighted international support from countless countries, including China, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, neighboring countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, and numerous nations of Africa and Asia. She stated that the governments of the world are shocked by this attack. Incidentally, she also mentioned a possible “Zionist influence” on the attacks and referred to the abduction as “truly shameful.”

Rodríguez quoted Simón Bolívar, liberator of the Americas from Spanish colonial rule: “The veil has been torn, we have seen the light, and they want to return us to darkness. The chains have been broken, we have been free, and our enemies seek to enslave us once again.” She emphasized that Venezuela “will never again be a colony of any empire.”

The vice president recalled recent statements by President Maduro, who, in a recent interview with Ignacio Ramonet, confirmed the Venezuelan government’s willingness to “maintain dialogue to address a constructive agenda.”

VP Rodríguez pointed out that the U.S. aggression “flagrantly violates Articles 1 and 2 of the United Nations Charter” despite the fact that Maduro had extended his hand to the U.S. administration to attempt to establish “diplomatic, political, and institutional channels of communication” based on the well-being of civilians, friendship, cooperation, and respect for international law.

Finally, the vice president called on the Venezuelan people to “remain calm” and to face the situation “together in perfect national unity.” She urged that the “police, military, and popular forces” become “one body” to defend “our beloved Venezuela” in this “stage of defense of our sovereignty and our national independence.”

Alba Ciudad with Orinoco Tribune content
Translation: Orinoco Tribune

Statement from the National Network on Cuba

The recent U.S. military assault on Venezuela is not a legitimate action against “narco-terrorism”—it is naked imperialism, a blatant violation of international law and Venezuelan sovereignty. The United States’ bombardment of Caracas and other regions, along with the announcement of the capture of President Nicolás Maduro, has drawn immediate condemnation from leaders across Latin America and the world, including Cuba’s government, which called it “state terrorism” and demanded an urgent global response.

This escalation comes after months of naval blockade, strikes on vessels, and sanctions on Venezuelan oil firms—moves critics say are less about public safety and more about controlling the region’s vast natural resources and strategic influence.

But the consequences are already clear: this aggression is destabilizing the Southern Hemisphere. It risks triggering broader conflict, disrupting regional peace, and creating waves of migration, economic hardship, and humanitarian crisis across Latin America and the Caribbean. Experts warn that such intervention could spiral into a conflict reminiscent of past major wars, with international involvement and profound human cost.

We reject this war of conquest. The right to self-determination, sovereignty, and peace is enshrined in the UN Charter and international law—principles that these actions have ignored. Instead of building cooperation and mutual respect, the U.S. government is choosing domination and extraction. We stand in solidarity with the Venezuelan people, with all nations resisting imperialist war, and with those around the world who know that peace cannot be secured through bombs and blockades but through justice and respect for sovereign peoples.

Demanding Proof of Life

Following President Trump’s reckless declaration that the United States had “captured” Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the situation escalated into a grave international crisis. Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, speaking on state-run television, stated that the whereabouts of President Maduro and his wife are unknown, and directly challenged the U.S. government—demanding proof of life.

This moment marks an unprecedented and dangerous threshold in U.S. foreign aggression. The forced disappearance of a sitting head of state—whether through direct seizure, covert detention, or proxy action—constitutes a blatant violation of international law, including the UN Charter, the Vienna Convention, and the fundamental principles of national sovereignty. It is not diplomacy; it is state kidnapping.

The immediate regional fallout is already visible. Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro announced the deployment of Colombian forces to the Venezuelan border, preparing for the possibility of a massive refugee influx. This response exposes the cascading consequences of imperial intervention: destabilization, displacement, and the spreading of crisis far beyond Venezuela’s borders.

Latin America has lived through this script before—coups masked as “liberation,” invasions framed as “security,” and sanctions justified as “democracy promotion.” Each time, the result has been devastation for working people and long-term instability for the region. What is unfolding now is not an isolated incident, but part of a broader imperial strategy aimed at crushing sovereignty and reasserting U.S. dominance over the Global South.

The Venezuelan people did not choose war. They did not choose blockade, sabotage, or the terror of political disappearance. This crisis has been manufactured by an empire willing to shatter international norms to maintain control over resources and geopolitical influence.

We stand in unwavering solidarity with the people of Venezuela and with all nations resisting imperial domination. The demand is clear and urgent: produce proof of life, respect international law, and end U.S. aggression immediately.

Cuba’s Firm Stand

The escalation of U.S. aggression has drawn firm and unequivocal condemnation from across the Global South. Cuba’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, denounced the ongoing military assault in the strongest terms:

“We strongly condemn the ongoing military aggression by the USA against Venezuela. The bombings and acts of war against Caracas and other locations in the country are cowardly acts against a nation that has not attacked the United States or any other country.”

The Cuban government characterized the airstrikes as acts of state terrorism and a flagrant violation of Venezuelan sovereignty, warning that such attacks threaten not only Venezuela but the stability of the entire region. Havana called on the international community to respond urgently to what it described as a criminal assault that shatters the principles of international law and undermines the Zone of Peace declared by Latin America and the Caribbean.

“Our Zone of Peace is being brutally attacked,” the Cuban statement affirmed. “This is an act of aggression against the brave Venezuelan people and against Our America.”

Cuba reaffirmed its unconditional solidarity with Venezuela and its enduring commitment to the self-determination of peoples, standing firmly against imperial domination, military coercion, and the normalization of war as policy. In a moment when international law is being openly trampled and sovereignty treated as expendable, Cuba’s position reflects a moral clarity rooted in decades of resistance and internationalism.

The message concludes not as rhetoric, but as resolve—echoing the historical consciousness of a people who have faced blockade, invasion, and terror yet refused to surrender their dignity:

“Patria o Muerte. ¡Venceremos!”

This is not merely Venezuela’s struggle. It is a defining moment for the future of global peace, sovereignty, and justice.

National Network on Cuba
Co-chairs: Cheryl LaBash, Shaquille Fontenot, Onyesonwu Chatoyer, César Omar Sánchez, Tim Rupprecht

Baltimore People’s Power Assembly condemns U.S. strikes on Venezuela and calls for immediate protest

The Baltimore People’s Power Assembly strongly condemns the U.S. military’s brutal strikes on Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president, Nicolás Maduro. Airstrikes on civilian and military targets come after weeks of provocation against Venezuela by Donald Trump and the entire U.S. government. As if bombing innocent fishermen and migrants along the coast was not bad enough, the United States has now escalated its war against Venezuela with airstrikes aimed at crippling Venezuela’s crucial infrastructure in Caracas, the nation’s capital.

These strikes are flagrant violations of international law and the self-determination of the Venezuelan people. While in the United States, workers face historic joblessness and inflation, the U.S. government continues to pour millions into waging war.

In response to these brutal and inhumane attacks on Venezuela, the Baltimore People’s Power Assembly is calling for a demonstration in Baltimore to demand no war on Venezuela. We need money for healthcare, education, and jobs—not war on Venezuela.

WHAT: No War on Venezuela Protest and Rally
WHEN: Saturday, January 3, 2026, 2 PM
WHERE: City Hall, 100 N. Holliday Street, Baltimore
WHO: Baltimore People’s Power Assembly

Editor’s note: The following is the official communiqué issued by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on January 3, 2026, in response to U.S. military strikes on Caracas and surrounding areas. President Trump announced the operation on social media early Saturday morning, claiming the capture of President Nicolás Maduro. International reactions have been swift, with Russia, Iran, China, Cuba, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Brazil, and Belarus condemning the strikes. UN special rapporteur Ben Saul called it “illegal aggression” and an “illegal abduction.” Venezuela has requested an emergency UN Security Council meeting.

COMMUNIQUÉ
BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela rejects, condemns, and denounces to the international community the grave military aggression perpetrated by the current government of the United States of America against Venezuelan territory and population in civilian and military localities of the city of Caracas, capital of the Republic, and the states of Miranda, Aragua, and La Guaira.

This act constitutes a flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter, particularly its Articles 1 and 2, which enshrine respect for sovereignty, the legal equality of states, and the prohibition of the use of force. Such aggression threatens international peace and stability, specifically in Latin America and the Caribbean, and gravely endangers the lives of millions of people.

The objective of this attack is none other than to seize Venezuela’s strategic resources, in particular its oil and minerals, attempting to forcibly break the political independence of the nation. They shall not succeed. After more than two hundred years of independence, the people and their legitimate government remain steadfast in defense of sovereignty and the inalienable right to decide their own destiny. The attempt to impose a colonial war to destroy the republican form of government and force a “regime change,” in alliance with the fascist oligarchy, will fail as all previous attempts have.

Since 1811, Venezuela has confronted and defeated empires. When in 1902 foreign powers bombarded our coasts, President Cipriano Castro proclaimed: “The insolent foot of the foreigner has profaned the sacred soil of the Homeland.” Today, with the spirit of Bolívar, Miranda, and our liberators, the Venezuelan people rise once again to defend their independence against imperial aggression.

To the Streets, People

The Bolivarian government calls upon all social and political forces of the country to activate mobilization plans and repudiate this imperialist attack. The people of Venezuela and its Bolivarian National Armed Forces, in perfect popular-military-police fusion, are deployed to guarantee sovereignty and peace.

Simultaneously, Bolivarian Peace Diplomacy will submit the corresponding denunciations before the United Nations Security Council, the Secretary-General of said organization, CELAC, and the NAM, demanding condemnation and accountability from the United States government.

President Nicolás Maduro has directed all national defense plans to be implemented at the appropriate time and under appropriate circumstances, in strict adherence to the provisions of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the Organic Law on States of Exception, and the Organic Law on National Security.

In this regard, President Nicolás Maduro has signed and ordered the implementation of the Decree declaring a State of External Commotion throughout the national territory, to protect the rights of the population, the full functioning of republican institutions, and to immediately transition to armed struggle. The entire country must activate to defeat this imperialist aggression.

Likewise, he has ordered the immediate deployment of the Command for the Comprehensive Defense of the Nation and the Comprehensive Defense Directional Organs in all states and municipalities of the country.

In strict adherence to Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, Venezuela reserves the right to exercise legitimate defense to protect its people, its territory, and its independence. We call upon the peoples and governments of Latin America, the Caribbean, and the world to mobilize in active solidarity against this imperial aggression.

As Supreme Commander Hugo Chávez Frías stated, “In the face of any circumstance of new difficulties, however great they may be, the response of all patriots… is unity, struggle, battle, and victory.”

Caracas, January 3, 2026

Nicolás Maduro remains in Miraflores Palace, and Cuba celebrates the 67th anniversary of the Revolution today. January 1, 2026, dawns with this uncomfortable truth for the opinion machine that has spent months predicting the imminent fall of both governments, while Trump’s gunboats prowl the Caribbean.

There is no honest way to deny the crises both countries are experiencing — they are visible and socially painful — but the point is to understand why the narrative of the “inevitable fall” returns time and again and, time and again, fails. What collapsed in 2025 was not power in Caracas nor the institutions in Havana.

What collapsed was a type of interpretation, convenient for certain elites, that reduces politics to a mechanical equation of pressure and collapse, confuses desire with prediction, and, above all, presents Latin America as a chessboard where Washington moves pieces and the peoples of the South simply fall by inertia.

“Maduro won’t make it to Christmas,” shouted Rep. Carlos Giménez, of Cuban origin, when Trump declared his “peace through strength.” Giménez’s allies in Miami echoed this sentiment, but with the added twist of a “Castro-communist end.” This determinism, repeated ad nauseam by Florida politicians led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has served to normalize collective punishment and transform social suffering into a tool of “political engineering.”

In 2025, headlines and columns treated the collapse as an imminent, almost inevitable event: all it took was “one more push,” “a definitive closure,” “one final turn of the screw.” In Venezuela, opposition media even narrated the fall as if it were happening in real time. Nobel Peace Prize laureate and enthusiast of a U.S. invasion, María Corina Machado, promised Trump massive privatizations of her country’s oil fields and free rein for U.S. companies.

In the Cuban case, think tanks and commentators insisted that the combination of energy crisis, inflation, and social unrest opened a window for “regime change” in 2025. In the U.S. political arena — and especially in the media ecosystem based in Florida — the escalation of hardline rhetoric, with explicit references to “regime change” as the desired outcome, was presented as the prelude to a total victory against communism: first Caracas, then Havana; all by association, as if societies were dominoes.

But reality is stubborn. There are structures, interests, memories, and state capacities that do not evaporate with the first blow. When punishment becomes the norm, societies learn — sometimes creatively, sometimes painfully — to survive within the anomaly. Peoples are not a footnote in geopolitical calculations: they are political subjects with the capacity to interpret what is happening, to organize collective knowledge, and to accumulate experiences. They have support networks, forms of cohesion, and a practical intelligence forged by memory and the harsh realities of daily life.

In Cuba, blackouts, the erosion of purchasing power, shortages, migration, and deprivations of all kinds were interpreted as an automatic threshold for collapse. The idea that the economic crisis “can only end” in political downfall was repeated. But Cuban history — with all its contradictions — is also the story of a state that has already survived extreme shocks, including the Special Period, through a combination of partial economic reorganization, institutional leadership, and community and family networks that cushion the blow. This doesn’t make the crisis any less real. It simply explains why the crisis doesn’t automatically translate into collapse.

Both Venezuelans and Cubans identify Washington as the main factor in the economic suffocation they are suffering, and this awareness, far from sparking a rebellion against their governments, tends to activate reflexes of national dignity. If what the U.S. power sought was to turn hunger, blackouts, and uncertainty into leverage for insurrection, the purpose has failed. They have created societies willing to resist, not to rise up.

Perhaps it would be wise to change the question to alter the policy. It’s not “when will they fall,” as if the fall were a spectacle. It’s “how much life are we willing to destroy to try to bring them down?” That is the ethical question that the prophets of collapse avoid, because it forces them to consider the human cost of their recipe, and for anyone with a memory in Latin America — with coups, blockades, invasions, and tutelage — that question should be a red line: no “democracy” imposed by gunboats is worth the price of punishing millions of innocent people.

Source: La Jornada, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English