the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Jan 5, 2026
This article is excerpted from the January 2 issue, #2996 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in France.
The Chinese government launched large-scale military exercises off the coast of Taiwan on December 29 and 30….
The exercises were China’s response to a massive arms deal Lai Ching-te recently made with the U.S. The Chinese military mobilized a fleet of ships, aircraft, and drones, conducted live-fire exercises on maritime targets, simulated a blockade of the island, and disrupted nearly a thousand commercial flights to Taiwan’s capital Taipei….
… On November 25, Japan had deployed aircraft to Yonaguni, a Japanese island hardly 75 miles east of Taiwan. Japan is also heavily arming the island by installing surface-to-air missile batteries. On December 10, the U.S. and Japan conducted joint bomber and fighter jet exercises, in response to Russian-Chinese maritime exercises….
Taiwan is a forward operating base and thorn in China’s side, meant to help contain this competitor that is gaining too much ground in the Asia-Pacific region and the global economy. The U.S. asked Taiwan to increase its military spending to more than three percent of GDP by 2026 and five percent by 2030. At the end of November, Taiwan’s president announced that the island’s military spending would increase by 40 billion dollars over several years. Following this, in mid-December, he notoriously placed the largest arms order since 2001—more than 11 billion dollars worth of missile systems, howitzers, anti-tank missiles, drones, and so on.
To justify these arms orders, Taiwan’s president predicts a Chinese invasion in 2027. However, faced with the U.S., Japan, and their Western allies like France, China is not in a position to invade Taiwan. While the Beijing regime has been demanding reunification with Taiwan since 1949, most of all it opposes any official recognition of Taiwan’s independence. The Chinese government protests almost automatically against every step taken in that direction.
By escalating tensions and accusing China, Lai Ching-te actually intends to undermine the political position of those who advocate closer ties with Beijing, who are somewhat well received on the island. By heavily arming the island, he wants to demonstrate to the Taiwanese that his position—the definitive and official separation of Taiwan from China—is the only possible one. By doing this, he keeps the entire region a powder keg.