Rev Left Radio - Taiwan: Pelosi's Visit, Xi's Response, and US Brinkmanship

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

Danny Haiphong returns to Rev Left, this time to discuss Taiwan, China, Pelosi' recent visit, US imperial goals in the region, and much more!  Support Danny's work here: https://www.patreon.com/dannyhaiphong Check out the Rev Left episode Danny was on that we mentioned in the episode: https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn.com/american-exceptionalism-and-innocence-deconstructing-ideology-and-myths Check out Danny's work at the Black Agenda Report here: https://www.blackagendareport.com/author/Danny%20Haiphong Follow Danny on Twitter @SpiritOfHo  Outro music: "16 Shots" by Vic Mensa Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

Hello everybody and welcome back to Rev Left Radio. On today's episode, I have back on the show Danny Haiphong, who was on the show many times, but I think the biggest episode he was on to talk about his book, I think, in 2019, called American Exceptionalism and American Innocence. Great episode. I'll lead to that in the show notes for people that are interested in that. But today he's back on to talk about China, Taiwan, the recent Pelosi visit, what conditions could. lead to an actual explicit move on the part of China to move on Taiwan, the U.S.'s interests and meddling in the area, and much more. So this is a topical situation that recently happened, and we're just kind of reflecting

on it and pulling out some imperialist and geopolitical insights to make sense of the situation and to help us look forward what's coming down the pike in the coming years, specifically regarding Taiwan, but more broadly, the U.S. and Chinese relations. And as always, if you like what we do here on Rev Left, you can join our Patreon. at patreon.com forward slash RevLeft Radio and in exchange for a couple dollars a month you get access to not only monthly bonus episodes some of which two, three hours long

as our listeners know from recent Patreon episodes but also our entire back catalog of paywalled episodes. It goes to support me and Dave's family especially in this tough time and we deeply appreciate it. If you don't have the money, I totally get it. It's terrible economy. It seems like it always fucking is these days.

Inflation is kicking everybody's ass but by listening and by sharing, by leaving positive reviews, those are all non-monetary ways that genuinely do help the show and that we deeply, deeply appreciate. So without further ado, here's my conversation with Danny Haiphong on Taiwan, Nancy Pelosi, America, China, and much more. Enjoy. My name is Danny Haiphong. I'm a contributing editor of the Black Agenda Reports.

I am also a co-editor of Friends of Socialist China. And I host a regular YouTube program called The Left Lens. And you can support my work on Substack at Chronicles of highfong. dot substack.com or patreon patreon.com slash danny high fawn well welcome back danny you've been on the show many times at this point i don't even remember exactly how many but our audience at least our long time listeners will be fairly familiar with you so always an honor and a pleasure to be able to speak with you and today we're going to be kind of talking about this whole pelosi taiwan china situation

um you know it's it's kind of the acute situation is sort of coming to an end or is at an end and we can kind of reflect on it a little bit more. But I think this is really interesting for a number of reasons, specifically the geopolitical importance of Taiwan going forward, how seriously China takes the Taiwan issue, how belligerent and irresponsible it was for Pelosi to, you know, poke the dragon, as it were, by doing this flagrant trip for seemingly no real reason

other than to kind of put a middle finger up to China. So I kind of wanted to get into the details. something I've seen on headlines and, you know, I've definitely paid attention to, but perhaps haven't got super in-depth with myself. So let's just kind of take it from the top and kind of start with why Pelosi did this at all. Why did Pelosi take this trip to Taiwan? And what was the stated goal on her part? Sure. Well, thanks for having me back on. Brett. It's always a pleasure to be on this great program. Well, for first, I would say that there was a lot of rumors about this because this was leaked well before the trip this was leaked around the end of july

where it was said that nancy pelosi was going to go to taiwan as part of a quote-unquote congressional delegation to asia and of course any kind of activity that the united states does at this point when it comes to asia all centers around china because the united states is embroiled in a new cold war it is facilitating a new cold war it is militarily encircling china and then taking all sorts of political and economic measures to quote unquote attempt to contain China. And so that's reason number one why Nancy Pelosi would do this. It fits within that agenda.

However, this particular situation was very sensitive because the trip itself is a blatant violation of the one China policy. And for those who may not know what that is, it's the, it's both the agreement, it's rendered in international law that says that Taiwan is part of China and that there's only one China and one rightful government of China that's the People's Republic of China. And this dates all the way back to World War II when Japan had to cede its colonial territories back to China, Taiwan included, and also has its roots in three different joint communiques and agreements that China and the United States have as the basis for the normalization of relations

beginning in 1972. So Nancy Pelosi is third in command in Washington, D.C., second in line to the presidency if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, for some reason, cannot rule. For some reason, they cannot continue to be president of the United States. Nancy Pelosi would be third in command as the majority House speaker. And her going to Taiwan in meeting with officials there, meeting with the so-called president, saying when by doing this she was in a blatant violation of this policy which if we just think about what it means to rupture any kind of agreements that literally have their basis in the

normalization of relations well you can kind of infer what that means it means a declaration of war so to speak that you are no longer recognizing china as a legitimate country and the people's Republic of China as a legitimate government and therefore are instigating and honestly facilitating war. So that was the significance of the trip. And there were other reasons, of course, why this was happening, not just this broader new Cold War agenda, but Nancy Pelosi has sort of a flare for this. She is, of course, as many of your viewers and listeners may know, she is a hundred millionaire.

She is deep in the pockets of the big tech Silicon Valley and Wall Street financiers who, by extension, are part of the military industrial complex. So she herself has sort of these individual interests that are embedded in this new Cold War. And so she has this long history, actually, dating back to the 1990s, where she has created this identity for herself as a China Hawk. She is very much aligned with people like Mike Pompeo, Trump's former Secretary of State, and the rest of the GOP, for that matter, on this issue. And she has taken a lot of pride in that. In 1990, I believe it was 1992, she visited Beijing and actually commemorated the Tiananmen Square incident, which was very provocative to China since three years earlier. China had been sort of embattled in a lot of acts of violence that occurred around. that incident on April 4th in 1989, and it was seen in China as a direct result of U.S. interference. So Pelosi doing this in 1992 was also very provocative. And then in 2019, she met with Hong Kong opposition protesters, most of whom, all of whom,

were funded by U.S. think tanks, U.S. National Endowment for Democracy-related organizations that were. really sparking a color revolution in Hong Kong in order to try to attempt, failed, but attempted to separate Hong Kong or create the basis for the separation of Hong Kong from China. So she has deep connections to those forces, which she invited, along with Marco Rubio and the GOP invited to Congress in 2019 to lobby for legislation, which eventually passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which is really just blanket sanctions on Hong Kong and the enforcement of other U.S. sanctions on Hong Kong, for example, against Iran and the DPRK, in order to just forward

this overall geopolitical agenda against China. So Nancy Pelosi has herself these personal, this kind of personal vendetta against China. It's part of her identity as this kind of politician who can make just a killing off of bipartisanship. And her connections to finance capital and to big tech capital really do, I think, require this kind of bipartisanship. And she has chosen China for much of her political career as a way to reach out to the other side of the aisle. And I think a lot of this does have to do with politics. We have a midterm elections coming up. The Democrats aren't really a rough shape.

And they have absolutely no answers for the ills that are afflicting the United States' empire right here. in the belly of it. No, no solutions to the inflation, to the economic crisis, to the pandemic, to anything at all, all the things that people really do care about. The Democratic Party doesn't have any solutions. And her as the real leader of the Democratic Party in a lot of ways, she is using the quote unquote China threat to try to build and develop political capital leading into this election as has been a strategy by the Democratic Party for the Democratic Party for the last several years since Donald Trump, right, trying to build this sort of big tent of the national security state and the GOP in order to try to pull away

votes from the more Trump-oriented GOP. It's a failing strategy. It won't work, but it's one that the Democratic Party and people like Nancy Pelosi really do depend on. Yeah, really well said and great breakdown there. And of course, you know, just speaking of Pelosi, you got to mention it. I think it's our duty at this point to mention her criminality with regards to insider trading and her husband's very coincidental success on the stock market. It's very clear that she has information and for a long time has used that information as somebody high up in the government to inform her stock trades and her husband's stock trades and they've made quite a pretty penny. So outside of even the campaign donations and the direct financial connections between Pelosi and Wall Street and finance capital, there's also that element as well, which is just worth pointing out. And you're right.

I mean, it was McConnell and Pompeo and figures in the GOP establishment that were actually the ones coming out in defense of Pelosi's trip, while many people on her own party were at the very least somewhat skeptical or quiet about it. The Biden administration, I think outright came out and said that they, you know, please don't do this in so many words, and she flaunted them. So it's just interesting. And there's another layer of just insanity here, which is that most American, across the political spectrum absolutely fucking hate Pelosi and it would just be an insane

ironic horrific event if you know that precip if Pelosi was the was the figure that precipitate acting ostensibly on behalf of the united states was the was the figure that precipitated hot conflict or anything even close i don't think that's going to happen this time but she was certainly playing with fire and that could have been a result she was not for sure that that wasn't going to happen and still took the risk anyway, just absolutely reprehensible and irresponsible on every level. But yeah, can you talk about kind of how the response was? Like, as she said that she was making this trip, the Biden administration responded and China issued some warnings before she came, if I'm not mistaken. So can you talk about the response from the Biden administration and

the response from China to her plans to go to Taiwan? Sure. Yeah. So the Biden administration kind of tepidly said, and Joe Biden himself said, when asked, said that they didn't support it. They didn't think it was a good idea. But continuously reiterated that Nancy Pelosi is her own person, that she can do what she wants. She's a part of Congress, the presidency, you know, the executive branch and Congress are separate from each other. And so while both Joe Biden and the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin, both said, probably not a good idea right now. It probably isn't necessary. They were not going to do and had no plans to do anything to stop.

But a lot of that, I believe, was political theater. The United States, the Joe Biden administration especially, they want to look like they are about diplomacy, that they are not going to renege on agreements such as the one China policy. Because a lot of the new Cold War that Joe Biden is pursuing, the kind of front that the administration puts on is that it's all about building alliances. and it's all about a kind of deal-making. Doing the deal-making that Trump always said he could do, but doing so in a way that makes it look like the United States is trying to build a multilateral system toward this objective of building up to a war with China.

It's kind of just baffling to think about it, but that's honestly how the Biden administration wants to be viewed as. So that's why I think a lot of it was theater, a lot of the response was, okay, well, we can't, control this, but we also don't verbally support it. And that's kind of the cover that they gave themselves. The administration gave themselves. In terms of China, I mean, China was very clear from the outset. The foreign ministry of spokespersons, the People's Liberation Army was giving public statements. All of them said, this is very dangerous. Do not come. Do not do this.

This is a violation of the one China policy. And you're going to bear all the consequences. to this. I mean, you know, you had President Xi Jinping, I think he spoke to Joe Biden. I believe this was the evening of the 29th of July. It could have been the 28th, but I believe it was the 29th of July where he also told Joe Biden, exactly as you said, you know, you play with fire around Taiwan and you will get burned, that this is not something that China is going to allow to happen without any consequences. And just to speak of maybe a bit about the response from there afterward, because a lot of people, and even on Twitter and social media and all over, I guess, the sort of sphere, right, social media around people, because people really dislike Nancy Pelosi,

there was a lot of kind of reckless talk happening. You know, a lot of people in the United States and the West don't have much of a relationship to geopolitics, right? It's very far flung from our ordinary lives. So a lot of people were like, okay, China's going to do this. It was, as you said, it's ironic that Nancy Pelosi would be the one to start a hot war. And in the way people were talking, it's like, well, is Nancy Pelosi going to be the one to get people to realize just how belligerent this empire is starting a war. And I think a lot of people were actually scared. But I do think that there was fear over this. It didn't luckily have the kind of same responses, let's say Russia's special military operation and Russia's operation in Ukraine did,

where there was just this McCarthyist kind of response immediately to it. But I do think that there were a lot of people who were scared that a war was going to break out. And Nancy Pelosi was in actual danger. I didn't think that because China has been measured about this whole new Cold War that's waged against it from the very beginning. I did think there were going be consequences. I even thought that it could be true that if the possibility was there, that Pelosi could have been diverted and landed elsewhere and that that would be a response that China would take as like a way to say, no, we are actually strong and united. And this is a red line. And you're crossing it right now. Of course, there's all sorts of logistical things

that could get in the way of that. For example, an airliner like the one Pelosi was flying only has limited fuel. So attempting to divert could actually cause a lot more problems. than solutions. And also, you had Nancy Pelosi coming in on military aircraft backed up by an even more militarized situation. The entire, you know, the USS Reagan crept up hundreds of kilometers to Taiwan, ready to strike, right? You had the situation where there was a buildup.

The United States immediately started building up even more so than it has to protect Nancy Pelosi. And so it was a very dicey situation. But she ended up going. The night happened. She spent the day the next day meeting with Sainan and others in Taiwan. And then she left. China did, though, respond after that, immediately responded.

There were two ways that China responded. One, diplomatically. China cut off pretty important in key areas for cooperation with the United States. A lot around defense coordination and some other kind of more social issues, narcotics, things like that. And also climate change. The United States has not been a very good partner around climate change. So I don't think China saw it as really a big loss that now they're not going to cooperate on that. The United States is sanctioning key industries in China to try to thwart the fight against climate change.

So that was kind of a long time coming as part of this longer new Cold War, or this broader New Cold War. So that was one way. And then military exercises. So on April 4th, for 72 hours. the People's Liberation Army conducted live fire drills all surrounding Taiwan. And I believe it was five to six different positions. And that was the first time this has ever happened. The first time that China has conducted, that broke the strait.

So they broke the so-called air defense identification zone that Taiwan says it has, the Taiwan authorities says it has the right of, really it's just a World War II concocted, a so-called air defense identification zone created by the United States to try to dominate the Taiwan Straits, which includes part of mainland China. So China had never recognized it, but this was the first time that it conducted military exercises over it and also showed both the Taiwan authorities that think that separatism and independence is a good idea and the United States that back them that, you know, if you do try something, that we actually have control of the waters and we have control of the air so if you attempt something

then it's going to be a pretty quick conflict and so that was really the point deterrence right deterrent we're not going to let this happen again this is what we have you know this is just kind of like a taste of what could be right like we can send our forces out there we can send our aircraft we can send our naval carriers and we can show we can show live fire what it's like So those were the two responses from China. The United States, of course, framed it as well, they're being belligerent and breaking the status quo. But in reality, the United States, by allowing Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, really just completely obliterated the one China policy, which had been already violated over and over and over again by the Biden administration alone. I mean, the Biden administration has already completed five arm sales to Taiwan in contravention to the 1982 Joint Communique.

And he's already said three different times during his administration, whether by mistake or whatever the explanation is, he's already said more than a few times that the United States will militarily intervene in Taiwan should, quote, China invade, end quote, despite the fact that the U.S. knows full well that China has been committed to peaceful reunification. And that the United States, prior to 1949, kept tens of thousands of troops on Taiwan, threatened nuclear war against China. And now still has military personnel in Taiwan that it continues to increase. I think in 2021, it doubled. And of course, we've had $36 billion worth of arms sales sent to Taiwan since the Trump administration. And those arms sales also have a backlog of another $14 billion. Who knows what it will be like when Biden is done. or in 2024 or 28.

So the United States knows full well who is breaking and violating the one China policy. It's just that it's doing everything it can since Pelosi's visit to try to undermine it. And this includes the so-called, quote, unquote, progressive Democrat. Roe Conno was on CNN literally sounding like a neo-con hawk telling who are the Chinese, telling people who are the Chinese,

who are the Communist Party of China to tell Pelosi where she should travel without any acknowledgement that this is international law. UN Resolution 2758 says that Taiwan is part of China and there's only one rightful government of China. You can't just go into Chinese territory without any contact or communication or any prior approval from China. That's just not how bilateral relations or multilateral relations work in the ideal sense. But the United States thinks of itself as international law

doesn't believe that it has the right to follow any one else's rules, let alone the rules of the United Nations themselves. And so that's what got us, that's what's gotten us into this mess. And I think, you know, that really forms the basis of how the U.S. has reacted to this whole thing. Yeah, absolutely. You know, just a few things at the top of my head. You know, Rokan is just a perfect sort of symbol of what happens when you try to use the Democratic Party as a mechanism through which to push a progressive politic. It's not you that changes the party. It's the party that

beat you into submission or if you even need to be beaten if you don't willingly join. So it's just kind of funny to see a figure like that, just being a frothing at the mouth imperialist. But it presents himself as a progressive member of whatever the squad is nowadays.

But I just kind of want to talk about Taiwan and why Taiwan is such a touchy subject for China in particular. You mentioned U.S. Taiwan for its military operations in the past. I'm pretty sure that I'm correct in saying that Japan, Imperial Japan used Taiwan to launch attacks on the Chinese mainland during and around World War II. So this is clearly just geostrategically a point that has in the past been a thorn in the side of China, a position from which its enemies have launched attacks on it in multiple

different circumstances. Before Biden, Trump himself participated in this by calling, I think it was the Taiwanese president to congratulate them on an election victory or something that really stirred shit up and created more hostilities than was necessary. It's very clear overall that China does not want war. China wants peace. China is a much more responsible agent on the global scene than the U.S. is. The U.S. is literally above international law. Its favorite phrase, you know, the rules-based international order just means American hegemony. Whenever you see them, talk about the rules-based international order, know that they just mean whatever America wants at this time to be the case. That's the rule book they go off of. And, you know, just the geopolitical

context in which China finds itself right now is one that it is surrounded by U.S. military. The U.S. military is this global force, and China wants just to operate in its neighborhood. And the U.S. insists that, no, you know, the U.S. will not only operate in its neighborhood, but actually sees the entire world as its neighborhood and would not allow China to do things that America take for granted that it can do. So there's that fundamental hypocrisy, the fundamental belligerence on the part of the U.S. against China, who, as I said, has no interests in war, actually has quite a lot of interest in maintaining peace and not letting conflicts get hot. So it can focus on the development of its internal economy and its trade relations and uplifting its own people.

So you have this situation where the U.S. surrounds China, has nukes pointed at China from virtually every direction. They formed the quadrilateral security dialogue or the quad alliance between Australia, India, Japan, and the U.S. to keep China in check literally geopolitically as a formation by which they will push back against any attempts for China to do anything the U.S. doesn't like. So China is in a lot of ways a besieged country knowing that it's walking a very fine line, trying to push for basic norms of equality and territorial integrity at the level of the UN and some of these other formations and is constantly dogged by the U.S., constantly threatened, constantly harassed by the U.S. And so with all of this in mind, can you kind of talk about why Taiwan in particular is such a touchy subject for China? I know I touched on some things, but do you have anything more to say on that front? Sure, sure. Yeah. Well, with regard to China, especially around Taiwan, I like to think of what the Black Panther Party used to say, right, in terms of how they viewed their political stance around self-defense. They said that when you, you know, they compared themselves, that's why they call themselves the Black Panther Party, that Black Panther, like, what does a Panther do when it's cornered?

well, a panther won't jump in, like, attack you just right away. But once it feels like it's in danger, once it feels like it needs to protect itself, it's going to fight back. And that was the whole Black Panther reference. And I think that is really apt to describe how China has navigated this for decades upon decades, if not more than a century, where, as you said, Japan did colonize Taiwan. It was part of its colonial dominion and empire. for a half century beginning in 1895 and of course you know not many people understand that

Taiwan has been part of China for many many many many years you know going back to the Qing dynasty and even further back so number one Taiwan is viewed as Chinese territory and so the way that it has been treated first by Japan and then the United States is just first first of all, just completely and utterly unacceptable. And that's why we had during the mid-20th centuries, during the height of the Cold War, you had the United States attempt to use Taiwan as a launching pad for the first Cold War, stationing troops,

provoking the nationally old nationalist party, the KMT, into trying to assert itself as the rightful government of China. One very important distinction to make is that even as in that very sensitive period of the Cold War, even as the Republic of China, the government that was now stationed in Taiwan, then called Formosa, viewed itself as China, did not view itself as an independent state. And this is very important to understand politics now and why the situation has gotten even more sensitive. For years, because there was so much animosity with the KMT, right? It was the primary barrier, eventually became the primary barrier to the revolution

and to creating new China, an independent China, a China that stands tall. There were a lot of tensions in the U.S. really did spark those, facilitate those, and tried to use those as a weapon in its larger Cold War to try to overthrow China. That didn't work. It didn't work. The United States couldn't do it. Dropping nuclear weapons would have been a disaster, even though Daniel Ellsberg, revealed in 1958, the United States seriously considered it. But it didn't work. It didn't

happen. And Taiwan has always been viewed as part of China, the motherland. And its political situation is viewed as well. It's kind of like a lost brother, right? It's like out there doing its thing. It has autonomy. China allowed Taiwan to have a lot of autonomy politically and economically. And then came normalization. And this is where I think it got really sensitive, because in 1971, the United Nations was finally allowed to, and I used that statement very intentionally, it was allowed to. The United States was finally figuring out that sanctions against China, that trying to paint China as this one big enemy was not going to work in the Cold War. It wanted to kind of diversify things. It needed to.

come to the aid of its outstretched economy, capitalist economy, in the wake of what was a disastrous war in Vietnam that was just hemorrhaging money and creating a really unstable global economic situation. So the United States wanted normalize with China or at least wanted to get to the point where it could have better economic relations to help ease some of that economic pain that was to come and also to help out in this Cold War against the Soviet Union. So normalization started in China from the very beginning said, well, if we're going to have relations, if we're going to normalize, we want to

do that, but we cannot allow Taiwan to be treated in this manner. It cannot be some kind of U.S. base. It is part of China, and you need to respect that. The United Nations has acknowledged this now that we are rightfully sitting at the U.N. as the rightful government of China. Now it's your turn

to recognize this. And the United States signed off and the Shanghai communique said, okay, sure. We will recognize that Taiwan, we will recognize that Taiwan is the internal affairs of China. We will not interfere in them. However, seven years later, the United States, even after signing another joint communique reiterating this with China, seven years later, when the United States finally

fully normalized relations with China, it also passed the Taiwan Relations Act, which was a way to say, well, we normalize relations with China. Sure, the political affairs and sure, we'll withdraw our troops, but we have the right to continue to trade on you know to have economic and political relations and we can you know send weapons there if we want we just can't interfere overtly politically that that was a taiwan relations act in a sort of a nutshell a complete contradiction a way to get around the obligations of the one china the one china policy the situation has only gotten worse since then and especially in 2016 you mentioned donald trump's call

to Tsying Wen, when her Democratic Progressive Party, which is neither Democratic nor Progressive, but the Democratic Progressive Party, when it finally, once again, won a majority in the parliament and won the presidency, Donald Trump gave a call and basically said he was committed to Taipei and committed to a building up relations. And that was an egregious violation. And it led to a lot of policies, for example, the Taipei Act, which allowed for Taiwan to supposedly quote unquote, like sit in on international organizations like the World Health Organization. It was a very provocative act. But this really does stem from the Obama administration.

Trump really escalated things, but the Obama administration really ramped up arms sales to Taiwan, a part of this pivot to Asia, and began kind of the material base for what Trump was able to do. And now that Biden is in office, he's kind of a mixture of the two. He doesn't want to rhetorically or verbally sound like Donald Trump. very open about Taiwan independence, quote-unquote, and all of that. But he takes the same actions and has sort of a hybrid policy of this kind of provocative nature toward Taiwan or relationship with Taiwan and feigning and kind of cosplaying respect for the agreements that they have with China. China says preach not practice, right?

That's kind of how the Biden administration is taking things. And so it's so sensitive because you do have this separatist kind of, quote unquote, independence movement happening, which is kind of akin to what's happening, what happened in Hong Kong, although much more complex with a lot more backing behind it. We're talking about billions, tens of billions of dollars of military weaponry from the United States. And it's a very dangerous situation. And it's China's red line because it's one thing to acknowledge that there are political differences, which China does acknowledge. Taiwan has had political differences with the mainland for many years after the revolution. But it's still part of China. Those differences are for China to take care of.

Any kind of independence movement is just a formalization, a really dangerous. formalization of a neo-colonial process that the United States has been trying to spur, creating this idea that Taiwan can be an independent state in of itself, which would really just mean that it would be U.S. property at that point. And that's what Tsai, when, yeah, exactly. That's what Tsying Wen and forces like that, even though there are some who have told me that she is of the more moderate side, believe it or not, that there are forces, they represent a minority, but there are forces who are really mobilized around trying to create an

independence identity. It's almost akin to, with, of course, a lot different of a context, but very similar ideologically to how the United States has kind of embedded this ideology of, well, the United States is this independent country that's for freedom and democracy and, you know, any kind of outside force, for example, China or the Soviet, they are threats to this, like, liberty and everything. That's the kind of education. They're trying to wipe away this education about the relationship with China, the Chinese Revolution, and the United States' role, that's kind of going by the wayside. And it's a real remnant of colonialism and a real remnant of how the United States has treated Taiwan. So it's very sensitive in the sense that it's a declaration of war to attempt, as the United States is, to break away Taiwan from China.

and yeah, that's really where and how it boils down. Yeah, and the U.S. will never advocate for the self-determination of a people if it's not completely in their geopolitical and economic interest to do so. So there's no consistency there. That's just the fig leaf America presents a justification because it can't just come out and say, no, it's good for us strategically and geopolitically to have a foothold in Taiwan so we can check and harass and, you know,

bully basically China as much as we possibly can. So they have to say, well, these people like us believe in democracy and freedom and China's authoritarian and all this nonsense, which apparently obviously works for enough people to keep the whole fucking sham going. But, you know, I think it's really instrumental. And if you really want to, we're not going to be able to have the time to dig into it all right here. But if you really want to understand this history, understanding what happened in the Chinese revolution and how the, you know, reactionary, fascist, right wing elements were defeated, fled to Taiwan, and had a brutal, brutal violent military fascist dictatorship functionally for three, four decades up until the late 80s, early 90s,

until the political system shifted. But, you know, the white terror in Taiwan was this reactionary form of political oppression and murderous attack on civilians living on the island. And all of that stuff, I think, is just helpful to kind of fill out the historical context here. But I just wanted to also say that, you know, it's just absolutely crazy that Americans are willing or ready in any capacity to do anything like going to war over Taiwan. When Taiwan, by any account, is more properly Chinese than even Hawaii or Puerto Rico are legitimately American. And so, you know, there's millions of people apparently that have nothing to say about how the U.S. obtained and dominated Hawaii or Puerto Rico or a million. other places, but are ready to die on the hill of Taiwan needs to be independent from China. It's just a, you know, unique form of American brain rot, you know, undergirded by just

insane propaganda, but it's enough to buy off enough people ideologically, apparently. But I just wanted to make that claim that Taiwan is infinitely more Chinese than Hawaii is American. And so we should, you know, it kind of helps orient yourself to this entire topic to keep that in mind to some extent. But like, looking forward, This autumn, I think it's in November, the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party is coming up. And I'm just very curious about what this is, like, you know, if you can tell our audience what that is, but also some pressures that are on Xi, because I've heard various commentary saying that there's some intra-party, you know, pressure on Xi to be strong in the face of this, you know, flagrant belligerence on behalf of the U.S.

and Pelosi's visit to Taiwan. And so, you know, even within the Communist Party, there are obviously like any other political formation, different wings, different interest groups, jostling for more or less influence and putting pressure on a figure like Xi from multiple sides. And I don't want to leave that out of this discussion either. So can you just kind of talk about what the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party is, for those that don't know? And what pressures, if any, are put on Xi going into that? Sure. Well, the 20th CPC National Congress, the Congress of the Communist Party of China, yeah, it will be, will happen at the second half of this year, which we're technically in. So it's happening very soon. It happens every five years. So the 19th happened in 2017. And it really sets the agenda for the Communist Party of China. And of course, there are elections for the sort of higher Communist Party officials that will take place. And so there has been. a lot of kind of media, I would say in the Western media, even the New York Times, I was reading just their latest sort of report on the military exercises that happened. And, you know, there's a lot

of talk about Xi Jinping having pressures and his part of the, his leadership in the party kind of being under pressure because, you know, I think the main argument here, and I don't think it's a correct one that, you know, China's cards are running out. That's kind of what the West, I mean, this is what the Western media does, right? They say that China's cards are running out. The current leadership is the face of those cards running out. So that means China's leadership is in trouble. Now, that isn't to say that there aren't needs and that there aren't problems and that there aren't things that the 20th National Congress, CPC National Congress, will talk about surely. And in Taiwan will surely be on the agenda. And it is not a secret because academics are

writing about it in China. The New York Times even cited a paper from the University of Wuhan talking about how national reunification is at the top of the priority. And surely it will be. And I would say, you know, I think it's important to reframe. Maybe it's less about pressure to more so than to respond to what are new conditions. Because certainly things have changed a lot in the last five years. This trip by Nancy Pelosi changed a lot of things very rapidly. within a matter of days. So, Taiwan reunification will definitely be on the topic of conversation. And I do believe that it won't happen.

You know, these meetings really come up more with a five-year plan in accordance with the longer-term objectives. A lot of what will be talked about will be the objective for socialist modernization by 2035 and then the great modern socialist country by 2049 to celebrate the centenary of the Chinese Revolution. That will be the main kind of course that will be discussed in the CPC National Congress,

but reunification is definitely part of that. No doubt is it part of that because there are very real changes to the world situation. The United States has definitely played with fire, and now there will be a response. And I do think, of course, in future convenings of the

National People's Congress of the Chinese People's Consultative Congress, Political Consultative Congress When those have the two sessions happen When that happens, I do think that there will be Some kind of response to Taiwan I don't think it will be forced reunification

Or anything like that But I do think that there will be talks about Is there possible legislation This is constitutionally the right of China to administer and also protect its sovereign territory. So will there be legislation talked about? Perhaps I do think that's a big possibility, sort of like what happened in Hong Kong, where the national security law came into play and commenced in June of 2020. It changed everything.

I mean, Hong Kong changed dramatically after June of 2020. The color revolution basically ended, right? So there are things that will be talked about because sovereignty is of key importance. And Taiwan is a big part of China's overall political and economic agenda that cannot be left out. For all of what the United States is doing, trade between Taiwan and the mainland is huge. And the United States right now is actually through the Chips Act trying to undermine that. And China has had to cut off key exports to. Taiwan as a way to show that, one, it will take measures that it needs to take in order to pressure

so-called independence forces to cool it because there are consequences to provoking war. And two, that China can go other directions if it's spurned, right? So I do think that it is pretty suicidal for the United States to continue on this path. But I think the pressures, right, are more so about how does China continue on the course that it's on? Because politically, the government and the CPC has never been more legitimate. I think that's what's ironic about the Western media criticisms. They seem to get more and more bellicose and just detest from reality. The more that this occurs, but from the pandemic to this new Cold War, to the way that China's been able to meet key targets around high technology and poverty.

alleviation and infrastructure development and all of this to be able to lift the standard of livings of the people. All of that has actually made the CPC more popular, more sort of looked upon as the rightful leader of the Chinese nation. And so I do think that that's kind of the basis where this national Congress is going to happen. And so it's really about how does China actually address some of the problems, uneven in development.

the differences that now have been escalated around Taiwan. How does it keep and move forward around the stability that's been achieved in Hong Kong? How to respond to things like the Uyghur Force Labor Prevention Act, which is a disastrous policy, mainly for the world, but China certainly doesn't enjoy and is impacted by major industries like polysilicon, which is key for things like solar panels, to be basically sanctioned by the United States entirely. It's a big market.

The United States is a huge market for a nobles or could be if the United States would allow it to be. But nonetheless, these are big issues. And a lot of these issues really have to do with how China is going to move forward on its overall development path in kind of very murky, very unstable global conditions. And certainly that presents a lot of challenges because these markers are very ambitious. Socialist modernization basically means that now people enjoy under a socialist system what Western countries, advanced, quote unquote, capitalist countries have, right? Like the ability to have more than just basic needs for everybody, right, to be able to create a modern society for all people. And then, of course, the modern socialist country, it takes care of all the various inequalities, as well as the cultural issues, the governance issues, all of that, which may bring China backward.

So it's very ambitious to want to do that within the next 28 years. So certainly, that's where the pressure resides. But I do think that, I do think that there's not going to be. some kind of leadership transition or any kind of like push and pull from the left to the right. I do think that there's a lot of unity around the overall agenda. And that those who are more, let's say, liberal, as they say in China, here we would think of them more as neoliberal or forces that want to undermine China's political and economic

that. They're such a minority. And they've been caught up in the winds of the anti-corruption campaign. And it's hard to believe that the pressures really reside there. A lot of that feels like outside, I don't know, hysteria being made, right? This kind of alarmism, which helps breed this image of China as being unstable, despite the opposite being mainly true. Yeah, absolutely. I've been reading actually a lot of geopolitical, I don't know, projections and stuff from like liberal mainstream.

you know, U.S. thinkers, and there's this one that's been making the rounds a lot lately. His name is Peter Zahan. I think he's personally a libertarian, but is basically a geopolitical, strategist, and forecaster. And his big argument over like four fucking books is that, you know, China for a multitude of reasons, mostly the end of their economic boom, financial crises, and a demography bomb are, you know, more or less on their way out, that they've hit the high watermark of what they're going to be able to achieve. and from now on it's going to be, you know, a dissolution, maybe even of the Chinese state as we know it today. Now, I think that is playing into the hysteria, but it's taken for granted in the political center, for sure, at the highest level, that, you know, China, I don't know if this is an outward facing thing or internally what they say to each other, but this, you know, sort of fantasy idea that China is just right around the corner from collapse.

I think they're all in for quite a rude awakening, but there's lots of mainstream, high-level, work being done to try to push this idea that China is just on the edge and it's just going to take a small push in one way or another for it to come down like a house of cards and I think that is way too optimistic for the U.S. But also the popular support is so fucking funny because obviously, you know, the Communist Party and Xi himself have great amounts of genuine popular support because of what they've been able to achieve, what they've been able to do for the average Chinese person, especially over the last 30 years, you know, as a part of poverty. alleviation, but the broader scheme since the Chinese communist revolution. Look where they started

when Mao and the communist took over and look where they are now, a world power and unprecedented amount of time, lifting millions and millions out of poverty. No matter how they do it, that translates to very strong, high-level support for Xi, for the Communist Party among average Chinese people. And actually, it's also funny because whatever you think of Putin, and I'm much more sympathetic to Xi and China than I am to Putin in Russia, you know, just ideologically. But Putin has huge levels of support even when it comes to his special military operation or war in Ukraine, however you want to call it. But then you go ahead and come back to America, right? The bastion of democracy and libertarianism against these authoritarian menaces.

Biden has dog shit approval ratings, sometimes dipping as low as the 30s, probably somewhere in the low 40s right now. Trump never got above 50% in his entire. higher presidency for a favorability rating. And Congress, the entire apparatus of Congress, sits somewhere around 7 or 9% approval. And this system is the one that points at every other one and says, you're not democratic. You don't have mass popular support. You don't believe in freedom. Meanwhile, on every front, the American people absolutely detest their leaders, both political parties and their policies. So I think that's another layer of irony with all of this. Do you have anything to say that? We're free to do that. We're free to do that.

Brett. We're free to the tests, right? And I think I think that's what a lot of, I mean, I think this moment for as dangerous and scary as it is, especially around what Pelosi did with Taiwan and just this broader U.S. belligerence, this new Cold War, this aggression towards China, as scary as it is, it also is revealing the cracks. And I think these cracks are going to continue to expose themselves because China definitely has problems. And China is not hiding those things. It's they talk about income inequality all the time. It talks about how do we lower the housing costs. It talks about how do we figure out in addressing some of the sort of issues that come with trying to develop an economy of 1.4 billion people under a socialist direction that also incorporates

the world market. Because if you don't incorporate the world market, then basically you die or you fall or you, you know, that's why China has been trying to achieve for so many decades and try to navigate those waters and now those waters are a lot more hostile than they maybe have ever been, but especially in the last 40 to 50 years, especially since normalization, 19702 and 1979. I mean, things have escalated dramatically. And through that escalation, we see opportunities, I think, to point out these differences that, yes, the United States isn't empire and decline. Imperialism is on the decline. Whenever the United States is empire, whenever its rulers have to talk about American exceptionalism every single second as we spoke about

in our first conversation about my book on that subject, it means that there's a crisis afoot because it signals desperation. It signals that the opposite being true is even more true than it ever was. So you noted all of the political crises that are afoot, the crisis of legitimacy of the United States government at all levels. And then that's compiled on to this economic crisis, this inflation crisis, the fact that there's talks of another recession, that would be the third in less than 14 years, right? That is not normal. I know you guys over at Girola history, this episode was great.

Richard Wolf was on and, you know, you talk to him and, you know, I don't think Richard Wolf would say that's a normal thing, you know, that's pretty much a sign that capitalism, global capitalism is in big trouble. And over this period, what has happened is that China has become more stable, and that's a very strange thing to understand. I think Americans, because of the anti-China propaganda, and even people in the Western general, I have a hard time understanding this because it's not in line with the reality as they've been taught. And so we have to ask ourselves, why is China so stable in this very unstable moment? And it's because whatever problems China still has to address, and they're very real and legitimate, China has been able to use the command of the Communist Party, its socialist governance system, and it's socialist economic base as a way to protect itself as it attempts to meet very ambitious goals that have never been achieved before in the history of world socialism, which is how do you build up a modern socialist to come? economy that can protect itself and be stable while moving toward what communist parties

generally see as the final goal, which is communism, which is world communism. How do you maintain that stability, get that economic growth, tackle issues like what they say in China, common prosperity. We have prosperity for most people. We have zero poverty for all people, at least zero extreme poverty. But how do we then, after extreme poverty, is over how do we then ensure that people don't fall back into poverty and that poverty isn't just viewed as well how much money do you have how much clothes do you have how much health care do you have but also what kind of life do you want to live right so allowing for opportunities for people that they may have not had before which have been increased and provided for what was as you said

Brett, so many leaps and bounds have been made. I mean, the majority of the country once was 600 million people after the revolution, all of them were basically peasants who had nothing, who lived until the age of 40, died of malnutrition and preventable diseases, and basically had nothing to their

name, no telephones, no technology, barely anything, because China was a semi-futal, semi-colonial country dominated by imperialist powers. Now the situation has changed, and the United States cannot take this. The United States is on a rampage to try to meet a goal that really would be suicidal for humanity,

which is to so-called contain China, which is just the euphemism for overthrowing China. And it's because of this divergence, this great divergence, I call it, where China can both meet its domestic goals and also pave a path globally through the Belt of our initiative, multilateralism, multipolarity, all of this, painted path globally for underdeveloped, formerly colonized, poor nations to be able to join in on in order to reap the benefits as well. And that's what's scaring the United States. That's what's creating all this tension around Taiwan. Taiwan is just a chip for lack of a better, you know, no pun intended here. Taiwan is just a chip. The United States is literally, as we speak, trying to divert Taiwan's chip

industry to the United States as the United States. This is so wild to me. This is just so contradictory. As the United States is trying to pass laws that would undermine Taiwan's semiconductor industry, the CHIP Act, and then divert Taiwan's technology, knowledge, all of that, which they say China does all the time, right? Stealing knowledge and ideas. Well, they're trying to make Taiwan do that right now through the CHIPS Act. Okay, we're going to invest all this money. Guess who makes all the semiconductors, or at least makes the final product? It's Taiwan. on. It happens on that island more than 90%. So that's what's happening. The sanctions on China, this military encirclement, all of it is not just dangerous in terms of war, but it's so

counterproductive that it is going to expose more and more, the cracks, the fissures, and the downright, just nonsensical direction that this leads to. And so I think that's where the hope can come in for people like ourselves revolutionaries because there will be plenty of opportunities to push forward a more objective, a more strategic, and really just a more revolutionary vision for how we should be relating to perhaps the most important economic player and, honestly, the most important player on the world stage today, which is China in a lot of ways. So I think that the opportunities for that are very big right now. And so I think that's what that's for me is how we should be moving forward as these provocations are likely to continue.

Yeah, absolutely. Very insightful stuff. And just thinking about socialist history and how socialist states have related to the global capitalist world economy, you know, the two big ones, well, the big one during the Soviet Union era was blocks, economic blocks. You had entire blocks that you could trade within and have alliances and in a place like Cuba could survive with the help of the Soviet Union. But, you know, these two blocks didn't engage with one another economically. The other option is being isolated. So obviously with the fall of the Soviet Union, a country like, you know, Cuba loses its big economic, you know, ally and is, you know, because of the embargo isolated in a lot of ways from the rest of the global economy or at least huge swaths of it. And so that doesn't obviously work. I mean, you salute to those countries that are survived.

under those circumstances, but they're certainly not ideal. And regardless of what you think about China's socialist status, their experiment is to, you know, they didn't have the option for a Soviet Union block, right, since the collapse of the Soviet Union. They certainly don't want to be isolated. So not only did they play the game of integrating to some extent with the world market, but had managed to put themselves at the center of it, which has never before been done and a destruction of the Chinese economy, a destruction of the Chinese economy, a destruction of the

Chinese mainland, a war with China. You can even see little hints of it with the Russia, Ukraine, China situation is devastating to the West, two places like the U.S. economically. And so for the first time, you know, the U.S. is walking this line. Like, if we are overly aggressive or we do what we've done in the past, if we even can, destroy an economy the size of China's, the blowback would immediately put us into a recession of not a depression. And so regardless of what you think, It is an absolutely brilliant move, and it was, in a lot of ways, a conscious move on the part of the Chinese leaders to do just this. And they've done that, making it much harder to isolate and much harder to destroy because it's so intertwined with the world economy. And now where it goes next, I'm very, very excited to see. You're very optimistic. They're moving in the direction of socialism, this whole idea of socialist modernism to launch off the 100-year anniversary of the revolution. I'm very open. And I'm very excited to see where all of that goes. And you did mention your book as well, the one that you came on this show to talk about, which I think still today, one of our more downloaded of all time and a fan favorite, which is American exceptionalism and American Innocence.

Highly, highly recommend that if you had not heard that discussion, and I'll link to that in the show notes. So newer listeners can go back and check that out. I have to get going here, but I just want to ask you one more question, Danny. And this is complete speculation. Nobody knows the answers to this question. But under what context or what possible pretext could you see, because you talked about the desire for peaceful reunification, and clearly that would be preferred over a non-peaceful reunification. But China is not going to sit back and allow Taiwan to become a junior partner or even more of a proxy for the U.S. That's just not going to happen.

So under what conditions could you possibly see China make? making an overt explicit military move on Taiwan that would more or less put the ball in the U.S. court of like, are you really going to start World War III over Taiwan or not? What context or pretext could that possibly happen under? Sure, sure. I just want to say that for the book on American Exceptional, American Innocence that co-authored in 2019, if you subscribe on Patreon for whatever amount, there's a free PDF available. Nice.

But I wanted, but for that question, a very good question. And I think it's one that we do know. We can't predict how it will happen when it'll happen, but we do know what the terms are for that happening. And that is any move, any concrete move toward quote unquote independence for Taiwan. So however that were to happen, whether these separatist forces got really emboldened and attempted some sort of referendum, for example, on this, it would no doubt be back. by the United States. And if that were to happen within, I mean, I can't, I don't even know how quickly the PLA could move it.

It's much more modern than I think people understand it to be immediately. There would be a, there would be a military response to that. And I do think that there are possible smaller moves, right, short of a referendum that could attempt this. Any kind of escalation and what happened. So a Nancy Pelosi-like figure. So let's say the Republicans sweep Congress, get the presidency in 2024, let's say the House Majority Speaker, whoever that were to be voted in by the Republicans nominated by the

Republicans, whoever that is, if they were to do the same thing, there would be no doubt a military response. Whether it would be an outright invasion, not sure. But it would be stronger than even the military exercises that occurred on August 4th. It would be stronger. And it may even be that the PLA, the People's Liberation Army, China, they're more prepared for that kind of provocation, meaning that China would respond sooner than it would in this case where there was all sorts of rumors about Pelosi and then there was also what said, well, maybe it would happen, right?

The United States played a lot of games leading up to this. I forgot to mention how Nancy Pelosi didn't put it on her it on her itinerary. She never really meant to do that. She wanted to do this back in April. she didn't really want to put it on any kind of itinerary. She just let her office and her handlers kind of say it was going to happen. And then played it very close, played the political situation on all sides. And methodically, it was kind of like an operation.

So it was a very much an intentional operation. And so it was all to get around any kind of problems that were to occur. China's not going to let that happen a second time. So I think even that level of provocation, an attempt to legitimize Taiwan, quote-unquote, independence by having high-level official meetings, which is illegal under the Joint Communicase, it explicitly says all relations with Taiwan are to be informal, meaning that no high-level officials, no majority parties, no U.S. presidents, nothing can have meetings that look like, sound like, and are an attempt at bilateral relations. with another country. That's not to happen. The arms sales are in and of themselves in a gracious violation of the 1982 Joint Communique,

which says that those are to be reduced to nil eventually, right? That's what it says, but the United States refuses to abide by it. But I think that, right, it's kind of like basketball, right? There are fouls, different levels of fouls. There's kind of like light fowls that you question. Was that a foul?

I don't know. I don't know if that was a foul. Then there's the hard fouls, right? Oh, that was a foul. Maybe that was a flagrant foul. It's a question about that. Maybe the punishment is, you know, okay, you got to shoot two free throws and then you get the ball. The other team gets the ball back.

Then there's the fouls that get you ejected from the game. And the United States is playing with those kind of fouls. They are in any kind of foul in that way will definitely lead to a very harsh response. So that includes these high-level meetings. That includes any, you know, whoever, if there is a Republican president, let's say in 2024, if they are more on the Trump side, we could very well see these kind of political games and spectacles be played out. And I don't think China's response is going to be a soft one.

I think they will respond very much hard on this. And so I do think the discussions within China are going to be, how do we lead up to having the most possible success in reunification short of. military, any kind of military conflict, but being prepared for one. And that is not necessarily new territory, but I think it's more relevant now. And China is realizing more and more that the United States isn't playing with soft fouls anymore. They're not even playing with hard fouls, that they're going for the ones that eject the entire basis for relations with China. And that means you have to be prepared for war. And so I do think that any kind of

provocations from here, whatever they may be. We can't, as you said, we can't see what those are, but I think China would move militarily if those were to happen, and especially if those were to happen in rapid fashion, kind of like the way this one happened. Yeah, I completely agree with your analysis there, and it's certainly something to keep an eye on. People are interested in this. Definitely go learn more about the history, learn about the microchip industry in Taiwan, and why the U.S. and China are both, you know, moving in directions to account for that. and then obviously go check out anything Danny does because you know you're really really an insightful person specifically on these issues and I you know look to you to learn about this stuff as well

so with all that said though is there anything you would like to plug promote or anything before we let you go sure so people should definitely follow one of the projects that I'm involved in friends of socialist China at socialistchina.org we don't have the information yet like flyers or anything like that, promotionals. But on September 24th, we're going to do an event on the military encirclement of China and the U.S.'s sort of imperial provocations in the Pacific. And we're going to have a lot of great speakers. We're going to have Nudatal, which is a great Korean organization. We're going to have Roxanne Dunbaratiz, who just wrote a book about not a nation of immigrants, where she has a great chapter on yellow peril and this history of

U.S. imperialism in the Pacific, specifically toward China, but she covers everything. So she'll be speaking. So we have a really great event coming up, September 24th, and, you know, we publish regularly. So definitely follow us there. And other than that, though, you know, definitely subscribe to my YouTube channel at the Left Lens, where I do regular streams about this. I just interviewed Nixie Lamb, who is a legislative council member in Hong Kong, and she did not hold back in talking about both Hong Kong and Taiwan and US interference in both. And so, you know, if you want to learn more about Hong Kong and you want to just learn more about China and imperialism, definitely subscribe there. And of course, to support my work, Patreon is the best place. Patreon.com

slash Danny Haifong. Beautiful. And I will link to as much of that as possible in the show notes so people can find that as quickly as possible. Thank you again, Danny. You're always welcome here on Rev. Left Radio. I look forward to talking with you again. Yes, definitely. Thanks so much. We got our bootstrap A hundred deep on State Street Where the troops at The mail lines say Didn't see the video footage

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