Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, has escalated  the  “neo cold war” launched by U.S. imperialism against The People’s Republic of China  This is a significant threat to world peace.

Although the U.S. accepted the One China Policy when it ended its veto to the PRC’s seating in the UN and later formally recognized the PRC, the reckless choice by Speaker Pelosi to make an official visit to Taiwan as an affront  to  Beijing is illogical and destructive.  At worst, it signals a return to the high cold war period of the 1950s, where conflicts over islands in the Formosa Strait between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland almost led to full scale war.

 Despite repeated, strong warnings from China that her visit is a direct challenge to the globally recognized fact that Taiwan is a province of China, Pelosi decided to visit Taiwan in direct contradiction of the One China Principle.

 This dangerous provocation continues the “neo cold war” policies of  former President Obama’s and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s “pivot to the Asia Pacific,” former President Donald Trump’s racist, Sinophobic attacks on the PRC, and various actions by the US to sanction China and impede its economic and political development.

President Biden, the State Department the Pentagon should understand the dangers that a new  crisis in the Taiwan Strait poses.   Biden, worried about looking “soft” in the  coming midterm elections, should remember that similar “get tough” policies by President Harry Truman in Korea (1950) and President Lyndon Johnson (1965) not only led to major wars but political defeat for those Presidents and the Democratic party.  The situation of “who blinks first” puts the billions of working people of the world in serious danger, since both the USA and the PRC are nuclear powers.

In the name of working class internationalism we  urge all our comrades, friends, and allies in the broad people’s movement to condemn and actively oppose this imperialistic and chauvinistic rejection of political realities.

 The Island of Taiwan is not and has never been an independent country. The ROC, now Taiwan, was created by the United States at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949 as a rump state – a rival government to the People’s Republic of China on an island province that laid claim to all of China.

In denying the victory of the Communist Party of China, the US arranged for Taiwan to represent China at the United Nations until the 1970s. Taiwan is not officially seeking independence from China. The US has repeatedly stated that it opposes Taiwan’s independence, re-affirming its support for the One-China policy. This visit represents the latest example of the shift the US Imperialist ruling class has made based on recognizing that China’s growth and power challenges its global hegemony.

US imperialism strengthens the anti-democratic movement at home which continues in the aftermath of the failed January 6, 2021 coup while claiming to support democracy abroad.

Working people must understand the sordid historical context that capitalist media has completely omitted.  China has been through what it calls a century of humiliation by foreign powers who shamelessly violated China’s sovereignty in the two Opium wars and the Boxer Rebellion, seizing Chinese land such as Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. The Japanese war of aggression is still fresh in the nation’s mind – over 15 million Chinese people were murdered in a genocidal war whose crimes were similar to those committed by Nazi Germany in Europe. Taiwan itself was taken by Japan as a colony in the Sino Japanese War (1895) and only returned to China after WWII. The current regime in Taipei arose after the Chiang Kai-shek dictatorship lost the Chinese civil war, and retreated to and invaded the island. The US supported the dictatorship of Chiang until 1979, when the US recognized the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal government of China, although its relationship with a Taiwan dominated by Chiang’s Kuomintang never really ended.

There is no scenario where the PRC will continue to  tolerate endless foreign interference in its territory. Americans especially might imagine what we would think and do if, after the last election, the Trump forces, retreated to Manhattan and Long Island, and backed by the navies of NATO, declared themselves to be the United States of America, while the NATO states refused to recognize the elected government of North America and denied its seat in the UN

We must oppose this latest provocation, the continued creation by the USA of military alliances and the trade and financial sanctions against China. We must educate, organize and mobilize resistance to more war, more military bases, more war funding and work to convert US policy from confrontation into cooperation. On many fronts, the most obvious being the challenge of an overheating planet and replacement of fossil fuels, the US and China must work together. We call for the following:

1.  An end to all attempts to establish a NATO style military alliance against the People’s Republic of China in East Asia

2. A firm reiteration of the “One China” policy concerning Taiwan and mainland China

3. An end to all U.S. inspired propaganda and provocations concerning China’s internal affairs, distorting both history and contemporary events to demonize the PRC

4. A policy of coexistence, demilitarization and cooperation between the USA and the PRC