By Walt Zlotow
China’s relationship with Taiwan is essentially none of our (USA’s) business. Yet we continue to risk war 8,000 miles from the Homeland on China’s doorstep by provoking confrontation with China with massive arming of Taiwan’s military.
Current US government and media narrative erases the last 6,000 years of China-Taiwan history to create a new cause célèbre for US military adventurism, America’s No 1 business industry. Without historical context, the US electorate remains clueless of reckless US policy deemed necessary to US national security interests: defending freedom over authoritarianism on the other side of the world.
A review of the long, tortured China, Taiwan history refutes that narrative. Chinese from Southwest China settled Taiwan over 6000 years ago. Beginning in 1624, the Dutch and Spanish moved in to exploit Taiwan’s resources, as Europeans were want to do worldwide. But the Chinese kicked them out by 1683, ruling Taiwan for 212 years till Japan gobbled up Taiwan after in the Sino-Japanese War in 1895.
For the next 50 years Japan used Taiwan (Formosa at the time) as a land-based aircraft carrier for their pan Asian adventurism. But at the Cairo Conference in 1943, the Allies declared a major war aim was full return of Formosa to China. This occurred by a UN mandate upon Japan’s surrender in 1945.
With Japan defeated in China, Mao’s communists resumed their civil war to overturn the corrupt, unpopular nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek. In 1949, Mao prevailed. Chiang fled with about 2 million of his die hard supporters to Formosa, setting up their own version of the Republic of China – renamed Taiwan.
The US looked at the 538 million Chinese living under communism on the mainland, the 2 million on Taiwan living under Chiang’s authoritarianism, and said ‘Nope, we’ll recognize Chiang on tiny Taiwan as the legitimate Chinese government till he can kick out the dreaded commies.’ They even gave Chiang the military assistance to prevent any unification with China, which was inevitable without that support. Is it any wonder the people and government of China would embark on eventual reunification, whether taking years, decades, even a century?
On October 25, 1971, the UN ended the 2 China policy, voting to expel Taiwan, claiming to be the Republic of China, and replacing it with the mainland Peoples Republic of China. Just a year later Nixon’s thaw with mainland China cemented US recognition of the mainland One China policy and de-emphasized supporting the Chiang government on Taiwan.
Without abandoning Taiwan completely, the US embarked on 5 decades of ‘strategic ambiguity’ which kept tensions with China over Taiwan’s status on the back burner of US China diplomacy. That changed when President Obama’s ‘Pivot to Asia’ in his second term moved pro-Taiwan policy to the front burner. His successors Trump, Biden and Trump again have so turned up the heat, that war with China over its long-term plan for eventual absorption of Taiwan into Chinese sovereignty, remains a possibility.
From Strategic Ambiguity we’ve degenerated into reckless trips to Taiwan by US officials and congresspersons and proposed legislation giving the President a blank check to intervene militarily with China should they embark on any, albeit unlikely, military move at reunification. The US keeps advancing multibillion dollar weapons tranches that do nothing for Taiwan’s defense; indeed, provoke Chinese military maneuvers near Taiwan, raising the possibility of US China confrontation.
At his recent summit with Chinese President Xi, Trump got schooled by Xi who told Trump that if he doesn’t pull back from arming Taiwan it could lead to “clashes and conflicts” between the two superpowers. Trump might be getting the message. He had his Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao tell Congress that the US was doing a pause on a $14 billion Taiwan weapons package to ensure the US has enough weapons to finish off the Iranian regime in so far failed Operation Epic Fury. Facing the biggest military failure in US history, Trump would be wise to put belligerence with China over Taiwan back on the back burner.
Ignoring the 6,000 year long interwoven China-Taiwan history prevents sensible, peace-promoting US diplomacy. America made the wrong decision on the Chinese Civil War in 1949 and has chosen to govern in ignorance for the past 77 years. On this issue, ignorance is not bliss. It may mean war.
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL
Also by Walt:
Booker whiffs on most important right or wrong moment of his life
Trump, Hegseth off by nearly $1 trillion on national security budget
When will progressive media acknowledge and condemn US enabled genocide in Gaza?
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The picture at the top, of Trump and Xi, tells a thousand stories…on one side you have a complete fuckwit, on the other, an accomplished chess player..who obviously can’t believe the utter stupidity of his opponent.
“…The US keeps advancing multibillion dollar weapons tranches that do nothing for Taiwan’s defense; indeed, provoke Chinese military maneuvers near Taiwan, raising the possibility of US China confrontation…”
Continued US provocations on China will guarantee one thing for Australia: Chinese military strategists will cover all US military resources long in advance (undoubtedly now) such that armed ICBMs have already been primed with the co-ordinates of Pine Gap, RAAF Tyndall and HMAS Stirling. The Chinese will be well prepared do destroy the next US military folly should they foolishly try a pre-emptive strike against Chinese Taiwan.
Ignorance is a key word when it comes to explaining American foreign policy. That the cabinets of a series of respective presidents of both political stripes have been and continue to be influenced by ideologues who’ve little to no knowledge of the deep and complex history of China, Taiwan, East Asia in general, advisors whose agendas are framed by their beliefs which often have little to nothing of positive quality to offer when it comes to the delicate tasks associated with responsible diplomacy, taking all things into account… this, on any assessment, is failure at the uppermost level. The same could be said of American adventurism in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Iran. When the starting position is ‘We’re Americans, don’t you goddamn tell us what to do,’ the results, as in the predictable failures, are practically foreordained.
Trump is just the latest in a long line of ignoramuses posing as responsible leaders, people like Nixon the liar, Clinton the sexual predator, Bush Junior the congenital idiot, Obama the white man’s black man, Biden the geriatric imbecile and others.
This is an IMO an excellent article. It explains historical and current issues succinctly – and suggests war is possible unless US’ attitudes change. There are other factors which need mentioning though. The US (by Congressional Bill) has to supply Taiwan with all the means necessary to protect itself, and what this means is of course, subjective and waxes and wanes depending on who is in power. Isolationism is a current component of US’ policy and is gaining ground within the US, this does not bode well for Taiwan and its independent country status (note it is not a nation-state and therefore, has no international legal determinants, irregardless of its ‘defence zone’). Within Taiwan and as a liberal-democracy, not all people/voters want separation from China and this is a constant headache for their domestic political parties (although the KMT is more friendly with China). Should the US also decide to get militarily involved it would be a disaster as China would quickly escalate the war to that of a total war; and immediately pursue USN aircraft carriers in order to turn the American people against the war – as the North Vietnamese did during the Vietnam War (or the American War as the Vietnamese call it). And lastly, and as I have stated in my independent report in 2018 (which is available at AIMN), China desperately wants Taiwan intact, as a bloodbath/stalemate for Chinese invading land forces could result in a domestic revolution within China. Please refer to my further analysis in my book, ‘The Brink of 2036.’
Hi, Strobe. I remember that series well. It was a great piece of work.
The old site was hit with a ‘fatal flaw’ and is now offline, but with the help of AI there is a way to retrieve it.
Will they start a war?
Perhaps blow themselves to smithereens? And us?
The world’s poor and oppressed will offer a smile,
“If we have to go down
At least you bastards will be going down too”
Canguro an old friend once termed as, “stealing wheat from a blind fowl”