...AND RUMORS OF WARS - deportations, tariffs and the sea lanes of the South China Sea - a world war may be coming, can we stop it before it starts?

…AND RUMORS OF  WARS –  deportations tariffs and the sea lanes of the South China Sea – a world war may be coming, can we can stop it before it starts?

 

For the last few years, the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China and the United states Department of Defense have been quietly but deliberately preparing for a world war in and around the South  China Sea, the Straits of Taiwan and the island of Taiwan itself

 

The world’s two main imperialist powers – America and China – have come to conflict for the reasons that imperialist countries always do – conflict over who’s billionaire investors and multinational corporations will get to exploit and plunder the world

 

China rose rapidly in the last century – from a backwards Third World semi feudal state plundered by every imperialist power to being the world’s leading manufacturing nation (30% of all the manufactured goods on the face of this Earth were MADE IN CHINA) – the brutally underpaid superexploited labor of the world’s largest working class – 781 million men, women and kids, including 1.6 million forced laborers in Chinese correctional facilities  – has enriched China’s corporations and billionaires – they have lots of capital, they need to export it to other markets and they need to control those markets – by force if necessary – to defend those investments

America, who became the world’s leading imperialist power after World War I, has of course become China’s principal rival in this great game – in large part because the rise of Chinese imperialism has been at American imperialism’s expense – America was once the word’s leading manufacturer – now we’re a distant #2 – 16% of the world’s goods are MADE IN USA – the underpaid superexploited labor of the world’s third largest working class (India’s 554 million come in second) – 161 million men , women and kids including 800,000 forced laborers in American correctional facilities – enrich America’s billionaires and corporations – they have lots of capital, they need to export it to other markets and they need to control those other markets – by force if necessary – to defend those investments

 

This conflict explains much of what’s going on in the world today

 

It’s why the US government is accelerating it’s two decade long campaign of persecution and deportation of the nation’s 11 million undocumented workers – these brutally underpaid and superexploited workers are overrepresented among America’s 14 million factory workers, 10 million construction workers, 3 million farm workers (they’re actually a majority in that industry) and 12 million restaurant workers

 

Terrorizing these workers with the threat of being dragged in shackles away from their jobs, homes and families in America and flown to the poverty they fled in the lands of their birth is intended to keep them working for low pay, under bad conditions in fear of offering any resistance to their bosses – by attacking the most oppressed workers in America – particularly in the critical surplus value or profit producing sectors like factories, farms & construction – this is an attack on the entire working class 

American bosses like the fact that they’ve deunionized the US private sector –  94% non  unionized – & the few unions that still exist are tame, housebroken and terrified of going on strike (99% of American union members have never walked out and hit the picket line) -  it’s made they very wealthy at our expense

 

The average American private sector worker produces about $200,000 worth of goods or services a year…. but only gets paid $35,000 in gross pre tax wages in return (in a country where you need to make $100,000 a year to support a family of 4 at a middle income standard of living)

 

America’s corporations, billionaire investors and millionaire business owners think that’s good…. But not good enough – they want us to get paid less, but produce more (and, of course  pay more in prices and rents when we try and buy the goods and services that we produce)

 

The conflict with China makes forcing workers to work harder and longer for less pay essential – trade wars are expensive, shooting wars  even more so – and preparations for those shooting wars are even more expensive

 Speaking of trade wars, the chaotic imposition of tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China is a result of this Sino-American interimperialist rivalry and is intended to strengthen America’s position in that conflict – the intent is to weaken China’s economy by cutting them off from markets to export to, and preparing America’s economy for a time when it will be impossible to import Chinese made  goods

 

This is also why the US government has suddenly become very interested in the Canadian and Danish-Greenlandic Arctic – the loud talk of annexation is just an extreme reflection of  this need to prepare the northern shore of North America for a future miliary conflict with China – and China’s main ally, Russia

 

The possible arena of this potential future war is the South China Sea and the island of Taiwan

 

The South China Sea is one of the world’s most important sea routes – most of China’s exports to North America, Europe, the Persian Gulf States, Latin America, Africa and South Asia travel through that sea – much of that trade flows across the docks of the five big ports of the Pearl River Delta – the autonomous Chinese citystates of Hong Kong and Macau and the mainland Chinese ports of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton), Shenzhen and Zhuhai

 

Most of the  maritime trade between Japan and South Korea and Europe and the Persian Gulf states passes through the South China Sea – most of those vessels have to pass through the chokepoints of the Taiwan Straits between Taiwan and China and the Straits of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia

 

All of the maritime trade of Taiwan, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand have to pass through  the South China Sea

 

On top of that, there are vast reserves of oil and gas underneath the South China Sea – most of those reserves are in areas claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia or Indonesia – but China has made claims to small uninhabited islands, reefs and sandbars in the sea, so as to contest those sea claims and the rights to the oil and gas underneath

 

Also, China has a 76 year old claim to Taiwan, a de facto independent country

 

Taiwan was a Japanese colony from 1895 to 1945 – at the end of World War II, the Chinese government at the time – the Kuomintang ruled Republic of China – annexed Taiwan from Japan and occupied the island – which had not previously been ruled by any Chinese government

 

In October 1949, upon being defeated by the Chinese Communist Party’s armed wing, the People’s Liberation Army – the Kuomintang, the government of the Republic of China and it’s Chinese Revolutionary Army (soon to be renamed the Republic of China Army) fled to Taiwan

 

In theory, both the governments of the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan claim to be the lawful government of all of China (Taiwan’s government also claims the territory of the Republic of Mongolia and Russia’s Tannu Tuva Autonomous Republic) – in practice Taiwan is a de facto independent country and the PRC has never actually ruled Taiwan – also very few Taiwanese have any desire to be annexed by China, in large part because Taiwanese workers make much higher wages than Chinese workers do – also Taiwan is a democracy while China is a totalitarian dictatorship – also 800,000 of Taiwan’s 23 million people are Indigenous Taiwanese, not ethnic Chinese

 

China wants to control Taiwan for nationalist reasons – uniting all of the territory claimed by the PRC under their rule – also the country is the world’s leading manufacturer and exporter of semiconductors – it’s  a competitor with China in this market and controlling or destroying the Taiwanese computer chip industry would deny semiconductors to the US – also a Chinese controlled Taiwan would give the PLA Navy direct access to the Pacific Ocean without having to pass through Japanese or Filipino territorial waters – a big deal strategically

 

So a future Sino-American war would be centered around the US Navy (aided by the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force,  Republic of Korea Navy, Republic of China Navy, Armed Forces of the Philippines Navy, People’s Army of Vietnam Navy and Royal Australian Navy) and PLA Navy fighting in the Taiwan Straits and the South China Sea and the PLA Navy and the People’s Armed Police’s China Coast Guard transporting the troops of the PLA Ground Force to invade Taiwan

 

This would be the largest naval battle since World War II  

 

The Chinese Communist Party’s armed wing – the People’s Liberation Army – and the CCP’s law enforcement wing – the People’s Armed Police – have rapidly restructured to prepare for this war

 

China has built hundreds of civilian ferry boats to transport troops and vehicles – the PAP built it’s small maritime wing – the China Coast Guard – into a large coastal  patrol force – the PLA Navy has built itself into the largest navy on Earth by ship count – the PLA Air Force have upgraded their combat and transport aircraft – the PLA Ground Force have transformed many of their units into airborne, air assault or amphibious units and the PLA Navy have expanded their marine corps-style naval infantry forces, all in preparation for the invasion of Taiwan

 The PLA has also greatly expanded the role of the noncommissioned officers – the Sergeants – the senior enlisted troops who are the first line supervisors and training instructors of their army – in preparation for this  future conflict

 

They have also reorganized their ground combat units – large divisions, suitable for land warfare, have been reorganized into smaller battalions, more fitted for deployment by ship or aircraft

 

On the other side, the US Navy and US Marine Corps have greatly upgraded their forces- the surface vessels and submarines of the Navy, the civilian operated supply ships of the Military Sealift Command, the aircraft, helicopters and drones of the Navy and Marine Corps and the infantry forces of the Marine Corps

 

The last group have been totally reorganized – the large mechanized brigades designed for land warfare against terrorist groups have been reorganized into small battalions designed for sea or aircraft deployment

 

If this war were to occur, it would be a disaster for the working classes of  the world – especially the working classes of China and Taiwan

 

This is especially true if either side were to use nuclear weapons – or if this were to expand into a World War  - with China, North Korea and Russia on one side and America, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand on the other

So – what can we, the working class of the world – can do about it?

 

Not very much at this time, unfortunately

 

Prior to World War I, the Socialist International – the world association of the world’s socialist  parties – had a plan for preventing a world war

In the event of war, the big socialist parties in Germany, Austria-Hungary, Great Britain, France, Italy and Russia would  basically organize nationwide general strikes – centered around strikes by railroad  workers (the main transportation method at that time) and workers in defense plants – and they’d also organize mass refusals of young men to be called up for the draft

 

However when 1914 rolled around ….they didn’t do any of that

 

The middle class professionals who ran the world’s “working class” socialist parties – elected officials, newspaper editors, journalists, lawyers, judges, union officers etc – decided to side with the capitalist classes of their countries instead of with the world working class

So, parliaments met and passed appropriations bills to pay for the mobilization, young men reported for duty when called up for the draft, defense plant workers and railroad workers reported to work and did their jobs and the slaughter began with no resistance from the working class

 

This led to a worldwide split in the working class – social democratic and socialist parties followed the path of class collaboration with the capitalists of their own countries  - communist parties nominally wanted to fight for global working class revolutions – in practice, they just subordinated themselves to the new middle class rulers of the Soviet Union and became instruments of their foreign policy

 

To make matters worse, the social democratic, socialist and communist workers movements in Finland, Hungary, Italy, Austria, Germany, Romania, Portugal and Spain were all crushed by fascist dictatorships – and the workers movement in the Soviet Union was destroyed by the middle class bureaucrats and factory managers dictatorship in the Soviet Union

As a result, when World War II was on the horizon in the 1930s – there was no force in the world capable of organizing working class resistance to the oncoming war and mass murder – leading to 85 million deaths, including the genocide of 6 million Jews

 

So….what about the working class movement today?

 

Let’s focus on the three countries involved

 

In Taiwan, there are two major political coalitions – the Pan Blue Coalition that still claims Taiwan as the legitimate government of China and the Pan Green Coalition which supports Taiwanese independence – both representing the Taiwanese upper classes – and the working class does not have a party of it’s own

 

Taiwan has two major labor federations – the Pan Blue Coalition/Kuomintang dominated Chinese Federation of Labor and the Pan Green Coalition dominated Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions – both have pro capitalist  leaderships and combined they represent 28% of Taiwanese workers

 

Both the CFofL and the TCTU support Taiwanese self defense against any possible Chinese invasion – an outlook that they share with Taiwanese workers

 

As for Taiwan’s armed forces – the Republic of China Armed Forces and it’s constituent elements – the 180,000 troops in the active duty Republic of China Army, Republic of China Air Force, Republic of China Navy, Republic of China Marine Corps and Republic of China Coast Guard and the 2.5 million personnel in the Republic of China Armed Forces Reserve – are a draftee military – all young Taiwanese men have to serve for 2 years

 

While military service is unpopular – especially among young men who actually have to serve – there is no organized opposition to the draft

 

Also, in the event of an invasion, Taiwanese transportation and defense plant workers would report to work as long as it was possible to do so to assist in the national defense (unless air raids or missile strikes made that impossible)

In the event of war, the Taiwanese working class would follow the Taiwanese capitalist class into war, to defend the Taiwanese capitalist state from invasion by Chinese imperialism

 

 

As for China, the country is a totalitarian dictatorship – there are only 9 legal political parties in the country, united in a  United Front

The United Front is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party – a class collaborationist popular frontlist party that claims to speak for the “block of four classes” – peasant farmers, workers, revolutionary intellectuals  and the national bourgeoisie

 

In  practice, the party is led by the Chinese capitalist class – the billionaires and the private business owners – and the senior officials of the government  and the CCP

 

As for the other 8 legal parties – all of which are formally and in practice subordinate to and under the leadership of the CCP – the China National Democratic Construction Association, led by private business owners, the China Democratic League, Jiusan Society, China Association for Promoting Democracy and the grossly misnamed Chinese Peasants and Workers Democratic  Party led by middle class professionals, the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang, China Zhi Gong Party and Taiwan Democratic Self Government League, representing pro PRC overseas Chinese

 

Chinese workers do not have a political party of their own – all of China’s 9 legal parties are run by the Chinese upper classes

 

As for China’s labor unions, China has five labor federations – in mainland China the CCP dominated All China Federation of Trade Unions is the only legal labor federation – representing 143 million of China’s 781 million workers or around 18%

 

In Macau there is the 50,000 member strong CCP dominated Macau Federation of Trade Unions and in Hong Kong there are 3 labor federations – the CCP dominated Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions with 420,000 members and the two opposition labor federations – the 60,000 member Federation of Hong Kong and Kowloon Labor Unions and the 5,000 member Hong Kong and Kowloon Trades Union Council (the latter federations are the only independent unions in the PRC)

 

The  leaders of the main labor federations in China – ACFTU, MCTU and HKFTU – are officially subordinated to the CCP and are class collaborationists who are subordinated to the Chinese capitalist class – they support Chinese imperialism, and in the event of China launching an invasion of Taiwan and an imperialist war with America and it’s Pacific Rim allies – Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand, they would certainly support the war

 

The two independent Hong  Kong labor  federations oppose the Chinese government, have ties to the capitalist  led opposition movement in Hong Kong and would certainly oppose any Chinese government initiated foreign wars

 

As for Chinese workers, China has more strikes than any other country on Earth – 719 strikes last year – half of which were carried out by Chinese construction workers and one third by factory workers – almost all of these strikes were “wildcat strikes” – unofficial strikes, unsanctioned by the labor union leadership and carried out by rank and file workers on their own – most of the strikes were attempts to resist wage theft or layoffs and were usually either quickly settled by the official labor leaders – or broken up by the batons of the People’s Armed Police, People’s Police, Hong Kong Police Force and/or Macau Public Security Police Force

 

Except for some of the Hong Kong workers – who have frequently gone on strike in support of Hong Kong autonomy under the leadership of the two opposition independent labor federations, HKKLU and HKKTUC – Chinese workers have not carried out any political strikes since the national railroad workers strike and the Shanghai Commune auto workers strike of 1966 – strikes that were explicitly in opposition to the CCP leadership and the horribly misnamed Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

 

That national railroad workers strike was the first and last national strike by workers in any Chinese industry – no Chinese labor union has called a national strike since, not even over economic issues, let alone political ones

As for popular support for an invasion of Taiwan or a war against America – the Chinese upper classes want to make China the world’s dominant imperialist power in general and want Taiwan and the South China Sea under Chinese control in particular – in large part for the simple Yuan and Fen reason that if China became the world’s dominant power they’d get a whole lot richer - however they’d prefer to achieve these goals without a world war, which might end badly for China

 

As for Chinese workers and small farmers – they’re more concerned about the state of the Chinese economy, stagnant real wages, inflation and unemployment – they don’t have the same Yuan and Fen interest in China becoming a great power – they just want to pay rent and buy groceries (like workers everywhere else on the planet)

 

However, this opposition to war would have no active organized expression due to the lack of a workers party and the fact that outside of Hong Kong there are no independent labor unions

 

As for the Chinese military, the PLA is an all volunteer force and has been since it was founded in 1927 – China hasn’t had a draft since the days of the Kuomintang’s Republic of China – also the PLA isn’t a state army, it is the armed wing of a political party, the CCP and always has been

 

The PLA’s Ground Force (1 million soldiers), Air Force (434,000 airmen), Navy (384,000 sailors and marines), Rocket  Force (300,000 personnel), PLA reserves (510,000 troops), PLA Militia (8 million guardsmen),  People’s Armed Police (1.5 million police officers) and China Coast Guard (16,000 sailors) – all told, 12,144,000 volunteer officers, non commissioned officers and enlisted people, all volunteers, all indoctrinated by and under the strict political supervision of the Communist Party of China

What they lack in recent battlefield experience (China hasn’t fought a war since the Sino Vietnamese War of 1979 – and they lost that one, badly, against a smaller and weaker opponent) they make up for in commitment

 

There are probably no other people in China more committed to using force to make China the world’s leading superpower than the men and women of the PLA – that kind of discipline and ideological commitment can be decisive when a military is facing adversity under fire

Like many professional armies, active duty PLA personnel and their families are somewhat insulated from civilian life and the political views of the general public – so even if there was widespread opposition to a war among the public the armed forces would be somewhat insulated from it

 

This is especially the case since there is no workers party or revolutionary trade unions fighting for an anti capitalist non imperialist China – it would be hard to imagine the PLA’s enlisted rank and file mutinying against a Chinese imperialist  war against Taiwan, America and the Pacific Rim states

As long as China was able to successfully defeat the Republic of China Armed Forces and the US Navy, China could carry out an imperialist war with no fear of organized resistance from Chinese workers or the troops of the PLA

 

As for America, there are only two major political parties in this country – the Democratic Party and the Republican Party – both parties are controlled by the billionaires and the owners of the major  corporations

 

The Democratic Party has its mass social base among a portion of the nation’s affluent professionals, corporate executives, small business owners and the more privileged and affluent layers of the working class – among African American and Jewish professionals, executives, businesspeople and affluent workers, support for the Democratic Party is almost unanimous, due to the open racism of the leaders of the other major party

That would be the Republican Party, who’s mass base is among a portion of the nation’s White, Asian and Latino professionals, executives, small business owners and privileged affluent workers – as mentioned above, support for the Republicans among upper class Jewish people and Black people is negligible due to the party’s open racism

 

The American working class does not have a party of its own – the American working class over the last century is defined by just how unorganized it is – most workers are not in unions, few are in any sort of community organization, in a country where religious belief is widespread actual membership in religious organizations is rare – the social inertness of the bottom 80% of the American population enables the billionaires, corporations and the top 20% to inflict their will on the rest of us with little fear of resistance

 

America is also a starkly racially divided nation – the tragic legacy of the genocide and mass land theft of indigenous Americans by first the British Army and later the US Army and the Transatlantic slave trade and 247 years of Black Americans being used as slaves, followed by 98 years of legalized racial discrimination against African Americans and other racial minorities, that only ended in 1964

 

Members of America’s main racial groups – White Americans, Jews, African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Indigenous Americans (“American Indians”) and Pacific Islanders   - often identify primarily as members of their race first, rather than as Americans or as members of  their social class (capitalists, middle class, workers, poor)

 

Among workers in particular, far too many American workers will see a billionaire or millionaire of their own race as an ally and a worker of a different race as their mortal enemy

 

This stark racial divide is the main reason the working class movement is so weak in America – it’s why we don’t have a workers party here, and why we’ve never had more than one third of American workers unionized – it’s also why we have such a weak social safety net here 

 

This original  sin of the American body politic is the number one political issue in this country and the main barrier to social progress here – as has been the case since the first slave ship docked and the first Indigenous village was burned down by soldiers way back in the early 1600s, before we were even a country

 

As for America’s labor movement, the country has one national labor federation, the American Federation of Labor – Congress of Industrial Organizations – it was born of a merger between the rival American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1955 and is almost universally known by its acronym, AFL-CIO (nobody ever says the whole name and most people probably don’t even know what the acronym stands for)

 

There are a few notable independent unions – the National Education Association, the nation’s largest labor union and the Fraternal Order of Police are two prominent examples – but most unions are AFL-CIO affiliates

 

The AFL-CIO, its leadership, and its subordinate bodies and affiliated national and international unions (the latter being American based unions with members in Canada) are utterly subordinated to and dominated by the Democratic Party (a relationship mirroring the All China Federation of Trade Union’s relationship to the Chinese Communist Party in many respects)

 

American labor unions also have a longstanding relationship with America’s organized crime syndicates, especially the syndicate known as Cosa Nostra (Sicilian Italian for “this thing of ours” – commonly referred to as “the mafia”) – almost all American labor unions have extensive benefit funds and pension funds, a private welfare state for union  members and their families only – the vast pools of capital and the poor regulation of those funds has been a magnet for racketeers and gangsters since the late 19^th century – arguably American unions are among the most corrupt in the world – the widespread labor racketeering here is only matched by the Canadian labor unions (many of which are affiliates  of US based unions) and the labor movement in Australia

 

Only 14.3 million of America’s 161 million workers are unionized – 9.9% - 7 million of these workers are public sector employees and 7.3 million are private sector workers

 

Union membership  is disproportionately concentrated among public sector workers – in particular employees of the federal government, and of states, counties, cities and Indian tribes run by politicians of the Democratic Party – 32% of the nation’s public sector workers are unionized – but only 5.9% of private sector workers

 

Similar to the separate labor movement in China’s autonomous Hong Kong and Macau territories, America’s “free associated state” of Puerto Rico has a separate labor movement – as with Hong Kong relative to China, Puerto Rico is more heavily unionized than the mainland US – also many Puerto  Rican unions are independent of the Democratic Party and the AFL-CIO and are far more militant than unions in the mainland US

 

The two most heavily unionized occupations in the United States are public school teacher and police officer

 

Union membership is distributed unevenly geographically – states in the Northeast, the Great Lakes area and the Pacific Coast are among the most heavily unionized – Hawaii with 26% unionization and New York with 20% are the highest – and states in the Southeast and the Intermountain West are among the most heavily unorganized – with South Dakota at 2.7% and South Carolina with 2.4% the least organized states

 

Membership is also distributed unevenly by branch of industry – most private sector union members are in manufacturing, construction, transportation and utilities – farm workers, white collar workers and service workers are almost completely unorganized

 

There has been a stark decline in union  membership since the neoliberal attacks on the labor movement that  began during the Carter Administration in the late 1970s – during those years, the trucking industry was deregulated and largely deunionized, railroad workers and miners strikes were broken by presidential orders under the Taft Hartley Act and there was a coordinated national attack on unions in construction and heavy industry

 

As a result, private sector unionization declined from 20% to the current 5.9% - construction went from 80% union to 10%, trucking from 90% union to 7%, manufacturing from 50% union to 10% - the total number of union  members also fell from 17.7 million to the present 14.3 million

 

America’s corrupt Democratic Party dominated AFL-CIO leadership made no attempt to resist these attacks – they basically retreated and surrendered without a fight

 

As a result, many younger workers who have entered the workforce this century have a well founded feeling that they have been abandoned by the older generation of workers – sometimes derisively referred to as “The Boomers” – the fact that only 2% of workers under 30 are unionized is mute testimony to the correctness of this perception

 

In the last 50 years, strikes have become very rare in America – the US labor leadership has largely abandoned the strike weapon – on the rare occasions when unions carry out strikes, they are notable for their ineffectiveness – it’s common at workplaces with multiple unions for members of other unions to keep working while other trades on strike (in the US this is called “scabbing”)

 

American unions rarely strike even over the worst sort of employer abuses – including bosses literally stealing the wages of their workers – political strikes are all but unknown here (a recent strike by University of California research staff against US financial and material support for Israel’s war effort in the Gaza Strip is a rare exception – an exception that was sharply opposed by the parent union of the local  representing those researchers – the United Auto Workers)

 

So, it would be improbable to imagine a strike by American labor unions against an American war against China in the South China Sea or American troops fighting against a Chinese invasion of Taiwan

 

Especially since some labor unions openly support American militarism and imperialist war efforts – in particular unions in manufacturing or transportation that are directly involved in support for military operations – specifically the leaders of the United Auto Workers, International Association of Machinists, International Longshoremen’s Association and the Seafarers International Union are vocal supporters of American war preparations and their national leaders would certainly support an American war against China

There’s even a hope among some labor leaders that they and their unions could be junior partners in such a war effort – in hopes that the government would reward the unions by making federal defense contractors let the unions organize their workforces without opposition


So an anti war  strike simply will not happen here

 

As for the American armed forces – they consist of the US Army (452,000 soldiers) US Army Reserves (177,000 soldiers) Army National  Guard (reservist Army soldiers in units controlled by state and territorial  governments – 325,000 soldiers) US Air Force (321,000 airmen) US Air Force Reserves (69,000 airmen) Air National Guard (reservist Air Force airmen in units controlled by state and territorial governments – 105,000 airmen) Civil Air Patrol (65,000 auxiliarists), US Space Force (9,000 guardians) US Navy (337,000 sailors) US Navy Reserves (56,000 sailors), US Marine Corps (181,000 marines) US Marine Corps Reserve (32,000 marines),  US Coast Guard (40,000 coast guardsmen) US Coast Guard Reserves (7,000 coast guardsmen) and the US Coast Guard Auxiliary (21,000 auxiliarists) – for a total of 2,197,000 troops

 

Many of these personnel are part timers, only called up when needed – often these personnel are highly skilled tradespeople -or professionals  - and every single one of them is a volunteer

 

After a disastrous experience using US Army draftees in the Vietnam War (desertion was common, so was indiscipline, and drug abuse, and racial strife – also some soldiers refused to fight and in at least 450 incidents draftees “fragged” officers or sergeants they disliked – that is, deliberately blew them up with fragmentation hand grenades) the US abolished the draft in 1973 – the last draftee soldier was honorably discharged from the military in 1976

 

Since then, every soldier in America is a volunteer

 

The professional  armed forces created by this decision has resulted in a military that’s somewhat separate from the rest of society – American servicepeople and their families are insulated from the rest of society  and society is insulated from them

 

A result of this is an armed forces who are somewhat politically insulated from the rest of the country and any opposition to an American war effort that might arise among that population

 

This is somewhat similar to the PLA – also a professional armed forces separate from the rest of the country in many respects

 

The US military is defined by the high level of education and training among it’s personnel – with many troops – especially in national guard and reserve units – having college and or trade school educations in addition to the military’s own extensive in house training operations

America’s miliary also has spent most of the last 35 years at war – there have been American troops “in harms way” somewhere in the world every day since 1990 – this means that much of the US military have recent combat experience – an edge on the PLA where none of their current personnel have any experience in actual  combat

 

This means that it is almost impossible to imagine a scenario where the present US military would ever desert or mutiny in wartime, no matter how unpopular the war might be among the civilian population

 

So – what to do?

 

Well, it’s imperative for workers in America and in China to build an independent mass working class based socialist party, with the goal of ending capitalism in their country and to further that goal that workers party should build a network of militant revolutionary labor unions, democratically led by worker activists and separate from and opposed to the ruling parties in those countries (their Chinese Communist Party and our Democratic Party)

 

The only way to end imperialist wars is to end capitalism – replace a system based on production of goods and services for sale as commodities and the exploitation of labor with a system based on the production of goods and services for use by free labor

This is easier said than done – especially in China, which outside  of Hong Kong and Macau is a dictatorship – but that doesn’t make the task any less essential – to make a better life for Taiwanese, Chinese and American workers and for the world

As for Taiwan, Taiwanese workers are – like workers in Ukraine – in the unfortunate position of having to be junior partners in a one sided alliance with their capitalist class to defend their countries from invasion by a larger imperialist power – independent workers parties and revolutionary labor unions in America and China would actually be in a position to fight to protect them from invasion and war on their island