U.S. vs. China Hegemony in Taiwan

Red Mole

SINCE DONALD TRUMP returned to office, a series of shocking far-right disasters have snowballed. These include open violations of international law under the banner of “anti-drug” operations, a “decapitation strike” to intervene in Venezuela and arrest President Maduro, along with threats to seize Greenland, and launching his “excursion” in Iran.

His pursuit of racist policies at home are reflected in ICE’s abuses of power and acts of violence. All this reflects how Trump’s far-right position is heaping harm and upheaval on the world’s geopolitical landscape.

In Taiwan, however, because another rising hegemonic power, China, is regarded as the primary threat, and because of Taiwan’s distinctive historical conditions, the Taiwanese public (especially Taiwanese nationalists and the Taiwan-aligned right-wing camp) view Trump’s actions through a beautifying filter. They offer praise and even lend their support.

As China rises and the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) authoritarian regime continues to encroach on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Taiwan has come to be seen by the international community as a powder keg on the brink of conflict.

This article will discuss how the proportion of Taiwanese who are “pro-China” has been driven steadily downward, while voices of “fear of China” and even outright “anti-China” sentiment have intensified.

Even among ordinary people who harbor doubts about the United States, few openly defy Washington’s right-wing policies; instead, they are more inclined to remain on the sidelines as detached observers.

This not only reflects an asymmetry in how Taiwan’s public responds to Sino-U.S. “cognitive warfare,” but under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) also promotes a one-way mode of thinking. Thus Taiwan people maintain a high level of vigilance toward China, while, since they see the United States as supporting Taiwan’s sovereignty, they overlook U.S. violations.

Caught between (pro-Beijing) “authoritarian wolf-warriors” and (pro-Washington) “democratic deceivers,” we argue that Taiwan must choose an independent path.

We must guard against the CCP’s military threat as well as expose the United States’ manipulation and fraud. This is why it is crucial to build a localized, continuous, and deeply grounded antiwar framework — one that genuinely speaks to grassroots interests.

Deeply Rooted “Pro-Americanism”

Taiwan is pro-American not only because of the Taiwanese nationalists such as the DPP; even the opposition party Kuomintang (KMT) bureaucrats whom the public often regards as pro-China are, in practice, also pro-American. The difference lies in the degree.

This difference can be traced back to the period after 1949, when the KMT retreated to Taiwan (after the victory of the Communist Party in the civil war — ed.). With China and Taiwan separated under long-term divided rule, the KMT ruled in exile on a piece of land where it was unwelcome.

On the one hand, to consolidate its rule the KMT bought the loyalty of local elites to stabilize domestic governance; on the other hand, it depended on U.S. military protection and aid to fend off the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and suppress internal dissent.

Under the U.S. protective umbrella, Taiwan’s reliance on Washington — from government bureaucrats to ordinary people — became deeply entrenched. Throughout the Cold War, the United States intervened forcefully in the geopolitics of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan through the “First Island Chain.”

Although Washington’s stance toward Taiwan’s transition from authoritarian rule to a bourgeois-democratic transformation has been inconsistent, American institutions, culture, and economic models have played a pivotal role throughout. Likewise, American-style democracy remains the benchmark for Taiwan’s political transformation.

• To prevent the political fallout around the Korean War, the United States provided the KMT with large-scale financial assistance. Between the 1950s and 1965, that amounted to more than US$100 million in non-military aid and technical assistance. In opening the American domestic market to Taiwan, the foundation was laid for Taiwan’s agricultural transformation and import-substitution industrialization.

• Also, as a result of the Korean War, in 1951 the United States dispatched the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) to Taiwan and arranged several large loans. After aid ended in 1965, Washington shifted from military assistance to military procurement, reshaping Taiwan’s subsequent path of defense development.

• In terms of technology, by 1976 it was reported that Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) signed an integrated-circuit technology transfer agreement with RCA. It dispatched personnel for training to the United States, many of whom later became key figures in Taiwan’s integrated-circuit industry.

Since Taiwan was a pro-American and loyal ally, the cost-reduction incentives created by outsourcing enabling the United States to concentrate on design and R&D. Ultimately, outsourcing the integrated-circuit fabrication processes became the cornerstone of Taiwan’s globally renowned semiconductor “miracle.”

Although Taiwan’s early transportation system inherited the rail-oriented planning of the Japanese colonial period, after the Kuomintang relocated to Taiwan the U.S. “grand highwayism” model fundamentally transformed the island’s transportation paradigm. To this day, car-centered planning dominates.

Geopolitics of Dependence

Taiwan’s historical dependence on the United States did not stem from the great achievements of any particular individual, nor from the KMT rule. Rather, it was a composite outcome shaped by geopolitical considerations and economic interests.

This historical trajectory was not built unilaterally on the KMT ruling class’s need to resist the CCP; it also encompassed the United States’ strategic intention to treat Taiwan as an anti-communist front line.

Even with Taiwan’s bourgeois-democratic transition and the end of the Cold War, the pro-American orientation that accumulated among intellectuals, opinion leaders and political elites across Taiwan’s social strata has become difficult to reverse. Thus regardless of whether the KMT or the DPP are in government, their diplomacy and policymaking remain inseparable from the United States and unable to move beyond the political bounds that Washington is willing to tolerate.

What factors then led to the widespread perception among Taiwanese that the KMT is pro-China? One argument maintains that the KMT remains a “Chinese regime” and therefore has a “Chinese national sentiment.” But the KMT has shifted from its Cold War stance declaring that “the Han and the villains cannot coexist” to treating China as a partner for cooperation.

In fact, the KMT’s pro-China orientation can be traced directly to China’s reform and opening-up period. As China moved toward capitalism and threw open its market, it needed investment. With Taiwan’s own industrial restructuring driving economic growth, domestic labor costs rose, leading Taiwanese businesses’ determination to relocate in search of a new “land of milk and honey.”

Cross-Strait Capital Flows

By the early 1980s, some Taiwanese firms were already channeling capital into China — via Hong Kong and other offshore companies — in clandestine rent-seeking arrangements. After the lifting of martial law in 1987, and after the KMT government announced in 1990 that it would remove restrictions on direct investment in China, large numbers of Taiwanese businesses were able to enter the Chinese market.

These firms did not merely set up single companies in China; they relocated entire industrial chains in order to maximize profits.

During this period, it wasn’t only Taiwanese businesses that reaped enormous profits. Many bureaucrats — including those within the KMT — also benefited from cross-strait capital flows. As long as economic ties with China remained sufficiently hot, the KMT could shore up its party-state base through the support of Taiwanese business interests.

Since 2009, nearly 40% of successive members of the KMT Central Standing Committee have either been Taiwan businesspeople operating in China, or individuals with backgrounds in cross-strait exchange associations.

This exchange was one of the key factors leading to KMT candidate Ma Ying-jeou’s landslide presidential victory in 2008. By 2012, on the eve of the presidential election, major capitalists — including the powerful Chinese official Cher Wang — publicly declared support for the “1992 Consensus.” (a reported 1992_ConsensusKMT-CCP agreement. —ed.)

As the leading power of global capitalism, the United States also seized upon the enormous commercial opportunities created by China’s move toward capitalism. Beyond the formal establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1979, bilateral trade also expanded dramatically.

From the normalization of relations in 1979 to 2003, total U.S. — China trade surged from under US$2.5 billion to over US$100 billion. In other words, China’s capitalist transformation not only ushered in a period of U.S.-China cooperation, but also propelled the KMT and Taiwanese businesses to move in step with that cooperative relationship. This further integrated cross-strait capital and the development of pro-China political exchanges.

Although China’s market opening in the 1980s gave rise to a pro-China tendency within the KMT, it did not fundamentally overturn the KMT’s historically pro-American foundations. In 2009, KMT President Ma Ying-jeou signed the 2009 U.S. — Taiwan Beef Protocol, triggering massive public controversy. Senior KMT figures defended U.S. beef despite the food-safety risks associated with ractopamine and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease).

The stance of being both pro-American and pro-China has developed particularly since 2021, becoming part of the KMT’s “good-neighbor diplomacy” platform. It underpins slogans such as 2024 KMT vice-presidential candidate Jaw Shaw-kong’s line that as the KMT party chair Cheng Li-wen had remarked: “Why can’t we choose both being pro-American and pro-China?”

New Period of Tension

By contrast, it is now extremely difficult to imagine the widely pro-China public mood that prevailed during the Ma Ying-jeou era. The turning point came when China’s economic transformation — driven by its absorption of massive inflows of overseas capital — meant that China’s rise not only squeezed the development of Taiwan’s capitalism but also pushed China and the United States from cooperation to competition.

While the KMT substantively controlled the party-state and took the lead in cross-strait exchanges during the reform and opening-up era, the DPP was founded in the first place to serve local small- and medium-sized business owners who did not reap nearly as many benefits from cross-strait capital integration as the KMT.

Moreover, as Taiwan’s first locally born political party, the DPP’s 1991 independence party platform was less likely to be compatible with the CCP’s principle of cross-strait unification.

These two factors meant that once the DPP came to power, its diplomatic course has never had — and could not have — the option of cooperating with the CCP. Given the realities of international politics, the DPP’s only diplomatic line was strong pro-American alignment.

Although the KMT lived through decades of dictatorship under the umbrella of U.S. protection, China’s capitalist opening enabled KMT figures to earn vast sums of renminbi and adopt a more balanced and cautious posture when navigating between the two great powers.

Regardless of which party is in power, neither is able to alter a pro-American foreign-policy orientation. In order to win voter support, the two parties have at times “swapped roles.”

For example, when the KMT opened Taiwan to importing U.S. beef in 2009, Tsai-Ing-wen led DPP members into the streets in opposition. Yet by 2020, when the DPP was the government, it was president Tsai Ing-wen who announced the lifting of a 14-year ban on pork imports containing ractopamine. This time it was the KMT that stood guard over people’s food safety.

Shift to pro-American, anti-China

The 2014 Sunflower Movement demonstrated widespread public anger at KMT corruption but also reinforced a “fear of China” sentiment. With the outbreak of the U.S.-China trade war in 2018, along with the ensuing Hong Kong protests against the extradition bill (“one country, two systems”), shifts in both domestic and international circumstances made anti-China increasingly a political orthodoxy in Taiwan.

Hong Kong’s 2019 protests not only shook the world, but also further amplified calls in Taiwan to “resist China, protect Taiwan.” If evaluated objectively, that slogan’s purpose and essence are simply to defend Taiwan’s bourgeois-democratic system from encroachment by the CCP’s dictatorial regime. Yet once any slogan with a progressive or reformist significance is detached from class politics and grassroots organizing, it is highly prone to degeneration and corruption.

After 2020, as the U.S.-China rivalry intensified into a full-blown contest in the technology arena, the United States rolled out a series of measures. By 2022 these included the U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21st-Century Trade, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the “Chip 4” alliance.

All these are an effort to continue “supply-chain resilience,” policies designed to ensure that Taiwan’s chip-manufacturing capacity continues to flow steadily toward the United States while isolating and constraining China’s semiconductor development.

That August, Nancy Pelosi defied calls for restraint and insisted on visiting Taiwan, prompting China to respond with large-scale military exercises encircling the island.

This cascade reinforced the DPP’s resolve to prepare for war. It quickly moved to announce conscription would be extended to one year, amended the All-out Defense Mobilization Readiness Act, revived military trials, expanded U.S.-Taiwan arms procurement, and raised the defense budget.

Through these policies, the DPP has sought not merely to tighten state power and bolster the legitimacy of its rule, but also to build the “Taiwan Shield” that the United States expects.

In contrast to the “resist China, protect Taiwan” slogan in 2019 — which still retained some progressive content and was linked to solidarity with Hong Kong’s democratic struggle — today’s pro-American, anti-China stance is wrapped in the rhetoric of “we have no choice if we are to defend Taiwan.”

Under this cover, any questioning of the United States or of the DPP is liable to be smeared as “anti-Americanism” or branded with the stigma of being a “CCP’s Fifth Column.”

In covering recent events in Venezuela, Taiwan’s media tended to focus its coverage on the U. S. “anti-drug operation.” Many in the Taiwan-aligned camp have continued to repost content that sanitizes Trump’s military action. Predictably, they show no concern for how the United States has launched the military operation in disregard of international law and they are unwilling to mention the protests opposing Trump. They also ignore Trump’s threat to seize Greenland.

Events in Venezuela have also sparked popular fear of “Venezuela today, Taiwan tomorrow.” As the CCP carried out another round of military exercises around Taiwan last December, many in Taiwan are worried that the island could one day face the same kind of great-power “decapitation operation.”

Yet this decontextualized conclusion fails to question how to define the aggressor in Trump’s abducting of government officials. Instead, it narrows the discussion into self-congratulatory praise of the “anti-drug operation” and “removing a corrupt dictator.”

Even though Trump’s intention to seize control of Venezuela’s oil has become plain to see, many in the Taiwan-aligned camp continue to believe that the United States will be the savior in any Taiwan Strait crisis.

Supply Chain Threat

It was also on January 16 that the U.S.-Taiwan tariff arrangements were formally finalized. In addition to a 15% tariff rate (down from 20%), they commit to zero reciprocal tariffs on generic pharmaceuticals, their ingredients, aircraft components and some natural resources. Taiwanese firms must also invest in the United States in semiconductors and related downstream products in order to qualify for the most favorable treatment.

Further, Taiwanese companies are required to invest US$250 billion, with the government providing an additional US$250 billion in financing support to build up the U.S. semiconductor cluster and the ICT (Information and Communications Technology) supply chain.

The Kaohsiung Branch Office of the American Institute in Taiwan stated that “future Section 232 duties applied to Taiwanese semiconductors will reward Taiwanese semiconductor producers that invest in the United States.”  This move will accelerate the transfer of Taiwan’s semiconductor manufacturing processes. As U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said, Trump’s goal is to relocate 40% of Taiwan’s semiconductor capacity to the United States.

Taiwan’s semiconductor industry accounts for 15% of Taiwan’s GDP, and chips make up 40% of its exports. If 40% of Taiwan’s semiconductor capacity were shifted to the United States, the impact would be enormous. In a world that depends on semiconductor manufacturing processes, a large-scale transfer of production would not only pose a severe threat to Taiwan’s security, but it would also lead to widespread layoffs as supply chains relocate.

Yet Deputy Premier Cheng Li-chun offered only a hollow response to this threat, saying that Taiwan would negotiate supply-chain cooperation with the United States “through the ‘Taiwan model,’ rather than industrial relocation.”

Even more astonishing is that this cynical bureaucratic answer was met with cheers of “U.S.-Taiwan friendship” and “a home run.” In reality, those cheers could at any moment turn into the death knell for Taiwan’s grassroots workers — and for its bourgeois democracy.

Rightward Shift and Consequences

Up to this point, the United States’ advocacy of “strategic ambiguity” in the Taiwan Strait has not only served to sustain a competitive relationship with China that is confrontational yet short of rupture. It has also treated Taiwan’s bourgeois democracy as a tool for striking at the CCP’s authoritarian regime.

This has enabled the already strongly pro-American DPP, along with parts of the Taiwan-aligned political camp, to place what was once a form of Taiwanese nationalism with democratic-reform and national-liberation aspirations in a dependent position, under the banner of U.S. imperialism.

As great-power rivalry between the United States and China has intensified, Taiwanese nationalism has increasingly deteriorated, tilting rightward and becoming ever more distorted. Examples include:

• During the 1970s Tangwai movement (a forerunner to the DPP), activists still held relatively progressive views: opposing U.S. imperialism, resisting CCP encroachment, and pursuing Taiwan’s national independence. But as the DPP moved toward plutocracy, its political character gradually transformed.

Today’s DPP no longer seeks to establish a Republic of Taiwan; instead, it seeks to ensure the DPP can rule “the Republic of China (Taiwan)” for the long term. This can be substantiated by president Lai Ching-te’s repeated statements that “Taiwan does not need to declare independence separately.”

• Last August, the feminist organization “Awakening Foundation” published a post criticizing the Lai Ching-te administration for failing to fulfill its promise of a cabinet made up of “one-third women.” The post was met with a flood of backlash from Taiwan-aligned camp commentors, with remarks such as: “Why don’t you go demand women’s equality from the KMT-and-TPP (Taiwan People’s Party) camp?” and “Only when Taiwan’s independence and security are assured will we have the leeway to care about you.”

• Recently, the Ministry of National Defense raised the threshold for exemption from conscription and announced the “Draft Amendment to the Physical Examination Standards for Military Service.” At the same time, it reclassified transgender and intersex people from being exempt to alternative service. The move has drawn strong criticism from many transgender and human-rights organizations, which condemn it as a “rollback” of sexual-minority rights.

• On the U.S.–Taiwan tariff negotiations, pro-DPP supporters have largely applauded the final outcome. They failed to recognize that, because the Ministry of Labor has been unable to propose effective measures to prevent the impact on employment — offering subsidies instead — the tariff shock has already led to more than 5,400 workers being placed on unpaid leave even before the negotiations concluded. That figure likely understates the true scale of the impact.

This way of thinking, one that binds all democratic rights to the DPP’s continued rule, marks a rightward shift taking place under the rallying cry of “defending Taiwan’s democracy.”

Long ago the DPP ceased to seek the overthrow of the corrupt Republic of China regime that, in different periods, slaughtered Chinese workers and repressed Taiwanese people. It has pursued regressive policies on multiple fronts, yet large numbers of pro-DPP supporters and Taiwan-aligned nationalists still choose to defend DPP governance.

Taiwanist Chauvinism and Pro-American Worldview

This “Taiwanist chauvinism” may differ from the CCP’s authoritarian regime, with its incessant nationalist appeals to “defend the integrity of the Chinese nation” and its claim to pursue the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” As the period of cross-strait separation grows ever longer, it also becomes harder for Taiwan’s younger generation to identify with the historical narrative of Chinese nationalism.

Yet the end result is strikingly similar: in the name of a nationalist stance promoted by the ruling class, anything deemed to obstruct the supposed unity or integrity of the nation must be eliminated. This allows the curtailment of democratic rights — including women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and labor rights.

Whether these “obstructions” concern the rights of existing minorities, labor interests that affect the majority, or even fundamental foundations of social reform, once they are tied to anxieties over “national security,” the slightest disturbance is treated as enemy activity — and must be thoroughly swept away.

Combined with the consistently pro-American orientation of Taiwan’s mainstream political parties, these factors have produced a phenomenon that is difficult to erase: Taiwan has become highly dependent on the United States — to the point of often blindly following U.S. foreign policy.

From Israel’s genocide against Palestinians to Trump’s actions culminating in the arrest of Maduro, Taiwan-aligned and nationalist supporters have repeatedly applauded the United States. The much larger bloc of “neutral” voters has remained silent.

Despite abundant evidence that Israel is killing civilians indiscriminately, and despite the United Nations having already announced on September 16 that Israel has committed the crime of genocide, Taiwan’s mainstream media still speaks highly of Israel’s defense industry.

Last October, the Taiwanese government even received the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) with high-level protocols. Meanwhile, precisely because of Taiwan’s deep-rooted pro-American historical orientation, both parties — professing “pragmatic diplomacy” — have remained silent about U.S. support for Israel’s atrocities.

Because the CCP’s authoritarian regime is issuing military threats right on Taiwan’s doorstep, it is entirely understandable why people in Taiwan are so focused on the potential danger posed by the CCP. But in examining the situation as it has unfolded since 2022, what role has the United States played?

These questions are not meant to defend the CCP’s dictatorship. Instead, they are attempts to examine the role the United States is playing. Can it be the democratic force it claims to be as it allowed genocide in Gaza?

Trump erects tariffs aimed at pillaging the resources of others, including our own, but we fail to notice. We seem stuck in the Cold War. Because of the CCP’s long-standing threats, the Taiwanese public — already unfamiliar with leftwing politics — has become even more resistant to ideas such as socialism.

Genuine Left Needed

In March 2014, students occupied the legislature, protesting a trade deal with China. Known as the Sunflower Student movement, it was a coalition of student and civil organizations. It was the first time the Legislative Yuan had been occupied by citizens. Kevin-WY, Taichung, Taiwan CC BY-SA2.0

Take the recent “Taiwan Revolutionary Communist Party” incident. When a small number of high school and university students changed their organization’s name in order to sound even more radical (originally called “the Spark”), this was enough to trigger widespread public debate, even panic.

This not only reflects Taiwanese people’s fear — and ignorance — of the term “Communist Party,” but also highlights the absence of a left that genuinely focuses on democracy and grassroots rights.

To be sure, the weakness and marginalization of Taiwan’s left is itself the product of many intertwined historical factors. Loudly declaring oneself a “communist” may generate brief exposure and attention, but does not address underlying problems.

There are no shortcuts for the development of a Taiwanese left: only through deep theoretical analysis, solid movement organizing, and long-term labor organizing can it build real influence. However, the debates sparked by this “communist party incident” constitutes an opportunity for Taiwan’s left to explain what “socialism” actually means.

Since China’s rise, Taiwan has already developed a systematic framework of anti-CCP “cognitive warfare” thinking. Yet because of historical factors and political dynamics, it has been difficult to promote an understanding of the hegemonic “cognitive warfare” practiced by the United States.

Despite many longstanding pro-unification groups and the Taiwanese old left circles that have long waved the banner of “opposing U.S. imperialism,” they have failed to offer a critique of China’s authoritarian capitalism. This prevents them from gaining acceptance among the broader public.

Beyond Hegemonic Choices

Nearly all the evidence suggests that U.S.-China rivalry will not diminish; instead, it is likely to become ever more dangerous.

Taiwan’s longstanding, one-way pro-American mindset will not strengthen the democratic rights of ordinary people. Rather, it will continually entrench right-wing nationalist chauvinism and erode or even overturn the reform gains that have been won in the past.

People who support radical democratic rights can approach political questions from the standpoint of human rights and humanitarian concern. Those who sincerely support democratic rights and oppose oppression and domination should not easily fall into the flattened narrative and binary choice of an “axis of evil” versus a “democratic camp.”

Instead, we must adopt a more three-dimensional political outlook and grapple with the following question: how can Taiwan, caught between the United States’ and China’s respective “cognitive warfare” operations, preserve its existing democracy and keep advancing the rights and interests of marginalized groups, laborers and grassroots people — the vast majority — without becoming a pawn of these powers?

If we want to oppose the United States’ “cognitive warfare” as it sings democratic tunes of democracy while hollowing out and extracting from Taiwan, we cannot rely on one-sided, linear anti-American denunciations.

The pro-unification camp’s years-long attempt at “pro-China, anti-American” politics has not only shown itself to be little more than a mirror image of “pro-American, anti-China.” It has also failed to genuinely engage with, or resolve, the Taiwanese public’s anxiety and fear over the CCP’s encroachment on Taiwan’s sovereignty.

Likewise, China’s authoritarian capitalism is not merely an internal project of proclaiming “national rejuvenation” under a unified Chinese nation; it is also an effort to force Taiwan — an island long separated from China, and never actually governed by the CCP — to accept a Greater China nationalist ideology that is far removed from Taiwan’s social and historical reality.

We should be clear-eyed: in order to preserve what it calls “territorial and national integrity,” the CCP is even willing to resort to armed force to unify Taiwan. This kind of wolf warrior diplomacy exerts its own pressure, pushing Taiwanese nationalism further rightward as well.

Just as many leftists have repeatedly emphasized, under the global wave of rightward drift, reformist calls grounded in nationalism alone become more unstable and ultimately more dangerous than before.

Much like Trump’s populist and reckless “America First” policy, the Taiwanese nationalist slogans shouted by the right-wing Taiwan-aligned camp no longer resemble the opposition movement for democratic reform and national liberation. Instead, they increasingly carry pronounced chauvinist and racist overtones.

Unlike many countries that have lived through war and turmoil, most people in Taiwan lack historical experience and collective memory of wartime catastrophe. As a result, Taiwanese society, especially Taiwanese nationalists, often falls back on slogans that romanticize military action and “wars of national defense.”

For people who have actually endured war, such slogans are ignorant and one-sided. That is why it is equally important to make vivid the harm produced by great-power rivalry, to help people grasp the cruelty of war under capitalism, and to carry forward the majority’s desire for a peaceful life into concrete action so that, on that basis, an antiwar movement can be built and advanced.

These movements can begin with community discussions in neighborhoods surrounding military bases; they can start from the confronting the anxieties of young people facing extended conscription and tightened standards. They can develop through exposing the exploitation and oppression by both hegemons, linking these realities to an antiwar, anti-colonial narrative.

In this way it becomes possible to build a coherent yet dynamic social movement, one that enables more people to form social ties with a left committed to pursuing thoroughgoing democracy.

July-August 2026, ATC 243