Where “no war in Taiwan”?
– Либертарианская партия России (ЛПР) (Russian Libertarian Party), replying to foreign policy statements by the US “Libertarian” Party (since its takeover by the “Mises” Caucus), June 8, 2022
The US Government backs and arms Al Qaeda in Syria/Yemen and Nazis in Ukraine.
Which “freedom fighters” will they be funding and arming with US taxpayer’s dollars in Taiwan? #NoWarWithChina
– Libertarian Party NH, May 24, 2022
Those would be the Taiwanese people, you embarrassment of a libertarian. Sustainable liberty requires people to come to each other’s defense and unfortunately we don’t have any private armies and navies on which we can rely. A terrible lot can be lost holding out for perfection.
While the “Mises” Caucus has turned the US Libertarian party into a parody, the “Mises” Institute, likewise...
Setting aside the fact that Taiwan is party to a still ongoing, seventy-year civil war against mainland control and that America’s act of arming the separatist province is highly provocative and injudicious ... The truth is that just like the arming of Taiwan, NATO expansion and support for the unconstitutional overthrow of Ukraine’s Russian-aligned president were reckless and injudicious acts that ignore likely long-term security implications in favor of short-term geopolitical and domestic gains.
– Joseph Solis-Mullen, “An American Fight in Ukraine Brings Big Costs, No Benefits”
This is especially irritating when it comes to Taiwan/Taipei, a province everyone, from the United Nations to the United States, acknowledges is part of China and which but for the opaque, and under President Joe Biden now explicit, threat of US military intervention would now be securely back under Beijing’s control. That the island is strategically valuable is granted—so too that its democratic and technological achievements are laudable; but is a now seven-decade-old civil war supposed to continue indefinitely? As Taiwan’s and China’s positions of relative strength change, both in the region and elsewhere, militarily as well as economically and diplomatically, is China expected to put up with this state of affairs? How, one wonders, would the American public, media, and political, policy, and military elite react if China were to sign a basing agreement with Brazil, or Russia with Venezuela?
As the only probing of the Monroe Doctrine attempted since Teddy Roosevelt’s time resulted in the Cuban Missile Crisis, I think it’s safe to say we know the answer.
… With public polls revealing increasing support among the American public for military intervention in defense of Taiwan’s claim to territorial autonomy, Americans would do well to pause and reflect on how what China wants is recognition and control of its internationally recognized borders, in the case of Taiwan. The American public should also not be misled into thinking the question of Taiwan’s status can be indefinitely put off through clever diplomacy or the threat of American military intervention. Already simulated military conflicts over the island have the US side losing regularly.
Especially since Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong dispelled any illusion as to that region’s ultimate fate, Taiwan’s domestic politics have increasingly trended toward independence, and this is unlikely to change. In truth, however, the minute Richard Nixon set foot in Beijing the matter was decided: if Beijing is the legitimate government of China and Taiwan is part of China, ipso facto Taiwan belongs to Beijing.
The US has been interfering in internal Chinese affairs for well over a century. It’s time we said enough is enough. That is not isolationism: it is abandonment of an inconsistent, untenable, and indefensible foreign policy.
– Joseph Solis-Mullen, “US Foreign Policy Has Always Been Aggressive” (archived version)
For their part, the US and NATO should do as little to contribute to the problem as possible. This especially includes continuing to arm Ukraine and insisting that it has a future in NATO.
– Joseph Solis-Mullen, “The West Must Stop Trying To Expand NATO into Ukraine”, December 13, 2021
This should not be overly surprising to our readers. Rothbard, after all, had no problem allying with Maoists:
Rothbard was attracted to the growing student movement and actually entered the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) with his small following. He broke with those libertarians still clinging to an alliance with the anti-New-Deal Right by opposing Barry Goldwater in 1964 and beginning publication of Left & Right in 1965. He actively attended New Left meetings, wrote for Ramparts magazine, and even formed tactical alliances at the Freedom & Peace Party conventions with Maoists against old-line socialists.
– Samuel Edward Konkin III, “History of the Libertarian Movement”
Strategy was always an issue of primary concern for Rothbard, and he always aligned himself with the anti-state forces of the moment, wherever they were. In the late 1960s, this was obviously the radical Left. It would have been insanity for anarchists to attempt an alliance with conservatives at the height of the Vietnam War, while the Cold War was still raging, and when virtually all right-wingers were cheering on police repression of the antiwar movement. Instead, the natural allies of libertarians for the moment were the antiwar protestors, student rebels, youth counterculture, the black power movement, and other popular radical strands of the time. Rothbard even participated in a coalition with Trotskyists and Maoists under the banner of the Peace and Freedom Party. These efforts worked remarkably well for a time, and the libertarian movement experienced much growth during the late 1960s and early 1970s, due in large part to an influx of countercultural radicals from the New Left.
– Keith Preston, “Rothbard’s Time on the Left”
This is the regime that these “libertarians” think should rule over Taiwan:
Today is the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre.
Chinese students on AMERICAN college campuses who openly discuss the massacre or criticize the CCP have been targeted by Beijing while studying thousands of miles away.
If you wish to stand with the Maoist rebels against the relatively liberal Taiwan regime, (or indeed, with Russian imperialism against its victims) at least have the decency of not pretending to be libertarian, and especially, stop using Ludwig von Mises’ name to promote wars he would abhor.
The “Mao Tse Tung Institute” would sound much better.
Meanwhile, the real libertarian position should be obvious. Taiwan, of course, is not a “separatist province” as it was never ruled by the PRC. A more libertarian, less nihilistic suggestion would therefore be the opposite: the maoist rebels controlling the Taiwan West province mending their silly ways and joining the prosperous, free and democratic Republic of China.
