The New Year did not begin with hope or joy, except for the arms dealers. More precisely, for the military-industrial-media-academic-NGO complex that feeds on permanent war. Orders are flowing, profits are booming, and blood has once again become a growth sector. For any normal society, pirates belong in adventure films, not in the civilian power corridor. Yet Venezuela, more precisely, its legally elected president Nicolás Maduro, became the first trophy of the New Year.

A week after the grotesque “spectacle” of assault and kidnapping, analysts remain confused. It is not because the facts are unclear, but because they are often imprisoned by prefabricated narratives, many of which they themselves manufacture. Such is the “Taiwan issue” for quite some time. About Venezuela, much has already been said in a brilliant and insightful way. But let’s focus on the rest of the story. Much of it was delivered by Trump personally, with no shame and no restraint. In a grotesque parody of Kant, he openly declared himself “above international law,” constrained only by the ‘moral law’ within. To invoke morality and Trump in the same sentence—under the shadow of Epstein and ICE death squads—is not irony but obscenity.

Yet even as Venezuela is under tremendous pressure, this modern Nero is already drafting the next targets in what increasingly resembles an imperial suicide note. Names roll out like betting odds: Cuba. Greenland (dragging NATO and the EU into the madness). Iran. Gaza, conveniently erased once more, allowing Israel to continue its “peaceful” extermination without distraction. In this grotesque sequence, one territory stands out—not even a state, but a pawn. Taiwan.

In times of general deception, one has to repeat well-known facts tirelessly: Taiwan is the island province of the People’s Republic of China. It is according to UN resolutions, international law, and even Washington’s own foreign policy. The “One China” principle is not contested in law or diplomacy; it is challenged only by hawks, profiteers, and useful idiots. And yet, Taiwan has been deliberately inserted into the imperial narrative as the next “victim.” We saw it clearly when a New York Times journalist asked Trump whether the assault on Venezuela sets a precedent. Taiwan was invoked immediately: What if China attacks Taiwan because it lies in its ‘hemisphere’? (By the way, China immediately responded to this idea about a world of hemispheres.) The danger lies not in Trump’s answer, but in the question itself. It equates Venezuela with Taiwan, international crime against a sovereign state with the internal affairs of another state, thus sustaining the fiction of a ‘small, democratic Taiwan’ threatened by a monstrous China.

What Western discourse avoids saying plainly is that Taiwan is historically and legally part of China. The same people live on both sides of the Strait, separated by unresolved history, the residue of an unfinished civil war. This is not a matter of international security. It is China’s internal question.

What turns Taiwan into a ‘global crisis’ is not Beijing, but Washington.

For decades, and with escalating intensity in recent years, the United States has weaponized Taiwan: politically, ideologically, and militarily. Just before the New Year, Washington concluded the largest arms deal in Taiwan’s history, funneling billions to U.S. defense corporations. China responded as it always has: calmly, legally, and firmly. Military exercises on its own territory (a fact Western media systematically suppresses) sent a clear message: China will not allow the dismemberment of its sovereignty.

Predictably, Western experts scream that China is preparing for a military solution. In truth, it is certain Taiwanese politicians who are playing Russian roulette, feeding the U.S. war machine while endangering their own people. They arm the island against its own country, against a nuclear superpower, while pretending this is “ self-defense.” It is political theater bordering on insanity.

Some compare Taiwan to Ukraine, and they are right, though not in the way they intend. Ukraine was militarized, instrumentalized, and sacrificed. Taiwan’s situation is worse. Ukraine was at least a state. Taiwan is not. It cannot join the UN. It cannot join NATO. And despite illusions carefully cultivated in Taipei, no U.S. soldier will die for Taiwan. Nor is Taiwan able to deter China’s military advancement, if a decision of that sort is made in Beijing.

So why is Washington draining the island’s resources? Why force military spending of 5 percent of GDP on a territory outside NATO? Why manufacture hysteria where no war was inevitable? The answer is obvious: profit, containment, and geopolitical sabotage.

The result is political backlash. The leader of the Democratic Progressive Party, the Taiwanese “Zelensky”, now faces impeachment. Public dissatisfaction is growing. Ordinary people understand the arithmetic of war: fewer hospitals, fewer schools, fewer pensions—more weapons, more fear, more dependency.

The so-called Taiwan question is China’s internal affair, and Beijing has approached it with patience unmatched in modern geopolitics. A Chinese proverb says: “A Chinese does not raise a hand against a Chinese.” War has never been the plan. Reunification has been pursued through time, development, and restraint. 

The real recklessness lies elsewhere. Some Taiwanese elites believe U.S. promises—despite the long cemetery of abandoned allies. They waste resources chasing an impossible independence. And they sabotage their own future, which clearly lies in reconciliation with a rising China—one that builds power through economy, infrastructure, education, and technology, not through occupation and destruction.

Taiwanese society itself does not want war. Despite political divisions, there is internal coexistence and the skills to reach a compromise over sensitive issues peacefully. Who benefits from destroying this balance? This is just a rhetorical question, of course.

Venezuela and Taiwan have nothing in common. Except for one thing: both have been placed on Washington’s chopping block. The only real danger comes from the hyper-imperial center that, like a drug addict nearing overdose, risks dragging the entire world down with it.

This article was produced by Globetrotter and No Cold War. Biljana Vankovska is a professor of political science and international relations at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, a member of the Transnational Foundation of Peace and Future Research (TFF) in Lund, Sweden, and the most influential public intellectual in Macedonia. She is a member of the No Cold War collective.

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