By Dr. Ranjan Solomon
Escalating geopolitical tensions in Asia, driven by the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy, Taiwan disputes, and Japan’s remilitarization, are reshaping the regional order, creating a “new cold peace” defined by structural suspicion. This shift is marked by a “first island chain” defense strategy aimed at monitoring Chinese naval operations. While some view this as containment of a rising power, others interpret these developments as a potential, albeit gradual, shift in the regional balance of power.
Asia once again finds itself at the centre of a global power struggle not of its own making. The escalating tensions over Taiwan, Japan’s accelerating remilitarisation, and the United States’ strategic pivot toward the Indo-Pacific reveal less about regional insecurity and more about the anxieties of declining empires confronting an irreversible shift in global power. Beneath the language of “democracy,” “rules-based order,” and “freedom of navigation” lies a familiar imperial instinct: to control, contain, and discipline any force that refuses subordination.
At the heart of this manufactured crisis lies a deliberate distortion of history—particularly the one-China principle, which is routinely treated in Western discourse as a negotiable claim rather than what it actually is: a settled international consensus.
As of late 2025 and early 2026, the intersection of the “One China” principle, the revival of historical imperial narratives, and rapid military modernization defines a new era of Chinese assertiveness. Under President Xi Jinping, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is transforming into a world-class force designed to secure national rejuvenation, project power globally, and assert control over territorial claims, with a particular focus on the 2027 centennial goal. The primary driver of China’s military development is the goal of achieving capabilities to seize or coerce Taiwan by 2027. This involves increased PLA incursions, which surged by 200% between 2020 and 2024.
The narrative emphasizes the “integral” nature of territories such as Taiwan, the South China Sea, and border regions, framing them as essential to national sovereignty and the end of the “century of humiliation”.
Meanwhile Japan is drifting away from its post-1945 exclusively defensive, pacifist posture (under Article 9 of its constitution) towards becoming a “normal” military power. Since the mid-2000s, and accelerating under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and later Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi (as of late 2025/2026), Japan has revised national security documents to focus on “counterstrike capabilities” and a significantly expanded defense budget.
Japan now officially frames China as an “unprecedented strategic challenge” and a “pressing security concern”. This surge in military activity is seen as a return to regional rivalry between China and Japan, echoing the competition for regional dominance during the late 19th and early 20th centuries (e.g., the First Sino-Japanese War).
The One-China Principle: An International Settlement, not a Chinese Claim
The question of China’s international representation was conclusively resolved in 1971, when the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 2758, recognising the People’s Republic of China as the sole legitimate representative of China. This decision was not procedural housekeeping; it was a decisive geopolitical settlement that reflected historical reality and ended decades of diplomatic fiction. Taiwan was not recognised as a separate sovereign entity, nor was the question left open for reinterpretation at a later date.
Since then, over 180 countries – across continents, ideologies, and political systems—have established diplomatic relations with the PRC on the basis of the one-China principle. This sustained and uniform state practice has elevated the principle to a basic norm of international relations, rooted in both legality and custom. To challenge it today is not to uphold international law but to subvert it in service of strategic objectives.
Yet this is precisely what is happening. Strategic ambiguity is weaponised, diplomatic language is hollowed out, and militarisation is presented as prudence. The burden of instability is shifted onto China, even as external powers inject arms, alliances, and war rhetoric into a region that has no interest in becoming the next global battlefield.
Imperial Memory and the Taiwan Question
The Taiwan question cannot be divorced from the long history of imperial intrusion into China. Taiwan’s separation from the mainland was not the product of self-determination but the outcome of Japanese colonialism and the unresolved legacy of China’s civil war, compounded by Cold War interventions. From the Opium Wars to the Japanese occupation, China’s modern history is marked by humiliation imposed through foreign coercion. Sovereignty, for China, is therefore not an abstract concept—it is existential.
Western powers that once carved China into concessions now present themselves as guardians of its peripheries. The irony is stark. The same forces that denied China sovereignty for over a century now lecture it on restraint, while refusing to apply similar standards to themselves. No Western state would tolerate foreign militarisation along its core territorial claims; yet China is expected to accept precisely that.
Japan’s Dangerous Amnesia
Japan’s re-entry into military assertiveness is particularly troubling. Asia has not forgotten Japan’s imperial past—its invasions, atrocities, and colonial rule across China, Korea, and Southeast Asia. That history is not ancient; it lives in memory, trauma, and unresolved accountability. Japan’s post-war pacifist constitution was not a burden imposed upon it, but a safeguard for the region.
Today, however, Japan seeks strategic relevance through rearmament and alignment with US containment strategies against China. Advanced technology is being repurposed for military expansion, while historical responsibility is quietly sidelined. This is not leadership; it is regression. An Asia that needs trust-building and cooperation is instead being offered missiles and manoeuvres.
The United States and the Fear of Decline
The intensification of the Taiwan issue must also be understood as a symptom of American imperial decline. For the first time since the end of World War II, the United States confronts a power it cannot easily dominate, sanction into submission, or overthrow. China’s rise is not merely economic—it is civilisational.
China has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, built the world’s largest industrial base, achieved technological breakthroughs in infrastructure, renewable energy, artificial intelligence, and space exploration, and emerged as the primary trading partner for most of the world. Its economic scale now dwarfs all other powers, reshaping supply chains, development models, and global institutions.
This rise did not occur through colonial plunder or military conquest. It emerged through long-term planning, state capacity, and integration with the global economy—often under conditions set by Western institutions. That China succeeded despite these constraints is what unsettles the old order.
Unable to reverse this transformation economically, the United States resorts to militarisation and alliance-building, dragging regional actors into a confrontational posture that benefits none of them. Taiwan becomes a pawn, Japan a forward base, and Asia a theatre of escalation.
Militarisation Is Not Stability
The portrayal of military build-ups as deterrence ignores history’s most basic lesson: arms races create insecurity, not peace. Asia’s future lies not in NATO-style blocs or Cold War revivalism, but in regional autonomy, economic cooperation, and diplomatic maturity. The people of Asia—Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Southeast Asian—do not benefit from becoming collateral in great-power rivalries.
To challenge the one-China principle today is therefore not an act of principle but of provocation. It destabilises an established international settlement, erodes global norms, and risks igniting a conflict whose consequences would be catastrophic.
Asia’s Future Lies Beyond Militarisation
Asia stands at a crossroads. It can either allow old empires to redraw its future through force and fear, or it can insist on peace, legality, and sovereignty. The choice should not be difficult.
Asia’s future cannot be built on aircraft carriers, missile shields, or revived military blocs that replicate Europe’s twentieth-century disasters on a far larger scale. It must instead rest on demilitarisation, regional sovereignty, and civilisational dialogue—a conscious rejection of the logic that security is achieved through dominance. Asia is home to the world’s oldest cultures, the majority of its population, and the engines of global growth; its destiny lies in cooperation, trade, cultural exchange, and shared development, not in becoming a permanent theatre for foreign power projection. The militarisation of the Taiwan question, the rearmament of Japan, and the strategic encirclement of China threaten to drag the region into conflicts that serve imperial anxieties rather than Asian interests. To insist on peace in Asia is not naïveté; it is historical wisdom. The one-China principle, upheld through international consensus, offers a framework for stability precisely because it rejects coercion. The real challenge before Asia is not choosing sides in a great-power rivalry, but refusing to inherit the ruins of an empire in decline – and instead asserting a future rooted in dignity, restraint, and peace.
Dr. Ranjan Solomon has worked in social justice movements since he was 19 years of age. After an accumulated period of 58 years working with oppressed and marginalized groups locally, nationally, and internationally, he has now turned a researcher-freelance writer focussed on questions of global and local/national justice.
29 January 2026
Source: countercurrents.org