🚀🇨🇳 The PLA’s Sword and the Empire’s Twilight: A New Order Awakens in the Taiwan Strait

Today, October 14, the PLA mobilizes navy, air force, rocket, and ground units to stage joint drills across the north, east, and south of Taiwan. Dubbed "Joint Sword-2024B," these exercises are a masterstroke of power projection—a signal to Washington and Taipei that the rules of the game have changed. The West may cry “provocation,” but this is no saber-rattling: China is calling the empire’s bluff, wielding a sharp reminder that Taiwan lies at the heart of Beijing’s strategic and historical interests.

This isn’t just about military posturing. Taiwan’s economy is deeply tied to the mainland, its prized semiconductor exports relying heavily on Chinese markets and maritime access. If a blockade materializes, it won’t just be missiles flying—it will be the lifeline of Taiwan’s economy severed. And all the U.S. weapons in the world can’t change that reality. Washington’s promise of security is an empty shell, just like its wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond—endless interventions followed by abandonment.

The irony is thick. History echoes across the strait: a century after the West imposed the Opium Wars, crippling China with gunboats and trade blockades, the script has flipped. The U.S. clings to its outdated first-island-chain strategy, but this time, it’s China holding the levers of maritime control. As Beijing wields drills like soft blockades, Washington’s hollow dominance in Asia stands exposed, just as Britain’s empire crumbled after overextending itself.

Meanwhile, Russia’s triumphs over NATO-backed forces in Ukraine—achieved with a fraction of the Pentagon’s budget—are a further humiliation. The illusion of Western military supremacy is shattered, and the PLA’s maneuvers underscore that the days of American maritime dominance are gone. Taiwan, trapped in its reliance on a crumbling U.S. empire, becomes little more than a pawn in the West’s waning influence.

The bigger picture? As BRICS expands and de-dollarization accelerates, the PLA’s exercises are the opening salvos of a new multipolar order—one where the Global South rewrites the rules, unburdened by Western coercion. The real war isn’t on the battlefield but in economics, trade routes, and the control of currency.

The empire’s playbook is obsolete. Washington can rally its allies and flood the region with arms, but it can no longer contain the rising tide. The message is clear: The old rules no longer apply. A new game has begun—and the U.S. is already losing.

- Gerry Nolan

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