ANALYSIS: The 1260H list — how Beijing retaliates against Washington and arms the economic war for Taiwan

A document number that resonates like a warning

There are administrative documents that resemble declarations of war. The so-called "1260H list" — an inventory of companies designated by the U.S. Department of Defense as linked to the Chinese military, formally known as the "China Military Company List" — is one of them. When the American government expands this list to new Chinese entities, the Beijing government responds. And the June 2026 response was sharp: reinforced export controls, a ban on Chinese government entities dealing with designated American companies, and signals that the arsenal of economic countermeasures is not exhausted.

According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in its China-Taiwan update of June 26, 2026, the People's Republic of China (PRC) responded to the American expansion of the 1260H list with targeted export controls and a ban on Chinese government entities dealing with the designated American companies. This is not a facade reaction — it is the deployment of real economic warfare tools that foreshadow what economic confrontation would look like in the event of escalation around Taiwan.

Why this list matters beyond its name

The 1260H list is important not for what it currently contains, but for what it structurally represents: the American recognition that the border between Chinese civilian companies and the military apparatus of the People's Republic is fictitious. Dozens of companies that appear as ordinary commercial actors — in shipbuilding, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, communication equipment — are in reality vectors through which Chinese technological and industrial capabilities are directed toward military applications. This dual nature is at the heart of what American strategists call Chinese "civil-military fusion."

To understand why the Chinese response is so sharp, one must understand the stakes of this designation: being on the 1260H list is a signal to American investors and commercial partners that the relationship with this entity carries regulatory and reputational risks. It is a targeted economic pressure tool. And China cannot tolerate it without a response — at the risk of signaling that it accepts this categorization.

The Sino-American economic war is the Cold War of the 21st century. It produces no bombardments, no trenches — it produces lists, export controls, transaction bans. But its effects on global security are just as real. And unlike the 20th century Cold War, this one is fought on simultaneously global fronts.

Origin and evolution of a pressure instrument

The China Military Company List was created by the U.S. Congress via the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which requires the Department of Defense to annually identify and publish a list of companies "operating directly or indirectly in support of the Chinese military forces." Designation on this list is not a direct sanction — designated companies can still trade with the United States — but it triggers enhanced due diligence obligations for American investors and excludes these companies from certain American government contracts.

Since its creation, this list has been progressively expanded to new entities. The latest expansion, in June 2026, added several dozen Chinese companies active in key technological sectors — notably semiconductors, shipbuilding, and communication systems. This expansion reflects the growing concern of American planners at the speed with which China is developing its military capabilities by using its civilian sectors as an accelerator.

Civil-military fusion: a doctrine that aligns everything

To understand why the 1260H list is so relevant, one must understand the civil-military fusion doctrine (军民融合, jun-min ronghe) that China officially adopted under Xi Jinping. This doctrine explicitly aims to eliminate the border between civilian economic development and military development: innovations in AI, robotics, biotechnology, and new energy are developed simultaneously for civilian and military applications, with mandatory transfer mechanisms to the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

In this framework, the border that a list like the 1260H attempts to draw between "civilian entity" and "military entity" is structurally porous. A Chinese semiconductor company is not military in its daily activity — but it can be legally obligated, under Chinese national security legislation, to provide its technologies or access to the PLA if requested. This reality makes risk management extraordinarily complex for American companies dealing with Chinese entities.

Chinese civil-military fusion is the most difficult analytical challenge for Western governments. It means that "civilian" and "military" are categories that no longer apply in a binary way to Chinese entities. Investing in a Shenzhen AI startup can contribute, indirectly but really, to arming the PLA. That is an uncomfortable reality many Western companies prefer to ignore.

Export controls as a retaliatory weapon

China's response to the expansion of the 1260H list, documented by the ISW on June 26, 2026, took the form of reinforced export controls targeting certain components or technologies in which China holds a dominant position as a supplier. This form of retaliation is not new — China has used similar mechanisms in previous trade disputes. But in the context of growing rivalry with Washington over Taiwan, these tools take on additional strategic dimension.

China controls a significant share of global production of certain critical materials — rare earths, gallium, germanium, graphite — that are essential for the manufacture of electronic equipment, electric vehicles, and military equipment. Restrictions or an embargo on these materials would affect not only the United States but all industrialized economies worldwide. It is an "economic nuclear weapon" that China has used sparingly so far — but whose mere existence in its arsenal structures all its trading partners' calculations.

The ban on Chinese government entities

Perhaps the most significant measure in the Chinese response is the ban on Chinese government entities dealing with designated American companies. This measure is particularly targeted because it creates reciprocity: if the United States signals that designated companies are linked to the Chinese military, China responds by treating designated American companies as entities themselves linked to activities hostile to China. It is a symmetric escalation in the economic war — and it sends a clear signal to American companies with contracts with Chinese government entities: your access to the Chinese market is conditional on your behavior in the Sino-American rivalry.

For affected American companies, this signal has concrete consequences. Existing contracts could be affected. Future renewals are in limbo. And companies not yet on the 1260H list but with significant activities in China will now recalibrate their exposure in a context of increased political risk. The economic war produces its effects in boardrooms before official policies are even formally changed.

The reciprocity of Chinese measures is a demonstration of economic power that Beijing has mastered for decades. China has learned from the United States how to use access to its market as a geopolitical instrument. It now uses it with a sophistication that should unsettle those who believed Western economic power was an insurmountable structural advantage.

The "immediate combat readiness" exercise of June 2026

Simultaneously with the battle of lists and economic controls, Taiwan conducted from June 22 to 26, 2026 a five-day military exercise entitled "immediate combat readiness." According to the Washington Post, this exercise involved tanks patrolling the streets of Taiwanese cities — a rare and deliberately symbolic image — as well as simulations of coastal defense, air coverage, and civil-military coordination in the event of invasion. The exercise is a direct response to recent PLA Chinese exercises internally qualified as "exercises toward real war."

The deliberate visibility of these tanks in Taiwan's streets is not accidental. It simultaneously sends several messages: to the Taiwanese population, that defense is serious and prepared; to mainland China, that any invasion attempt would meet substantial resistance; and to potential allies — notably the United States — that Taiwan takes its own defense seriously and is not counting solely on external intervention. This posture of credible autonomous defense is precisely what American planners are seeking to encourage.

The tabletop exercise on "maritime quarantine"

Less visible but perhaps more strategically revealing, a tabletop exercise was also conducted in Taiwan to simulate a "maritime quarantine" imposed by Chinese forces. According to Bloomberg of June 25, 2026, this exercise modeled a scenario in which the PLA would establish a naval blockade of Taiwan — controlling incoming and outgoing flows without necessarily launching a direct amphibious assault.

This "quarantine" scenario is considered by many experts as more probable than a direct invasion in the first instance. It would allow China to exert maximum pressure on Taiwan without triggering an automatic American military response (a direct assault against an ally would be harder to ignore than a blockade that primarily affects Taiwan itself). The simulation of this scenario by Taiwanese planners shows that they anticipate it and are seeking to develop appropriate responses.

The quarantine scenario is more insidious than a frontal invasion — and probably more likely. It would immediately put the United States in a difficult position: responding militarily to a Chinese naval blockade could be perceived as a disproportionate escalation. That is precisely why Taiwan exercises it on the tabletop. Better to prepare it now than to improvise under pressure.

RIMPAC 2026: the world's largest naval exercise

Since June 24, 2026, the naval exercise RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific) has been underway in Pacific waters. According to ThinkChina of June 25, this exercise involves approximately 40 ships, 25,000 military personnel, and 31 nations, and will last until July 31. RIMPAC is the world's largest multinational naval exercise and it signals very clearly that the United States and its Pacific partners are maintaining their presence and operational capacity in this strategic region.

China follows RIMPAC closely — with growing irritation. For Beijing, these repeated exercises are a demonstration of American capacity to operate in waters it increasingly considers as falling within its sphere of influence. For RIMPAC participants — which include Japan, South Korea, Australia, France, Canada, and others — it is a signal of unity and collective determination in the face of China's rising naval ambitions.

Valiant Shield 2026: the real combat simulation exercise

Valiant Shield 2026, begun June 22, is a higher-intensity American exercise than RIMPAC. It simulates real combat operations in the context of a conflict in the Indo-Pacific region, involving fifth-generation combat aircraft (F-35, F-22), aircraft carriers, submarines, and long-range strike capabilities. This exercise takes place immediately off Guam and the Mariana Islands — a geographically critical region for any military operation around Taiwan.

The concurrent occurrence of RIMPAC and Valiant Shield in June-July 2026 is not accidental. It sends a composite message: on one side, the United States and its allies exercise collectively (RIMPAC); on the other, the United States maintains its own high-intensity combat capabilities (Valiant Shield). This double exercise is a demonstration of the depth and variety of American capabilities in the region — a demonstration that clearly has Beijing as its primary audience.

40 ships, 25,000 personnel, 31 nations — RIMPAC's numbers are impressive. But what matters more to me than the numbers is the symbol: the Pacific's international community is training together. China watches. It calculates. And I think the message is received, even if Beijing will never say so officially.

When Europe speaks about Taiwan

One of the most significant developments in June 2026 is the issuance by European powers of a "rare warning" about the Chinese threat against Taiwan, according to Yahoo News of June 24. This declaration is remarkable because Europe has historically been much more cautious than the United States on security questions around Taiwan — preferring formulations about "dialogue" and "stability" to declarations that could be interpreted as taking a position on the island's status.

The fact that European capitals — not precisely named in available sources, but reasonably identifiable among France, Germany, the United Kingdom, or the Nordic countries — chose to speak more firmly on the Taiwanese file reflects an evolution in Europe's perception of the Chinese threat. This evolution is fueled by several factors: the war in Ukraine (which has made Europe more sensitive to risks of aggression against democracies), dependence on Taiwanese semiconductors (TSMC provides a considerable share of the advanced chips used in Europe), and American pressure for allies to share more of the burden of strategic commitments in the Pacific.

The Ukraine-Taiwan interconnection in Chinese strategy

It would be naïve to treat the war in Ukraine and the Sino-American rivalry around Taiwan as two separate files. They are deeply linked in the calculations of the capitals concerned. Beijing closely observes how the international community responds to Russian aggression in Ukraine — the sanctions, military support, NATO cohesion, and eventual fatigue. These observations directly inform its calculations on the cost and risks of action against Taiwan.

If the West shows it can maintain a coherent and prolonged economic coalition against an aggressor, that is a deterrent signal for Beijing. If instead sanctions fatigue sets in, if the alliance fractures, if Ukraine is forced to accept an unfavorable agreement — that is the opposite signal. This is one of the reasons why strategic analysts in Europe and the United States insist that "holding for Ukraine is also deterring China on Taiwan." The West's consistency in the face of Russian aggression has direct deterrent value for Taiwan's security.

The European warning on Taiwan is a weak but important signal. It marks the emergence of a European strategic consciousness that extends beyond the traditional boundaries of its zone of interest. This emergence is slow, hesitant, imperfect. But it is going in the right direction. And the war in Ukraine has considerably contributed to it.

Reducing dependence on the dollar and Western institutions

China's response to the 1260H list is part of a longer-term economic strategy: reducing China's vulnerability to Western economic instruments before any potential conflict around Taiwan. This strategy encompasses several simultaneous axes. The internationalization of the renminbi — encouraging global commercial transactions in yuan rather than dollars to reduce dependence on the U.S.-controlled financial system. The development of alternative payment systems to SWIFT. The constitution of strategic raw materials stockpiles. And the reduction of dependence on foreign technologies via technological self-sufficiency programs ("Made in China 2025" and its successors).

These efforts, conducted over several decades, are not yet complete — China remains significantly dependent on certain Western technologies, particularly in high-end semiconductors. But the progress is real and measures the amplitude of Beijing's strategic vision: prepare the economic terrain for a potential conflict well before it is imminent.

Export dependence: the vulnerability China cannot eliminate

Despite all these efforts, China maintains a fundamental economic vulnerability: its dependence on exports to Western markets. The Chinese economy needs to sell its products — electronics, textiles, machinery — to American, European, and Japanese consumers. A total Western embargo on Chinese products would be devastating for the PRC economy. This is precisely why Chinese export controls, while real, are carefully calibrated to exert pressure without crossing the threshold that would provoke massive Western economic retaliation.

This calculation of delicate calibration — maintaining pressure without triggering escalation — is the central difficulty of the Sino-American economic war. Each measure must be designed to cost the adversary without provoking a response that costs even more. And in this dance, both parties have sufficiently interlinked interests that total escalation is currently deterred — but this deterrence is not permanent.

The mutual Sino-American economic dependence is simultaneously the most important deterrent factor and the greatest source of vulnerability in this file. It makes open war costly for both — but it does not make it impossible. History shows that economically interdependent actors have already gone to war when other considerations prevailed.

TSMC and global dependence on Taiwanese chips

TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) is at the heart of all strategic analyses on Taiwan. This company produces approximately 90 percent of the world's most advanced semiconductor chips — the components that power high-end smartphones, data centers, artificial intelligence systems, and cutting-edge military equipment. Its location in Taiwan is simultaneously a diplomatic protection for the island — no major power wants to risk TSMC's destruction — and a strategic target for China, which dreams of acquiring these technological capabilities without developing them itself.

The American policy of controlled semiconductor exports to China — which prevents Chinese companies from acquiring the most advanced manufacturing tools — is directly linked to this issue. By preventing China from developing domestic production of cutting-edge chips, the United States maintains a technological dependency that makes aggression against Taiwan even more costly. If Taiwan were "reunified" by force and TSMC destroyed or disrupted, the global economic consequences would be catastrophic — including for China itself.

The semiconductor race: who will win the technological decade

The economic war around the 1260H list is inseparable from the semiconductor race. Chinese semiconductor companies appearing on this list are precisely those the United States identifies as vectors of military technological catch-up. Designating them creates obstacles to their financing and supply of Western manufacturing equipment. China's response — export controls on critical materials — attempts to make these obstacles symmetric.

At bottom, this is a technological race that will determine which of the two countries will have the decisive military capabilities in the next decade. The one that masters advanced semiconductor technologies, military AI, and autonomous weapons systems will have a potentially decisive strategic advantage in any future conflict. Both parties know this. That is why neither is prepared to make significant concessions in this technological battle.

The semiconductor war is perhaps the most under-reported issue in Sino-American rivalry. It is less spectacular than missiles or aircraft carriers. But it will determine who has the most advanced weapons in 10 years. And in this domain, decisions made today — who can buy what, who can manufacture what — have consequences measured in decades.

PLA exercises: toward "real war"

The military exercises of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) around Taiwan have intensified since 2022. Internally qualified as "exercises toward real war," they simulate amphibious invasion operations, control of airspace, naval blockades, and suppression of Taiwanese coastal defenses. The increasing frequency and sophistication of these exercises signals progressive preparation — the question is not only whether, but how and on what timeline.

The Taiwanese "immediate combat readiness" exercises of June 2026 are a direct response to this dynamic. As the Washington Post reports, the tanks in the streets are not a gratuitous show of force — they are a simulation of urban resistance that would be necessary if an invasion force reached the shoreline. Taiwanese defense doctrine is evolving toward what specialists call "porcupine defense" — distributed resistance, difficult to neutralize, costly for the attacker, similar in concept to Ukrainian resistance since 2022.

The Ukrainian lesson for Taiwan

The war in Ukraine has taught Taiwan several lessons that the island's strategic planners are actively integrating. First: prepared defense, even against a numerically superior adversary, can inflict sufficiently high costs to make conquest harder than calculated. Second: the capacity of the defense industry to produce low-cost weapons systems in large quantities — notably drones — is as important as expensive sophisticated systems. Third: social cohesion and the will to fight are military determinants that raw power calculations do not capture.

Taiwan is integrating these lessons into its preparations. The island is massively developing its drone production capacity. It is reinforcing its military reserves. It is simulating blockade and invasion scenarios. And it is reinforcing its cooperation with the United States, Japan, and Australia such that any conflict would not be a bilateral one but a resistance with supporters. The Ukrainian lesson — that resistance works best when it is prepared and supported — is not lost on Taipei.

Seeing Taiwan absorb the lessons of Ukrainian resistance is simultaneously encouraging and troubling. Encouraging because preparation improves deterrence chances. Troubling because it says clearly that real people, on a real island, are preparing for a war they hope never to have to wage. This preparation is necessary. Its necessity is a tragedy.

Pyongyang, Moscow, Beijing: the axis worrying Washington

Analysis of Indo-Pacific security cannot ignore North Korea. Kim Jong-un called on June 25, 2026, according to ABC News, for a "destructive" military posture toward South Korea. The 2nd anniversary of the mutual defense treaty with Russia was celebrated with declarations of "ever deepening" ties. And Russia remains concerned about American-South Korean military activities near the North Korean border, according to TASS.

The triangulation of China-Russia-North Korea creates a set of mutually reinforcing security challenges. North Korea has supplied munitions and soldiers to Russia in Ukraine — documented complicity that ties Pyongyang's fate to Moscow's. China maintains calculated ambiguity: it does not officially endorse North Korean military adventures, but does nothing to constrain them. And together, these three actors create pressure on American strategic resources that makes simultaneous management of Ukraine and Taiwan more difficult.

The dispersal of American resources as an advantage for adversaries

One of the implicit objectives of the informal China-Russia-North Korea axis is to disperse American strategic resources across multiple simultaneous theaters. If the American military must simultaneously support Ukraine against Russia, maintain credible deterrence around Taiwan, and respond to North Korean provocations, its overall capabilities are more stretched. This dispersal calculation is rational from the adversaries' perspective — it transforms an American asymmetric advantage into a series of symmetric challenges on multiple fronts.

For American and allied strategists, the response to this dispersal calculation passes through reinforcing the capabilities of local allies — Ukraine, Taiwan, South Korea — to defend themselves more autonomously, reducing the need for direct American engagement on each theater. This is precisely the logic behind NATO's defense spending objectives, behind support for the Ukrainian defense industry, and behind Taiwanese armament programs. Allied strategy responds to dispersal with autonomy.

The China-Russia-North Korea axis is not a formal alliance — but it does not need to be to create real strategic effects. Each member of this axis benefits from the attention the others absorb. It is a de facto cooperation between authoritarian regimes sharing the objective of weakening American power. The West cannot ignore it.

Two simultaneous fronts: a reality to prepare for

One of the most difficult questions for Western military and policy planners is: how to maintain robust support for Ukraine while preserving credible deterrence around Taiwan? These two objectives are not incompatible, but they compete for the same resources — military equipment, defense budget, political attention. The standard response to this tension — increase defense budgets — is exactly what the NATO Ankara Summit is seeking to accomplish with the target of 5 percent of GDP.

But increased budgets are only part of the answer. The other part is specialization and coordination: European allies taking more responsibility for supporting Ukraine, freeing up American capabilities for the Pacific. Pacific allies (Japan, Australia, South Korea) reinforcing their own deterrence capabilities to reduce the need for direct American engagement. And Taiwan itself continuing to strengthen its autonomous defense. This division of labor is not a current reality — it is an objective. But the exercises of June 2026 — RIMPAC, Valiant Shield, Taiwanese maneuvers — show that efforts in that direction are real.

Economic war as a dimension of deterrence

The 1260H list and China's response illustrate that economic war is now an integrated dimension of military deterrence. Designating Chinese companies as militarily linked, maintaining export controls on militarily sensitive technologies, coordinating economic restrictions with allies — all of this creates costs for China's military build-up that complement traditional military deterrents.

China's response — export controls, bans on government entities — shows that Beijing has understood this game and is playing its own version. The Sino-American economic-military rivalry is now a structural reality of the international order, with Taiwan at its center. And the way this rivalry is managed — or mismanaged — will determine global security for the decades to come. This is perhaps the most important geopolitical challenge of our time, and it is being played out right now in administrative lists and naval exercises.

The world watches the 1260H list and RIMPAC exercises without always understanding what they mean together. They mean we are in a competition for the future world order — between a West defending a rules-based system and a China that wants to reshape those rules to its advantage. That is no small thing. It is the question of the century.

The consistency of signals sent

The way the war in Ukraine ends — if and how it ends — will send an absolutely clear signal to Beijing about what Western democracies are prepared to do to defend the rules-based international order. If Ukraine obtains a just peace with its sovereign rights intact, that is a deterrent signal for China: aggression does not pay. If on the contrary Ukraine is forced to accept a capitulation peace, that is the opposite signal.

This connection is not a figment of imagination — PLA officers have themselves formulated it in Chinese academic publications: they study Ukrainian resilience, Western responses to sanctions, and the question of security guarantees with intense attention. They calculate what these data mean for their own plans. If the West does not understand that holding for Ukraine is also a deterrence policy toward China over Taiwan, it leaves an essential strategic dimension out of its calculations.

Consistency as a strategy

The most important conclusion of this analysis is the necessity of consistency. Consistency in supporting Ukraine. Consistency in designating Chinese military companies. Consistency in deterrence exercises in the Pacific. And consistency in the message sent to adversaries: aggressions will not be tolerated, the rules of the international order will be defended, and alliances hold.

This consistency is the West's most precious asset — and the one most threatened by internal political pressures, weariness of public opinion, and hesitations of leaders. Maintaining it in the face of adversaries who bet on its erosion is the central challenge of Western strategy for the coming years. The 1260H list is not just a list of companies. It is a test of Western resolve to defend its values and interests. Beijing reads it that way. Washington and Brussels should read it that way too.

Numbers speak for themselves, but you have to know how to read them. Behind every economic data point, behind every statistic on sanctions or prisoners, there are real political decisions and concrete human lives that Excel spreadsheets never fully capture.

Beijing between displayed neutrality and real complicity

China officially maintains a position of "neutrality" in the war in Ukraine while providing Russia with dual-use goods, electronic components, and economic support that allow it to sustain its war effort. This position of calculated ambiguity allows Beijing to preserve its commercial relations with the West while supporting a regime that weakens American power — an explicit Chinese strategic objective.

The 1260H list of the U.S. Department of Defense, designating Chinese companies linked to the military, fits in this context. It targets Chinese civil-military fusion — that doctrine of Xi Jinping that explicitly aligns the civilian sector with military priorities. When a Chinese semiconductor or electronics company appears on this list, it is because its technologies have direct military applications, potentially usable for both Chinese weapons and Russian systems acquired via circumvention networks.

The interconnection of the Ukraine and Taiwan fronts

There is a deep strategic connection between the war in Ukraine and the Sino-American rivalry around Taiwan. Xi Jinping closely observes how the West responds to Russian aggression — the sanctions, alliance cohesion, determination to support an attacked democratic state. These observations directly inform his calculations on the cost and risks of action against Taiwan.

If the West demonstrates its capacity to maintain coherent and prolonged economic pressure against an aggressor, that is a deterrent signal for Beijing. If on the contrary internal divisions, sanctions fatigue, and pressures on Ukraine for an unfavorable agreement signal that the coalition is weakening — that is the opposite message. The way the war in Ukraine ends will send an absolutely clear signal to Beijing about the resilience of the international order that China seeks to challenge.

The Ukraine-Taiwan connection is one of the most under-analyzed dimensions of this conflict in mainstream media. But strategists on both sides understand it perfectly. What is at stake in Ukraine is not only Ukraine's future — it is the demonstration that the rules of international order actually apply, or that they do not. Beijing draws its own conclusions.

40 ships, 31 nations, one message

The naval exercise RIMPAC 2026, which began on June 24 with approximately 40 ships, 25,000 military personnel, and 31 nations according to ThinkChina, is far more than a military exercise. It is a demonstration of the Pacific international community's capacity to operate collectively in a region that China increasingly claims as its sphere of influence. The simultaneous presence of the United States, Japan, Australia, France, Canada, and South Korea sends a message of military cooperation that Beijing cannot ignore.

Simultaneously, Valiant Shield 2026, begun June 22, simulates real high-intensity combat operations in the Pacific, involving F-35s, F-22s, aircraft carriers, and submarines. This combination — multilateral collective exercise (RIMPAC) plus high-intensity American combat exercise (Valiant Shield) — illustrates the depth and variety of allied military capabilities in the region.

Taiwan prepares: porcupine defense

The Taiwanese "immediate combat readiness" exercise conducted from June 22 to 26, 2026, with tanks patrolling streets according to the Washington Post, illustrates the evolution of Taiwanese defense doctrine toward what specialists call "porcupine defense": distributed resistance, costly for the attacker, betting on depth of resistance rather than solely coastal defense. This doctrine draws directly from Ukrainian lessons since 2022.

The simulation of a Chinese "maritime quarantine" during a Taiwanese tabletop exercise (Bloomberg, June 25) shows that Taipei anticipates the scenario of a naval blockade rather than a direct invasion — a scenario judged more probable by many experts. This preparation is also a message to Washington: Taiwan takes its own defense seriously and is not counting solely on American intervention.

RIMPAC, Valiant Shield, the Taiwanese exercises — together they form a coherent signal from a Pacific democratic community preparing to defend the international order. I take this signal seriously, even knowing that exercises are not wars and that deterrence can fail. What is clear is that preparation is better than improvisation — Ukraine is the living proof of that.

Administrative battles with strategic consequences

The battles around the 1260H list seem abstract — lists of names, government decrees, transaction bans. But they are the foreshadowing of what open economic confrontation around a Taiwan crisis would look like. Each measure, each countermeasure, each test of economic resilience informs both parties about their mutual vulnerabilities and the tools available in an escalation scenario.

The good news is that both parties still have an interest in avoiding escalation — their economies are sufficiently intertwined that war costs everyone. The bad news is that this mutual interest in avoiding war has never been sufficient, in history, to prevent it when other forces — nationalism, ideology, miscalculation — pushed in the other direction. Deterrence is necessary. It is insufficient. And preparing Taiwan, reinforcing alliances, maintaining economic pressure on actors arming Chinese militarization — all of this is the most realistic peace policy available.

The West at the center, or at the periphery

The liberal world order — based on rules, institutions, state sovereignty, and peaceful resolution of conflicts — has no automatic champion. It must be defended, actively, by actors who have the power and the will to do so. The United States remains those central actors, with their allies. The RIMPAC exercises, Valiant Shield, and 1260H list designations are expressions of this centrality. The West must remain at the center of this order — not out of arrogance, but because the alternative is a world where the rules are defined by those with the most missiles and the fewest scruples.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between verified facts and interpretive analysis. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under Sources, never here.

Primary source families used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

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When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under Sources.

Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a critical, contextual synthesis based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

Russia's economy still holds — but at what cost? Today's resistance is tomorrow's exhaustion. And that exhaustion, when it fully materializes, will be irreversible for an entire generation of Russians who had not chosen this war.