The Ukraine crisis is revealing the deepening geopolitical competition between the world’s two dominant forces. Russia is on one side, and on the other is the US and its allies. Ukraine is caught in the middle.
While analysts and pundits have claimed that Moscow should be heavily criticized given that Russian President Vladimir Putin has provoked tensions by deploying military forces along side the Ukraine border, the administration of US President Joe Biden should take responsibility for this manufactured crisis due to its incompetence in anticipating likely scenarios.
Instead of seeking detente with Russia, as the former US administration did, the Biden administration has remained steadfast in its perception that Russia should be recognized as Washington’s top threat.
During the 2020 presidential election campaign, Biden inflamed the adversarial relationship with Russia by calling Moscow “the biggest threat to America.”
At the same time, China is threatening Washington’s primacy by seeking to undermine the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region. The size of China’s economy and its military heft, coupled with its aggressive posturing, make regional states susceptible to Beijing’s intimidation and coercion. In the long-term, the US cannot not defend its allies and partners effectively should it fail to accommodate or counterbalance the rise of China.
However, Biden’s administration has overstretched its political and military capital by targeting Russia and China at the same time, rendering the alignment of Moscow and Beijing — the two most ambitious and powerful authoritarian regimes.
Consequentially, a dangerous strategic coalition of those two powers is emerging in Asia, especially when the unipolar moment is over, and China is rising economically and militarily.
For leaders in Washington, the wise approach should rest upon seeking rapprochement with Russia and counterbalancing China.
John Mearsheimer, a renowned international relations academic of the realist school of thought, has for years said that the US should have limited its conflicts with Russia to focus on China.
“The question on the table is: Who bears responsibility for this crisis? Is it Russia or, let’s be honest, is it the United States?” Mearsheimer said.
To put it bluntly, it was the US and its allies’ ambition of spreading the so-called liberal hegemony that triggered the zero-sum game over Ukraine.
As the West and Russia have become involved in the Ukraine quagmire, China has become the biggest strategic beneficiary.
There are questions for US leaders: To what extent could the US retain credibility with its allies if the Ukraine situation slides into disarray? Should Washington solve the Ukraine hot spot without sacrificing its political reputation and military personnel? In essence, the geopolitical turbulence in Europe would likely continue to serve as a litmus test for Biden’s foreign policy.
Amid ongoing tensions in Europe, China continues to be in the spotlight.
The Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy, publicised earlier this month, underscored that the US “is determined to strengthen [its] long-term position in and commitment to the Indo-Pacific” and promised to bolster security in the region. Biden also repeated former US president Donald Trump’s platitudes, saying that China’s “coercion and aggression spans the globe, but it is most acute in the Indo-Pacific.”
Nevertheless, academics are worried that Biden has no strategy for China, and even if he has one, they say it does not make a lot of sense.
Earlier this month, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that the US is “not in a rush” to engage with China. This euphemism covered up the matter of the US having not yet formed a comprehensive strategy utilized to defend US interests amid mounting challenges stepped up by China.
Indeed, Biden’s administration made a slow start when confronting China’s ambitions toward regional hegemony.
Biden vowed to take a “strategic approach” toward Beijing, but concrete steps were absent from his blueprint. In other words, his administration does not have a clue about what to do about China, nor the guts to do it.
Referring to Biden’s new Indo-Pacific strategy, one analyst said that “the strategy does little to clarify specific US objectives in the Indo-Pacific vis-a-vis China, the ways and means through which it will pursue those objectives, and the opportunity costs and trade-offs of doing so.”
However, what does Washington’s focus on Russia and lack of clarity over China mean for Taiwan’s national security?
On top of any cross-strait contingencies, Taiwan would undoubtedly bear the security cost.
Taiwan has been closely watching the Ukraine crisis, and has strengthened its “joint intelligence and surveillance” to respond effectively to “various situations” in the Taiwan Strait.
After the Beijing Winter Olympics, China might opt for immediate actions against Taiwan “at any moment” and “Taiwan needs to be prepared for that,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said.
Although the situation in the Strait is fundamentally different from the Ukraine crisis, Taiwan should remain heedful, as China could intensify coercion and campaigns similar to Russia’s Ukraine strategy while keeping them under the threshold of a full-scale assault.
Washington’s commitments are undoubtedly the top security assurance to Taiwan, and Biden’s long-promised Indo-Pacific strategy has underlined that the US would solidify its ties with treaty allies and leading regional partners, including Taiwan, to counterbalance China.
Nevertheless, qualms over diplomatic standoffs and the possibility of the US being bogged down in Europe could slow Washington’s efforts to fulfill its promise to bolster security in the Indo-Pacific region, in which the Strait is a menacing flashpoint. Crucially, the US has no formal commitment to engage with Taiwan militarily.
Additionally, regional security mechanisms like the so-called “Quad,” consisting of the US, Japan, Australia and India, and AUKUS, comprising Australia, the UK and the US, are nonexistent for alliance preparations coordinated to defend Taiwan.
India is the “weakest link” among the US’ like-minded countries garnered to bolster deterrence against China.
Taiwan should not remain heavily dependent on the US for military support. Instead, it should seek closer ties with other regional powers, such as Japan, South Korea and Australia.
In times of contingencies, these countries are those that could first join hands to come to Taiwan’s support.
Tokyo and Canberra have been active in voicing support for Taiwan, but Seoul has avoided doing the same due to its economic dependence on China.
However, the South Korean presidential election on March 9 could change Seoul’s foreign policy course, as antagonism toward China is growing in the country, with a majority of South Koreans considering China as a threat rather than a partner.
Taiwan should prepare for specific policies to approach the forthcoming South Korean administration. Specifying detailed schemes to enhance economic ties and drafting an ambitious plan for intelligence-sharing is necessary.
The Ukraine crisis might generate a distraction for Indo-Pacific great and middle-powers regarding China’s coercive actions over Taiwan. Emboldened by Russia’s assertiveness, Beijing would likely continue to make air force incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, and launch disinformation campaigns to influence Taiwan psychologically and politically.
Taiwan’s relatively weak status cannot afford its fighting back over China.
To the administration of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), forging links with regional powers that share security concerns and democratic values with Taiwan should be one of the nation’s strategic cards.
Huynh Tam Sang is a lecturer at Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities’ faculty of international relations, a research fellow at the Taiwan NextGen Foundation and a nonresident WSD-Handa fellow at the Pacific Forum.
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