While the Russian army is advancing toward Kyiv and Odesa, the free world is watching closely to see whether the Russian invasion of its neighboring state could be a blueprint for China’s leader and his dream to invade Taiwan.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has made what he calls the “reunification” of democratic Taiwan with the People’s Republic of China under autocratic rule his life’s goal and vowed to Chinese that he would achieve this objective in their lifetime.
His rhetoric resembles closely the one of his close ally in the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who fantasizes about a “Holy Russia” that he is destined to reunite.
In his ideology, Ukraine, as much as the Baltic states, are not sovereign countries, but breakaway parts of Russia.
However, Ukraine has 1,000 years of statehood and Kyiv was already an important cultural hub while Moscow was still an insignificant village. Also, Taiwan has not been governed a single day by the People’s Republic.
However, both dictators, Xi and Putin, see themselves endowed by history to rectify the wounds inflicted on them by “the West” and lead their countries back to the center of world affairs.
To achieve that, taking Ukraine and Taiwan are imperative.
This imperialist ideology is very much out of tune with today’s world order, governed by international law and multilateral institutions.
The invasion of Ukraine to the free world looks like a measure deployed by empires of the past. That is why until the invasion actually happened, everybody, even in Beijing, believed the Russian leader was bluffing.
The unfolding events in Ukraine put the newly found alliance between Xi and Putin under strain. Early last month, when Putin was Xi’s guest of honor at the opening of the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, the two leaders spoke in a communique of the special partnership between their countries and the preferred strategic alliance of the two, and announced collaboration in many areas such as space technology and Internet surveillance.
The acknowledgement of the two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine by the Kremlin later in the month took Beijing off guard. The Chinese leadership argues in favour of state sovereignty and integrity. Allowing the two breakaway provinces in the east of Ukraine to gain independence would set in the eyes of Beijing the dangerous precedent for Taiwan to do the same.
However, when Putin invaded the whole of Ukraine, the scenery changed a bit. Beijing does not call the invasion what it is, because its view is that the Russian military is undertaking an “internal affair.” That is the same lingo with which Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) uses to label a potential military invasion of Taiwan, a “breakaway province.”
“What is your own territory, you cannot invade.” That is the logic behind the support for Putin.
However, this support is not unconditional.
China did not vote with Russia at the US Security Council, but abstained. This was internationally interpreted as a carefully orchestrated distancing from Russia, while at the same time not siding with the hated free world.
China is not supporting Western sanctions, but it is also not coming to Russia’s aid in times of dire economic need. Fear is rising in the People’s Republic that the war between two of the biggest wheat exporters in the world will negatively impact prices of the crop, as well as fertilizer and soybeans, in China.
In the collective memory of Chinese, the Great Famine from 1959 to 1961 is still immanent.
Estimates say that up to 76 million people died in those years due to the ideology and mismanagement of Mao Zedong (毛澤東).
Xi, who views himself as the new Mao, does not want to go down in history as the Chinese leader under whom prosperity in China declined.
Still, 82 million people under Xi’s rule have to live on less than US$1 per day. Rising prices might cause riots among the poorest of Xi’s subjects.
Fearful Beijing has already put pressure on the UN not to publish a report that warns of rising wheat prices around the world.
Xi wants to be coronated emperor for life this year. The prospect of a faltering Chinese economy is the one thing that could derail his plans. Indeed, China has much more to lose economically than Russia, whose economy of a nation of 145 million people accounts for less than the GDP of the Netherlands and Belgium, roughly 30 million people combined.
China, on the other hand, is on the way to becoming the world’s largest economy.
Even the slightest prospect of being hit due to Russia’s war against Ukraine would lead Beijing to abandon its new alliance with the Kremlin leader.
The events unfolding in Ukraine give the free world a clearer vision on how to react to a Chinese invasion of democratic Taiwan.
With international support, meaning supplies of weapons, and financial and material aid, Taiwanese and the nation’s military could withstand an advance by China’s People’s Liberation Army.
Allies of Taiwan, primarily the US and Japan, have seen how states can effectively intervene without becoming an official party in the combat.
The sanctions imposed by the free world are having a severe impact on Russia, whose economy is predicted to completely collapse in a few weeks.
The moral of the story for Xi is: Dictators who want to deploy power tactics of the 19th century will not easily prevail in today’s world governed by liberal principles and human rights.
Democracy is indeed the stronger principle. Putin’s warning has united democracies around the world against the autocratic threat, which for Taiwanese is most personalised in Xi.
The number of observers who think a Ukrainian victory over the invading Russian army is probable is rising by the day.
Beijing, which could be an intermediary to end the war, has urged Russia and Ukraine to return to the negotiating table. This is certainly the best advice Beijing can give itself while looking at what it calls “the Taiwan question.”
An invasion of the independent democracy off the shore of the People’s Republic of China would cost Beijing dearly. Losing face to what is seen an inferior combatant would put the whole dictatorship in jeopardy. In the face of this, Xi has no other choice than change his strategy from blatant military threats to a conversation of equals.
The free world is prepared to take a stand for Taiwan.
Alexander Görlach is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.
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