As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drags on, with Moscow facing a series of defeats, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday last week issued the country’s first mobilization order since World War II. On Friday, he hurriedly launched referendums in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine on whether they should join the Russian Federation. These are desperate acts in the face of Ukraine’s counteroffensive. While many countries have condemned Russia, China has supported it with ambiguous statements, a warning sign that another act of hegemonic expansionism is being rehearsed in the Taiwan Strait region.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February was aimed at reviving an old dream of the Soviet empire, but this month Ukraine has launched a fierce counteroffensive, recovering some of its lost territory, while putting pressure on Crimea and the eastern Donbas region, which Russia seized in 2014. Putin has responded with his mobilization order to boost Russia’s fighting force, as well as bringing forward the date for referendums in Luhansk, Donetsk and other Russian-occupied areas. He has also threatened to use nuclear weapons.
British Prime Minister Liz Truss summed up the situation perfectly, saying that Moscow’s recent moves highlight the “catastrophic failures” of its invasion. Putin’s mobilization order has sparked protests in Russia and prompted potential draftees to flee, much as Ukrainians fled the invading Russian army. These events show how much leaders of one-person, one-party dictatorships are obsessed with hegemonic expansion, without regard for international law or the well-being of their citizens.
Similar attempts to annex a neighboring country have been going on for a long time over the Taiwan Strait. The People’s Republic of China, which calls itself a steadfast partner of Russia, has long claimed that Taiwan, which it has never governed, is part of China. This claim is designed to present Beijing’s ambition to invade its neighbor as a domestic political issue.
During the military exercises that China launched last month against Taiwan, its warplanes and warships provocatively crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, while Beijing threatened to control the activities of international ships based on its claim of jurisdiction over the Strait. All these moves pose challenges to international law and pave the way for an invasion of Taiwan.
The international community is on high alert over China’s attempts to erode the “status quo” and regional peace in the Strait, but they are not doing enough to contain China. This allows Beijing to go on playing a two-faced role between Moscow and the West, reaping the benefits from the Ukraine conflict in areas such as foreign relations and energy resources.
As Putin seeks to expand the war and threaten the international community, some countries tried to get Russia to agree to a ceasefire and start peace negotiations, but their expectations have come to nothing and their verbal condemnations have had no effect. Countries in the democratic camp must do more to help Ukraine strike wider and harder blows against its aggressor, because that is the only way to force Putin to call off the invasion, agree to peace talks and pay a price for starting the war.
As for maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, while Taiwan needs to strengthen its defensive capabilities, the international community should also give it greater legal recognition and take concrete actions to boost its status as a political and economic ally and a defense partner. In an interview broadcast on Sept. 18, US President Joe Biden confirmed that US forces would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. When dealing with a hegemonic power, such statements can have a strong deterrent effect. Every country that wants to uphold international peace should follow Biden’s example.
The conflict in the Middle East has been disrupting financial markets, raising concerns about rising inflationary pressures and global economic growth. One market that some investors are particularly worried about has not been heavily covered in the news: the private credit market. Even before the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global capital markets had faced growing structural pressure — the deteriorating funding conditions in the private credit market. The private credit market is where companies borrow funds directly from nonbank financial institutions such as asset management companies, insurance companies and private lending platforms. Its popularity has risen since
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
Every analyst watching Iran’s succession crisis is asking who would replace supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yet, the real question is whether China has learned enough from the Persian Gulf to survive a war over Taiwan. Beijing purchases roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported crude — some 1.61 million barrels per day last year — and holds a US$400 billion, 25-year cooperation agreement binding it to Tehran’s stability. However, this is not simply the story of a patron protecting an investment. China has spent years engineering a sanctions-evasion architecture that was never really about Iran — it was about Taiwan. The
In an op-ed published in Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) said that Taiwan should not have to choose between aligning with Beijing or Washington, and advocated for cooperation with Beijing under the so-called “1992 consensus” as a form of “strategic ambiguity.” However, Cheng has either misunderstood the geopolitical reality and chosen appeasement, or is trying to fool an international audience with her doublespeak; nonetheless, it risks sending the wrong message to Taiwan’s democratic allies and partners. Cheng stressed that “Taiwan does not have to choose,” as while Beijing and Washington compete, Taiwan is strongest when
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