As the world marked the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin each had their own response.
For Biden, it was a visit to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and a meeting with the Bucharest Nine group of eastern-flank NATO allies, during which he reaffirmed the US’ unwavering support for Ukraine and NATO’s unity, and promised that Putin’s desire for land and power would be frustrated, and that the final victory would belong to the people of Ukraine.
Putin, for his part, delivered a state of the nation address in Moscow, in which he blamed the war on the West’s “rapid deployment of a series of secret military biolabs,” and accused it of provoking a war and trying to turn the situation in Ukraine into a global conflict. With the hardening of their respective positions, it is difficult to see a chance for peace in the near term.
The Russia-Ukraine war is the largest invasion of a territory since the end of the Cold War, and has embroiled the US and NATO countries; China, Russia’s “no-limits partner,” could also become involved and cause a crisis in the Taiwan Strait. It constitutes the greatest geopolitical risk, bringing this generation to the brink of a third world war.
While the fuse for the war was lit by the autocrat Putin’s concerns over NATO expansionism, the real reason is the Russian president’s ambition to see a return to the glory days of the empire.
Historically, the Russian empire consists of the expanded borders of the territory under the banner of what the former Czarist Russia and the communist dictators of the former Soviet Union have considered to be Russian lands since ancient times, accrued through a string of annexations and invasions.
Ukraine, a former republic of the Soviet Union, has links to the Russian empire extending back into the mists of time. Kievan Rus’, established in the 9th century, was the first country of the Eastern Slavic tribes.
In modern political parlance, Russia was then part of Ukraine, not vice versa. From the 19th century on, the majority of Ukrainian territory was part of the Russian empire, with other parts belonging to the Austro-Hungarian empire and Poland.
Ukraine was one of the founding republics of the Soviet Union in 1922 and became independent in 1991 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The dictator, brandishing his nationalist banner, is able to concoct a false historical narrative to support his claim to the right to annex territory that has cut adrift from his empire. It is only natural that Ukraine, with its links to Russia extending into the distant past, and with large numbers of Russians living in its eastern regions, should become the main target of Putin in his quest to lay claim to imperial Russia’s former territory and re-establish the glory days of the Russian empire. This is the tragedy of Ukraine caught up in its geopolitical fate.
History is continuously in flux. The make-up of today’s nation states is the product of many factors, regulated through international law. There might be different interpretations therein, but the concept of blood lineages leading to claims of “inalienable territory since ancient times” and of “shared culture and shared ethnicity” cannot form the basis of legitimate claims that these territories now constitute one country.
Throughout history, recovering of old territories, nationalistic appeals to former greatness and attempts to unify the “motherland” all stem from the same root, and have led to many tragic ends, war and ethnic cleansing among them. Behind them all are nothing but political myths peddled by dictators and totalitarian regimes to consolidate power and realize ambitions.
Putin accuses the West of having appeased Nazi Germany and claims that today’s Ukraine is controlled by an “anti-Russian” neo-nazi regime. Ironically, it is Putin and his political ally, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), who is currently building an empire that looks suspiciously like a Nazi regime.
While Russia invaded Ukraine in an attempt to return to the glory days of the Russian empire, China is gradually, incrementally moving toward a position where it can swallow Taiwan. The mindset behind the authoritarian regimes in Russia and China are the roots of the global geopolitical tensions that we are witnessing.
It is no surprise that Putin and Xi have teamed up, given their penchant for the same kind of historical myth-making, nor that their fates are now intertwined. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine comes straight from Xi’s playbook for taking Taiwan, and in the event that Putin prevails, Xi will surely be emboldened to pursue his “historical mission” of “unifying the motherland.”
Unfortunately for him, Putin had seriously overestimated the strength of the Russian military, and underestimated the Ukrainian army’s willingness to fight until the end and the resolve of civilians to support it.
By telegraphing fake neutrality with the announcement of its “12-point peace plan,” Beijing is attempting to position itself as seeking a political resolution to the Ukraine crisis, while actually looking for an off-ramp for Putin. Beijing is parceling out self-serving platitudes such as “respecting each country’s sovereignty,” “abandoning Cold War mentality,” “implementing a ceasefire and an end to hostilities” and “initiating peace talks” without mentioning that it was Russia that invaded Ukraine, or suggesting that the Russian army withdraw. As a result, the “peace plan” was met without enthusiasm by the international community.
Xi was forced to put on the pretense, not least because after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, attention became focused on peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and concerns over Beijing’s behavior, especially after the Chinese People’s Liberation Army blockaded Taiwan last year and sent large numbers of fighters around the nation in the wake of then-US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit. Had this sparked a conflict, it could have escalated into an existential global crisis. This is the reason Beijing was obliged to come up with a “peace plan,” however reluctantly.
With one hand, Xi is offering up a “peace plan”; with the other, he is wielding a sword against Taiwanese, pushing his “one country, two systems” principle and threatening democracies to keep out of what he calls China’s “domestic politics.”
However, an increasing number of countries and international organizations have expressed their concerns about Taiwan’s security and said they do not consider a Taiwan Strait crisis to be an internal Chinese matter. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has directly called China out on this.
In other words, Taiwan is not “an inalienable part” of China’s territory, nor is it a renegade province: it is a de facto independent nation, whose robust, advanced supply chain contributes to global prosperity and well-being. For this reason alone, Taiwan’s security is very far from being a domestic issue of China’s.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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