{"id":69012,"date":"2021-12-01T11:00:21","date_gmt":"2021-12-01T00:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=69012"},"modified":"2021-12-01T10:45:49","modified_gmt":"2021-11-30T23:45:49","slug":"the-drums-of-war-beat-louder-over-taiwan-and-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-drums-of-war-beat-louder-over-taiwan-and-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"The drums of war beat louder over Taiwan and Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

The vastness of Eurasia is becoming bracketed by belligerence. On the western front, Russia has deployed<\/a> a growing number of military units to the regions near its border with Ukraine, inviting a flurry of speculation about its motives. And in the east, China\u2019s behaviour vis-\u00e0-vis Taiwan has grown increasingly worrisome. A widely reported war-game study by a US think tank concludes<\/a> that the United States would have \u2018few credible options\u2019 were China to launch a sustained attack against the island.<\/p>\n

In both cases, the aggressor\u2019s strategic intent is clear. Chinese President Xi Jinping\u2019s government has made a point of calling for Chinese \u2018reunification<\/a>\u2019, regarding that as a fitting conclusion to the Chinese civil war. After World War II, the Chinese Communist Party took over the Chinese mainland but failed to eliminate Chiang Kai-shek\u2019s Nationalists. They retreated to Taiwan (and some smaller islands), which has remained outside CCP rule ever since.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, China\u2019s official declarations about \u2018reunification\u2019 have stipulated that it should be achieved peacefully; but on other occasions, China\u2019s leaders have dropped the adverb. And in expanding and equipping its military, China has focused specifically on building its capacity to subdue Taiwan if it ever tries to declare independence.<\/p>\n

Most countries, including the US, have long maintained a \u2018one China\u2019 policy, withholding formal recognition of Taiwan as an independent state. But in the absence of formal diplomatic ties with the island, many countries have developed relations through other channels such as trade and technology. Taiwan is a world leader in cutting-edge microchip production. It is also a shining democratic success story. If the Chinese society found in Taiwan can be democratic, perhaps the same political vision might someday be extended to the mainland.<\/p>\n

At the other end of Eurasia, Ukraine\u2019s situation is radically different from that of Taiwan, not least because Russia has formally recognised its independence. Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s occupation and annexation of Crimea in 2014 was declared illegal and condemned by an overwhelming majority<\/a> in the United Nations General Assembly (where a mere 11 countries voted against the resolution).<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Putin recently published a lengthy and remarkable essay<\/a> arguing that Russia, Ukraine and Belarus belong together as a matter of history. Ukrainian or Belarusian sovereignty, he now claims, can be achieved only together with Russia, under the ultimate authority of the Kremlin. So far-reaching is Putin\u2019s revisionism that he even criticised Ukraine\u2019s formally independent status under the Soviet constitution (not that this ever meant anything at the time).<\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s strategic intent is clear: he regards Ukraine\u2019s independence as increasingly intolerable. Like China with its designs on Taiwan, Russia has been preparing and equipping its military for the specific purpose of invading and conquering Ukraine before any outside force can disrupt the occupation. In addition to seizing Crimea, the Kremlin has already sent regular military forces into Ukraine, as it did in August 2014 and again in February 2015 in the eastern Donbas region. Putin seems both ready and willing to launch another similar incursion, if not a much larger-scale operation.<\/p>\n

No one doubts that a Chinese military takeover of Taiwan would radically change East Asia\u2019s security order, just as a Russian military takeover of Ukraine would upend the security order of Europe. But what has not yet been fully appreciated is the possibility of both happening simultaneously in a more or less coordinated fashion. Taken together, these two acts of conquest would fundamentally shift the global balance of power, sounding the death knell for diplomatic and security arrangements that have underpinned global peace for decades.<\/p>\n

Such a scenario is not as far-fetched as it sounds. Although China claims to stand for non-interference in other countries\u2019 internal affairs, it is scrupulously silent on the issue of Ukrainian sovereignty. There is no reason to think it wouldn\u2019t back a renewed Russian assault on that country if doing so served its own purposes.<\/p>\n

To be sure, it would be a massive mistake for China to invade Taiwan, and for Russia to invade Ukraine. Both countries\u2019 economic development would be set back decisively by the large-scale sanctions that would inevitably follow. The risk of a wider military conflict would be high, and countries like Japan and India would almost certainly embark on a vast military build-up of their own to counter China. Europeans already are moving more decisively toward a policy of strengthening their defence.<\/p>\n

As prudent as these developments may be, they offer cold comfort. The drums of war can be heard quite clearly. The task for diplomacy is to ensure that they do not become more than background noise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The vastness of Eurasia is becoming bracketed by belligerence. On the western front, Russia has deployed a growing number of military units to the regions near its border with Ukraine, inviting a flurry of speculation …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":527,"featured_media":69014,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[52,163,392,714,2406],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe drums of war beat louder over Taiwan and Ukraine | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-drums-of-war-beat-louder-over-taiwan-and-ukraine\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The drums of war beat louder over Taiwan and Ukraine | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The vastness of Eurasia is becoming bracketed by belligerence. 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