As Russia’s war on Ukraine continues, some eyes shift to China and Taiwan

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This article was published 22/03/2022 (1021 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nears its fifth week, the distant conflict has revived concerns closer to home in Taiwan, where citizens now wonder what their capabilities are to fend off an attack from mainland China.

On Taiwan’s streets there is no palpable fear of an invasion, but Russia’s actions have people talking about the state of the military and international relations, said Lih TienYi, an editorial producer at Taiwan’s TomoNews.

“I do see discussions on whether Taiwan should be more proactive on national defence,” Lih said. “All these are discussions, not a definite statement or mindset.”

Some wonder if Taiwan’s best chance of success is building up its military more or strengthening ties to the United States and European powers. Others have started to look at the financial implications of any invasion and talked about what it could mean for business and their assets, Lih said.

Part of the conversation is a feeling for some of increased confidence in Taiwan’s defence capabilities in light of Russia’s heavy losses and bogged-down invasion, he added.

Media and analysis around the world have raised the question of whether what is happening in Ukraine portends something for Taiwan’s future. The island, with a population of about 23 million, is claimed by mainland China but has been self-ruled since the end of China’s civil war more than 70 years ago.

Long a source of international tension, the issue of Taiwan has heated up in recent years following the election in 2016 of President Tsai Ing-wen, who has taken a more assertive tone with China and deepened relations with the U.S.

Since the Russian military crossed the border into Ukraine, support for Kyiv has been noticeable in Taiwan. Demonstrations against the war have been held as have efforts to raise funds for humanitarian needs, Lih said.

Concerns that Beijing could take a cue from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion and attack Taiwan were already growing as the Russian army amassed on the Ukrainian border prior to invading.

Once Russia invaded, those worries grew even more as the global community looked to China for hints of what it may do. Some news outlets reported last week about a leak — purported to be from Russian intelligence — that said China was initially planning on invading Taiwan this fall, but the veracity of the information isn’t proven.

In fact, China wasn’t planning an imminent invasion anyway but Russia’s catastrophic invasion of Ukraine has likely caused Beijing to reconsider any plans for military action against Taiwan in the near future, said Denny Roy, senior fellow at the East-West Center, an independent non-profit organization partly funded by the U.S. government.

Roy said Beijing’s decision whether to use force against Taiwan is predicated upon domestic politics in both Taiwan and China, plus the chance of U.S. involvement. Still, Russia’s troubles in Ukraine have not gone unnoticed and could further dissuade China from attacking.

The Russian army’s poor progress in its invasion would likely factor into any thought from Chinese Communist Party officials that taking Taiwan would be easy, he said.

“What the Ukraine example shows is that a seemingly outmatched, smaller country fighting a larger adversary, when it’s fighting on its home ground inspired by the cause of protecting its country from absorption by an aggressor, can put up a good fight, a stubborn fight,” Roy said. “That’s got to colour Chinese assessment about how easy or difficult conquering Taiwan would be.”

Roy said that in 2022, a war with Taiwan that could include involvement of the United States and Japan could also force China’s elites to re-evaluate Xi Jinping’s leadership in a year where he is likely trying to be granted a third term.

Moreover, military calculations aren’t the only aspects Beijing would have to weigh if it were considering a military attack on Taiwan. China would want to invade when its standing in the world is at a high level, and its “pro-Russia” stance on the invasion of Ukraine has already hurt its reputation, Roy said.

Beijing tries to present itself as a well-run meritocracy, peacemaker and defender of the oppressed third world, countering American aggression, he said: With this attempt at self-branding it also asks for the world to consider “strictly self-defensive” territorial requirements.

“If you’re relatively successful at selling that whole package to the world, then the world is prepared to be not completely unsympathetic toward China using military force against Taiwan,” Roy said.

“On the other hand, if the world sees China as holding the coat of a villain, it calls into question the benevolence of the entire Chinese international agenda and then interprets China moving against Taiwan in that context, then it’s more damning.”

Then, there’s the consequences the world could inflict upon the Chinese economy.

The international response via sanctions to Russia’s invasion was tough and united, which undermines any argument within China that repercussions of a Taiwan attack would be low, Roy said.

Timothy Heath, a senior international defence researcher at non-profit think tank RAND Corp., said the risk of an invasion of Taiwan is low. To begin, Heath said, taking over Taiwan is not integral to the Chinese Communist Party’s rule over China.

“They are not totally happy with the status quo, but they’re not unhappy. It’s tolerable,” he said, adding Beijing is currently concerned with its own economy and other domestic issues. “The Chinese government has got a lot of bigger things on its mind right now.”

Heath said China’s army is also untested, adding to the risks of invading. Beijing could end up losing a lot of personnel and material, especially if the conflict sparked a U.S. intervention.

Lessons learned from the invasion of Ukraine don’t just apply to China.

Roy said Ukraine invasion and its effective resistance could serve as a reality check to Taiwan about the kind of preparations it wants to take to defeat any Chinese invasion. Rather than prestige items, like big naval ships, it may be more prudent to invest in items like anti-ship missiles carried on trucks.

Any invasion of Taiwan by China would have to include a naval offensive, and a network of such missiles mounted on trucks able to move around Taiwan would do far more to aid in its defence, Roy said.

In a bid to intimidate Taiwan, China has sent warships and military aircraft in its direction, even conducting landing drills at an undisclosed location in the East China Sea. Meanwhile, the U.S. has sold billions worth of military equipment to Taiwan over time to help bolster its defences — and is committed by American law to ensure it can defend itself.

Some worried China would see a war in Europe as a distraction of which it could take advantage, a fear addressed by Taiwanese Defence Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng last week.

“Nobody wants a war,” Chiu said. “It really has to be thoroughly thought over.”

Chiu said a war would be a disaster for all involved.

Heath said much of the fear over the threat of China invading was due to commentators in the media pushing it. However, the fears didn’t materialize out of nowhere.

“It did build on a body of reporting encouraged by U.S. military senior leaders,” he said.

Those reports caused alarm by estimating that before the end of the decade China will have military superiority across the Taiwan Strait relative to the U.S.

“What people get confused about, I think, is that a change in the military balance of power does not in anyway indicate that China politically is deciding to risk war,” Heath said. “The risk of war is still extremely high and unacceptable for any Chinese leader.”

With files from the Associated Press

Jeremy Nuttall is a Vancouver-based investigative reporter for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @Nuttallreports