What does the Ukraine crisis mean for Taiwan?
Bilahari Kausikan for the Straits Times. February 6, 2022
With more than 100,000 Russian troops massed on
Ukraine’s borders, Nato rushing arms to Kyiv, and the United States and
other G-7 countries ominously but vaguely warning of “massive
consequences” if Russia should invade, war clouds seem gathering over
Europe.
The commentariat has speculated that a Russian invasion of Ukraine could
lead to China taking advantage of US preoccupation in Europe to attack
Taiwan.
On Feb 3, the Chinese and Russian foreign ministers, perhaps
intentionally, fanned such speculations when a statement issued after
their meeting in Beijing said that they had “coordinated” positions on
Ukraine among other regional issues.
There is a superficial plausibility to the scenario.
In 2012, then US President Barack Obama drew a ‘red-line’ over the use
of chemical weapons in Syria. But when he failed to enforce it the
following year when Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad clearly crossed it,
the credibility of American power was shaken and
American adversaries emboldened. The more so because Mr Obama in effect
out-sourced a response in Syria to Russia.
But I do not think what the US does or does not do in Ukraine will have
more than a very marginal effect on Beijing’s calculations on Taiwan.
Syria a decade ago and Ukraine in 2022 are very different situations.
I do not claim to be able to read Vladimir Putin’s mind. But we should
not take it for granted that the Russian President intends to launch a
full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Mr Putin has denied that this is his intention. That is what he would
say in any case. But President Joe Biden has also said that he isn’t
sure if Mr Putin intends an invasion.
Even Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, has criticised Western
handling of the crisis and accused its leaders of inciting “panic” with
repeated warnings of invasion.
WHAT PUTIN HAS ACHIEVED
More to the point, why should Mr Putin risk a full-scale invasion? Consider what he has already achieved.
Russia’s annexation of Crimea is a fait accompli. Much of Eastern Ukraine — about a third of the country’s population — is effectively out of Kyiv’s control.
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As Mr Zelensky’s criticisms indicate, Kyiv already has to be acutely sensitive to Moscow’s interests.
Of course, the Russian demand that Ukraine be barred from joining Nato
and Western troops pulled back from Eastern Europe will not be met.
I doubt Moscow really expected the West to agree. Mr Putin knows better
than anyone else that no sovereign country will ever give another
country a veto over its security and defence policies.
But by forcing Nato off-balance and making it scurry around, Mr Putin
has shaken up the West and demonstrated once again that Russia’s
interests in its ‘near abroad’ cannot be ignored with impunity.
Giddy with hubris in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, the West had steadily expanded Nato to Russia’s borders.
In 2013, the European Union fecklessly encouraged Ukraine to move closer
to the West without anticipating a Russian response or being able to
deter a response.
The Ukraine crisis is the consequence of those mistakes. Mr Putin is teaching the West a lesson.
Russia has crucial security and other interests in Ukraine which lies at
the heart of Russian culture and identity. Any Russian government would
find a Western alliance on its borders threatening.
What are Western interests in Ukraine anyway?
Despite professions of unity, differences of opinion among Nato members
have once again been exposed, with Germany – Europe’s most important
economy – clearly reluctant to take a hard line.
Mr Putin has demonstrated that Nato cannot force him to pull back his troops from Ukraine’s borders until he is ready to do so.
Mr Biden may have mis-spoken when he said Nato members had differences
over how to respond to a “minor incursion” in Ukraine, but old Joe spoke
only the truth.
Mr Putin cannot reverse Nato’s eastward expansion. But the tenuousness of Nato’s extended deterrence has been exposed.
If Nato cannot even influence Russian troop movements, is Nato really
going to consider an attack on the likes of Albania, Macedonia,
Montenegro or even the Baltic states an attack on all members and risk
war with a nuclear-armed Russia?
And why should Moscow launch a conventional across-the-border invasion?
Mr Putin’s generals practically invented the concept of ‘grey zone
operations’ in Ukraine.
Even if Russia does invade, unlike in Syria a decade ago, no one expects
the US to use force as a response and the US has not threatened to use
force. It has only threatened more sanctions.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that no one really expects any
effective response. Sanctions are more a sop to Western amour propre
rather than intended to change Russian behaviour.
Previous sanctions did not deter the present crisis and there is little
reason to expect that more sanctions will be effective. China is an
enormous back door for Russia to evade sanctions.
THE DIFFERECE BETWEEN TAIWAN AND UKRAINE
Beijing surely understands the obvious: US interests in Taiwan and
Ukraine are not symmetrical. Taiwan is vastly more important to the US
and to the world economy than Ukraine.
Taiwan is a prosperous and advanced industrial economy – the 8th largest
in Asia - a crucial and technologically advanced node in the global
semi-conductor supply-chain. It is ranked 29th in the world in terms of
per capita GDP by the International Monetary
Fund.
Ukraine’s GDP per capita is ranked 135 in the world by the IMF, the
lowest in Europe. While some sectors of its economy are advanced, its
economic prospects are shadowed by rampant corruption and it is ranked
117 out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s
Corruption Perception Index.
The US has no treaty obligation to defend either Ukraine or Taiwan and
maintains a policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ with regard to the latter.
But given the political mood towards China in the US, it is highly
improbable that the US will not respond robustly and kinetically to a
Chinese attack on Taiwan. It would be political suicide for any American
president to stand idly by.
Moreover, if the US fails to defend Taiwan, the entire American alliance
system in East Asia, as well as looser partnerships such as the Quad,
will be badly – and probably fatally – undermined.
American allies and partners will question the value of American
commitments and working with the US. The entire security architecture
that underpins East Asian stability and prosperity will begin to
unravel.
A US-China conflict over Taiwan will certainly draw in Japan. Tokyo
cannot stay aloof without irredeemably damaging its alliance with the
US.
If Japan is involved, so also will Australia and South Korea be drawn in
as they too cannot distance themselves from the conflict without
damaging their alliances with the US beyond repair.
Therefore, if it attacks Taiwan, China will probably find all of US
allies in East Asia, and possibly India too, arrayed against it in one
way or another.
China badly misjudged the US mood and was caught by surprise by the
trade war and the bipartisan determination compete and confront China. I
don’t think Beijing will risk another miscalculation.
For China, an attack on Taiwan must succeed.
Any other outcome will threaten the stability of Chinese Communist Party
rule whose claim to legitimacy rests on its ability to defend China’s
sovereignty and territorial integrity.
THE TAIWAN GAMBLE
War is always a gamble. War over Taiwan is at present betting on long odds.
The People’s Liberation Army has become a formidable modern military
force. But it has no experience of modern warfare and none of amphibious
operations which will be needed to capture Taiwan.
Amphibious operations are among the most difficult of all military
operations to carry out. Capturing Taiwan would require an operation at
least on the scale and complexity of the Inchon landings in 1950 during
the Korean War.
War over Taiwan will certainly disrupt the world economy. At a time when
China is facing a future of slower growth and stability is foremost in
the minds of Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders, I doubt that
regardless of what happens in Ukraine, they will
roll the dice over Taiwan.
For that matter, war over Ukraine will also disrupt the world economy.
While China may feel a certain satisfaction at the spectacle of the US
and Europe discombobulated over Ukraine, I do not think they would view
the prospect of conflict in Europe with equanimity.
We will never know for sure what Mr Xi and Putin discussed when they met during the Winter Olympics. But I doubt Mr Xi urged Mr Putin to invade. Their joint statement does not contain the word ‘Ukraine’.
Talk of ‘coordination’, Chinese expressions of support for Russia’s
security concerns, and the speculation over Taiwan, is perhaps better
understood as psychological operations to unsettle the US and its
allies.
In October or November this year, the Chinese Communist Party will hold
its 20th Congress at which Xi Jinping will seek to extend his term
beyond the customary 10 years.
Mr Xi is feared. He has destroyed or sidelined all obvious rivals and
will probably get what he wants. But the anti-corruption campaign cannot
have won him many friends among the cadres.
His foreign policy, particularly the relationship with the US, has drawn cautious and muted internal criticism.
In 2008, at the time of the Beijing Summer Olympics, China’s
international reputation was never higher. Today, multiple international
polls show that there is nary a country without concerns about some
aspect or another of Chinese behaviour.
No country will ever shun China. But in June 2021, Xinhua reported that
Mr Xi himself had ordered his officials to create “a credible, lovable
and respectable image of China” and to expand its circle of friends.
This does not suggest that Mr Xi himself considers China’s diplomacy a
stellar success. All the more reason not to gamble over Taiwan at this
time.
I do not know how the crisis over Ukraine will play out.
It is possible that when Mr Putin judges the West has been sufficiently
shaken and stirred, he will simply declare that the exercises that his
troops were engaged in are over and order them back to the barracks,
leaving Nato on tenterhooks to wonder when the
next exercises will be held and if they will only be exercises.
China will never foreswear the use of force to ‘reunify’ Taiwan. I do
not say war will never occur. But whatever happens in Ukraine, unless
Taiwan goes crazy and unilaterally declares independence, war over
Taiwan is not imminent.
Bilahari Kausikan, a former diplomat, is chairman of the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore.