US
President Joe Biden has reassured Ukraine that the United States and its
allies “will respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine”. His
secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has recently made a similar
reassurance to Taiwan.
One must wonder how seriously
presidents Volodymyr Zelensky and Tsai Ing-wen take Washington’s word
for it. The problem is not only that America’s security guarantees
aren’t what they used to be, but that both are clearly asking what
Washington is unwilling to give.
The big question is often understood
to be Washington’s willingness – or not – to go to war for Ukraine and
Taiwan, even at the risk of spilling American blood and risking a
regional conflagration in eastern Europe and East Asia. But this may be
too simplistic.
The real problem is that Ukraine wants full and
unconditional recognition to be treated as a full sovereign state, with
secure borders; and Taiwan wants something similar, even if it is ready
to concede to using diplomatic words or terms that may fall short of the
literal meaning of full sovereignty.
Despite
lip service, it seems clear Washington is not ready to give Ukraine
such recognition and acknowledgement of that status. And it has, on
record and repeatedly, reaffirmed its commitment to the one-China
policy, however this vague doctrine is interpreted differently by
various state-level actors.
The US may be happy to use Ukraine and
Taiwan as a diplomatic or even a military wedge against Moscow and
Beijing, and both Kyiv and Taipei are willing to be so used in exchange
for sovereign gains. But Ukraine and Taiwan are taking an existential
risk, and they unlikely want to put Washington’s professed commitments
to the test.
Ukraine and Russia
After all, there is an inherent
contradiction in US policy towards both places. In the case of Ukraine,
Washington has asked Moscow and Kyiv to return to the principles, so far
unimplemented, of the Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015, and negotiate
on their basis.
Both those protocols precisely amplify the conflicts
between Russia and Ukraine; or from Moscow’s perspective according to
which it is not even a party to the conflict, which is between Ukraine
and pro-Russian secessionist forces in eastern Ukraine and the Donbas
region.
Quite
simply, the Russians consider the Minsk protocols as formally
establishing limited territorial sovereignty whereas, obviously, Ukraine
considers the goal of implementing those protocols as establishing its
full sovereignty with secure borders. Currently, despite Washington’s
strong words of support for Ukraine and warnings against Moscow, it is
not ready to commit to Kyiv’s position; hence its urging of both sides
to return to Minsk I and II.
A recent study by the Chatham House think tank explains the details of this conundrum further:
“Ukraine
sees the [Minsk] agreements as instruments with which to re-establish
its sovereignty in line with the following sequence: a ceasefire; a
Russian withdrawal from eastern Ukraine; return of the Russia/Ukraine
border to Ukrainian control; free and fair elections in the Donbas
region; and a limited devolution of power to Russia’s proxy regimes,
which would be reintegrated and resubordinated to the authorities in
Kyiv. Ukraine would be able to make its own domestic and foreign policy
choices.”
However, Moscow reverses the sequence and reaches the opposite conclusion. The study continues:
“Russia
sees the Minsk agreements as tools with which to break Ukraine’s
sovereignty. Its interpretation reverses key elements in the sequence of
actions: elections in occupied Donbas would take place before Ukraine
had reclaimed control of the border; this would be followed by
comprehensive autonomy for Russia’s proxy regimes, crippling the central
authorities in Kyiv. Ukraine would be unable to govern itself
effectively or orient itself towards the West.”
Minsk I and II won’t help resolve the Ukraine crisis; rather they crystallise the very nature of the conflict.
Taiwan and Beijing
In
the case of Taiwan, you have something extremely similar, and even more
clear-cut. Washington does not even recognise Taiwan’s sovereignty,
however much it’s willing to play the Taiwan card as part of its
multipronged, anti-China campaign, by encouraging it to assert itself on
various international arenas.
Here’s the problem for Tsai. Unless
the US is willing to abandon the one-China policy and recognise Taiwan’s
sovereignty, its security guarantee will always remain ambiguous.
Taiwan will only know the true worth of America’s guarantee if it takes
that fateful and terrifying step, which actually, the vast majority of
Taiwanese don’t want to contemplate, let alone take.
I am not denying that many Taiwanese want independence, but most want peace; or to avoid war much more, as polls have shown.
The
US and some of its allies, and Taiwan and Ukraine, have been pushing
each other into confronting Russia and China, and finding it
increasingly difficult to back down. But in time, Washington is likely
to realise only “limited sovereignty” for Ukraine and limited government
for Taiwan can avoid war. It may well, in other words, end up moving
closer to rival China and Russia at the expense of both friendly Kyiv
and Taipei. And that will actually be for everyone’s good.