Is Russia's war on Ukraine making China less likely to invade Taiwan by raising the prospect of failure? That would be a crisis for China's policy. But Russia should really worry that crisis is real, opening up an opportunity for China.
It would be nice if this is true:
“Even without a U.S. military response, I seriously question the [Chinese military’s current] ability to seize and then hold the island,” Ralph Cossa, president emeritus of the Pacific Forum think tank in Hawaii, recently told Stars and Stripes in an email.
“Especially if the rest of the world responded similarly to how it has responded to [Russia’s invasion of Ukraine], with massive amounts of military aid and equipment and severe political and economic consequences for the attacker,” he said.
Would the rest of the world punish the trade giant China the way it has punished Russia? And remember, "the world" isn't punishing Russia. The West is. And we'll see how long the West can manage that.
Does American resolve--and weapons effectiveness--displayed in Ukraine dissuade China? Almost certainly it gives China pause. But China's anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities--lots of anti-ship and air defense missiles--are being built on the premise that America will intervene. And then there is China's large and growing navy.
But if Cossa's premise is right, Russia has to worry about getting bogged down in a war with Ukraine. Russia's faltering war may make China worry about fighting America over Taiwan. But it may also be a reality check for China's view of Russia's usefulness:
Russia and China have always been frenemies with benefits rather than allies. Xi Jinping has to decide just what the Hell the benefits are with Russia flailing in Ukraine.
Right now, Putin is seemingly demonstrating that a revitalized NATO could contain and defeat Russia, allowing America to focus on China. All Russia might do is drag China into a war with America and its allies before Xi thinks China is ready.
Does China really want Russia's delusions of grandeur to be an anchor and liability like Mussolini was to Hitler?
Russia thought appeasing China and pointing China at Taiwan--and hence America--would preserve Russia's Far East from Chinese territorial claims. Russia is undoing all that work by wrecking their military and reputation in Ukraine.
Although I will disagree with this comforting cost analysis argument:
But occupying the self-ruling democracy wouldn’t make China much stronger, according to Lyle Goldstein, director of Asia Engagement at Defense Priorities and Visiting Professor at Brown University.
“They would be a couple of hundred miles farther east and the Pacific is thousands of miles wide,” he told Stars and Stripes by phone Saturday.
A long journey begins with the first step, and all that. And taking Taiwan pops the cork in the bottle, breaking the line of outposts that pen China's navy in.
And will America's failure to defend Taiwan strengthen or weaken America's chain of bilateral alliances that hold off China?
Taiwan is the most core of China's core interests, an objective that drives Chinese force modernization. But preserving the Chinese Communist Party monopoly on political power in China is the highest priority.
Perhaps Russia will convince Xi Jinping that China's frenemy with benefits has but one last benefit--being too weak to defend the land that Russia took from China in the 19th century. Heck, will Putin shatter the Russian empire and make it easy for China to take control of that Far East territory? Or even just unofficially dominate it with an eye to future annexation?
Is that what Putin's war on Ukraine will achieve?
NOTE: War coverage continues as this post.
