The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could fear the threat of Taiwanese democracy "infecting" China so much that it will launch a war regardless of whether it thinks it can win. Can Taiwan infect China before the CCP makes that decision? Would hosting a League of Democracy focused on rule of law and the mechanics of democracy undermine China's drive to absorb Taiwan?
Some Chinese online questioned the CCP line that Taiwan must be conquered, if necessary. I doubt if opposition matters to Xi, but this opinion from Shandong could provoke an invasion:
The pushback went beyond economic and social grievances. Some posters were even bolder, suggesting that Taiwan’s democracy may demonstrate a political alternative to mainland China: “The fact that Taiwanese choose their own way of life,” said one commentator from Shandong, “might show that Chinese people can take a different route.” ...
The most recent Taiwanese presidential election—in which the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won a repeat victory—served as an uncomfortable reminder to the Chinese public that neither Taiwanese politicians nor voters are interested in Beijing’s plans for political unification.
China might invade Taiwan to wreck Taiwan even if China "loses" the war by failing even to maintain a bridgehead on the island when the ceasefire kicks in.
Which is acceptable because maintaining the CCP monopoly on power in China trumps all other objectives.
But this is a vitally important question for Taiwan. For all the talk of deterring China by imposing unacceptable costs on China for invading, what price--I asked in 2010--is high enough to deter the CCP when nothing else is as important as maintaining control of China?
So what is Taiwan to do, given that they cannot, in the long run measured in decades, build and support a military large enough to hold off a Chinese assault determined to win?
It means that Taiwan has to think outside of the conventional thinking of maintaining a military balance. Talk of Taiwan building a "hedgehog" defense that exacts a price on China for taking Taiwan is just a staging area to admitting they can't defend their island. It gives up naval and air power and surrenders passage of the Taiwan strait to China and surrenders their own air space in favor of fighting house-to-house in a Stalingrad scenario. But going this route merely succumbs to the military reality without looking for a real alternative to the military route to maintaining Taiwan's independence.
And note the prior "hedgehog" term for today's "porcupine" nonsense--and for a while I recall the "Hezbollah" strategy was the term in fashion.
Maybe, I suggested, Taiwan needs to go on offense against the CCP:
One measure would be to seek regime change in China. If China was no longer a unitary communist police state that uses nationalism over Taiwan to maintain public support, would China still want to attack Taiwan and take it? Could Taiwan actually engineer an information campaign that stokes anger at the Peking rulers to such an extent that China breaks up into multiple states that lack the means or will to take Taiwan?
Or could a campaign result in a revolution that brings real democracy to a Peking-run united China? At worse, being taken over by a democracy is certainly less disastrous for Taiwan than being absorbed by China as it is now.
One interesting aspect I raised reflects those modern comments about what the Taiwanese people want and the example of Taiwan for China:
I've read that Chinese propaganda emphasizes the "fact" that the Taiwanese really are eager to rejoin the mainland but for those darned rulers. In effect, the Chinese people on the mainland can't hear what the Taiwanese are saying on that tiny speck of dust off their coast. What if Taiwan could spread the word through these personal visits by Chinese that the Taiwanese like being friends with China, but do not want to lose their independence?
Could such a campaign, supplemented by advertising this reality on the mainland as much as Chinese censorship allows, slowly lead the Chinese people to hear the truth and so fail to respond to a nationalistic appeal to rally around the autocrats to "recover" the island?
Amidst Beijing’s increasingly aggressive actions, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen called on like-minded countries around the world to start pushing back against China and other “anti-democratic forces” across economic, political, and military fronts.
That reflected my older calls for similar actions to promote Chinese democracy:
I don't dismiss this as starry-eyed wishful thinking. Indeed, given the geography of the situation and the balance of power between China on the one hand and Taiwan, America, and Japan on the other, this call for democracy is really the only way to secure Taiwan's independence and democracy in the long run.
And this is why an autocratic China simply cannot allow a democratic Taiwan to exist, despite the charm offensive that Peking aimed at Taiwan in recent years that makes it appear that China has downgraded the chances of war to bring Taiwan into mother China.
I think Taiwan's call for the world to rally to its side for democracy promotion could be carried out by a Taiwan-based League of Democracies, comprising NGOs and different levels of governments:
As a body discussing the concept of democracy in both state and sub-state actors, it would not run afoul of Chinese red lines about . China has offered one state with two systems to Hong Kong--although it really doesn't--and to Taiwan to ease resistance to Peking absorbing Taiwan. How could China oppose democracy as a concept apart from independence when it formally agrees?
Yet it would be a powerful symbol of resistance to Chinese efforts to deny Taiwan democracy.
Taiwan would invite specific qualifying countries, states or provinces, and cities--including Hong Kong--to join the body. Taiwan could invite non-governmental bodies that address democracy and rule of law, including the Carter Center. Perhaps those NGOs could help define a rule of law democracy for membership qualification. Neither China, Iran, nor Chicago, for example, would qualify if the definitions are real.
How would the Chinese people react over time to such a body in their backyard discussing how to create and improve democracy--something China does not have and which Xi Jinping will never grant the people voluntarily?
And there would be the example of the CCP crushing Hong Kong in the years following that post to show a contrast. Maybe the Chinese people will want to follow a better route than the one the CCP has mapped for them.
NOTE: The image was made from DALL-E.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
