What Russia invading Ukraine could mean for Taiwan
Boris Johnson is to hold crisis talks with President Joe Biden this evening amid US warnings that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is imminent.
Shuttle diplomacy is continuing across the continent in a last-ditch bid to avert war. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz met today with President Volodymyr Zelensky, who told him that Russia was wielding the Nord Stream 2 pipeline as a “geopolitical weapon”. Scholz will call on Vladimir Putin in Moscow tomorrow.
What happens in Ukraine could have ripple effects far beyond Europe’s shores, not least in Taiwan.
The received wisdom among security analysts is that Beijing is using the Ukraine crisis as a litmus test to judge how the US and NATO might respond to a Chinese assault on Taiwan, which China claims as its own. Will the Alliance act as one? How effective will the opposition be?
If Russia invades and US-led NATO rolls over, it would be a huge propaganda coup for Beijing. “Where Putin and Xi’s interests converge is in discrediting American security guarantees and undermining faith in the resolve and capabilities of the United States,” says Danny Russel, assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Obama administration. “China’s ability to bully its neighbours grows in proportion to their doubts about whether America will ride to their rescue.”
The US is only too aware of the wider impact its response in Ukraine will have, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. “Others are watching, others are looking to all of us to see how we respond,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday when asked about Ukraine. After the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, Washington can’t afford another show of weakness.
And yet, Ukraine is not Taiwan. “Beijing could easily interpret Western appeasement of Russian military force as free license to exert more of its influence beyond areas it has already militarised. That would be a critical mistake,” says Brian Klein, a geopolitical strategist and former US diplomat.
Taiwan is more strategically and symbolically important to Washington than Ukraine. The US has committed through the Taiwan Relations Act to “resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion” directed at Taiwan, while Biden has stated publicly that US troops will not fight in Ukraine.
Even so, there’s been talk in recent days of Russia and China launching simultaneous assaults on Ukraine and Taiwan. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, warned last week that the scenario “couldn’t be ruled out”.
A double-invasion seems like a stretch. Despite a vastly superior fighting force, it’s doubtful China is yet strong enough to launch a successful invasion of Taiwan. Admiral Philip Davidson, the outgoing commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, has said the People’s Liberation Army would capable of launching an assault on the island “within six years”.
Lee Hsi-Min, senior fellow at the US-based Project 2049 Institute think tank and former chief of general staff of Taiwan’s armed forces, doesn’t think an immediate assault on Taiwan following a Russian invasion will happen. But, he says, “if [China] finds out that this salami-slice tactic [of seizing Ukraine territory] works for Russia, they may try to take one of Taiwan’s offshore islands.” It’s this emboldening effect that the West is desperate to avoid.