RUSSIA (Washington Insider Magazine) – While Russia has gone about invading Ukraine, messing up that invasion, and now tries its best to get it all right, China has remained unusually shy and quiet on the matter – for the most part of course. They have issued a few statements and said a few things of course. It would be somewhat impossible for the largest nation by population in the entire world to not have said something regarding such a massive international circumstance, even if one of the nations in question is a nation that China has grown much fonder of over the last decade or two. Yet China is unhappy with the Russian invasion, and the response it engendered from the broader international community too.
And why wouldn’t it be? While Vladimir Putin reportedly spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping regarding his intentions during the Winter Olympics in Beijing, he is thought to have said that it would be relatively light work, assuring him that Ukraine would put up little fight and not enough countries would even care enough anyway. With national interests during what might be called the “COVID-19-Supply Chain Issues Era” seemingly taking precedent for every nation, with the massive interference campaign that Russia had undertaken over the course of the prior decade-plus, and with the western disconnection wrought from events like Brexit and the Donald Trump era in the United States, it likely appeared to both men a slamdunk of sorts.
But as the third month of fighting in Ukraine beckons, the endeavors there by Russia have been anything but a slamdunk, even as that nation has reorganized in an attempt to secure more adequately the Donbas region of Ukraine while pushing westward once again. The effort has thus far been largely a failure, and there are few signs that it will get much better. While there are some gains in Ukraine to be sure, particularly in the Donbas and Crimea, holding those areas and even gaining positive functionality from them are different matters altogether. Between bad intelligence, horrible maintenance, poor training and morale, and a stronger, more resilient Ukraine than Russia was expecting, President Vladimir Putin looks terrible, like a barbarous, territory-thirsty war criminal, and no matter if he can or does remain in power or not, in either the short or long term, his international credibility – and therefore, that of the nation he leads – is in many ways, simply beyond repair.
While some have suggested that China was fine with Ukraine being taken because it would set a precedent by which they could then take Taiwan similarly, and that while China has kept relatively quiet regarding Ukraine, Russia would do the same in the reverse situation, a precedent has been set to be sure. China is frustrated or “unsettled” by the invasion of Ukraine and how it has gone without question, but they are likely even more concerned and analytical regarding the massive, multilateral response to the invasion by most of the rest of the world; they will adjust accordingly.
President Joe Biden has warned China regarding the repercussions of choosing Russia and Russian interests over those of the rest of the world, and some even suggest that China is already suffering in certain ways from its connection to Russia, but anything that might be currently felt is surely only degrees of what is could be like should the United States or any other nation or nations look to try to extricate themselves from China, economically speaking, because of either its support for Russia, or else an invasion of Taiwan. They push on with Russia with caution therefore, and do so as a hegemonic statement of their own in juxtaposition to what the largely united world are doing.
Yet what is worse from the perspective of the Chinese government, in fact, is that not only has this Russian invasion gone badly, but the response to it has been profound in terms of their multilateral and globally mutual nature, in ways that many did not believe were possible or probable. Reports suggest that this has changed China’s perception vis-a-vis Taiwan moving forward, and that makes all of the sense in the world quite honestly.
Russia is not nearly as internationally, economically prevalent or relevant as China is, but what is happening with Russia, concerned nations and much of the EU regarding energy resources demonstrates that anything can change with enough stimulation of a particular persuasion. China is much wealthier and in many ways more powerful than Russia without question, but wealth is created within the context of an international, global world, and cannot live or grow in isolation – as Russia, it’s oligarchs, as well as their wealth and business interests, which include oil and energy resources, can all attest to. China can afford that fate no more than Russia or any other nation could for that matter, and so it now has to reconsider its regional policies to accommodate a world that has proven it knows a recourse to militaristic, unilaterally driven international behaviour – even if that recourse is not very humanitarian in spirit either to be fair.
Were the Chinese to venture to retake Taiwan, it would likely be a massive, intricate and complicated operation, killing many, many thousands of people in the process. While Russia simply had to march and organize their troops at the border of Ukraine, China would have to transport troops across the water and/or airlift them in. They would be air raiding Taiwan as the United Kingdom was air raided by Nazi bombers in the Second World War – and as the Allies did to German and Japanese cities as well. The bloodshed would be awful, and the entire circumstance would be an absolutely dreadful international showing, no matter how quickly or slowly it lasted.
And then, after all that, there would still be, like there will be in Russia, the backlash should the nation in question attempt to hold territory that they have claimed through unilateral military might – whether by the gun and bomb or the pen and paper. The combined international recourse during the initial phases of the endeavor – the extreme sanctioning regimes, the broad international disconnect, etc. – along with the long-term consequences for China of keeping what was initially endeavored for, would be more costly than it is worth in any statistical or monetary sense. But, like Ukraine for the Russian ruling cabal, Taiwan is more historically valuable for China and its own intelligentsia than might first be comprehended by some; it is not practical to be sure, yet that doesn’t always stop nations or their leaders in reaching some foreign policy objective.
China, however, is not nearly as internationally reckless as Russia clearly is acting under Vladimir Putin, either currently or during his long reign. They will not risk everything for Taiwan. They are tuned into the rumblings of the world more clearly than their Russian friends, and they understand as clearly as anyone that, while that is likely a domestic, regional objective vis-a-vis local foreign policy, it will do nothing to elevate Chinese cultural, diplomatic, economic or political aspirations or objectives within the international community of nations, and will in fact only damage that nation’s ambitions and volition within that worldly community in the process.
For a nation that produces so much for the world, these are important considerations. For if one argues that, by producing so much for the world, Chinese leverage becomes greater to some degree or degrees, one can also argue that it only increases for as long as the rest of the world remains both compliant and dependent as it relates to China and its machinations, as well as the current manufacturing agreement; while resources – both raw and processed – do create leverage for nations who export commodities to places which do not possess them, when those places find alternative sources for those goods, that leverage has been overplayed and is now more worthless than ever it would’ve been had reasonable, mutual accommodations been previously concluded.
China, I believe, understands this sort of equilibrium and does not wish to bring it crashing down at this stage of its domestic and international development with any sort of move as rash as the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is constantly attempting to disassociate itself or the nation from any blemishes noted by journalists, reporters, refugees and the like. It is constantly trying to repair its international image, which remains tarnished by various issues regarding human rights and censorship. While it continues to make strides in spite of the grievances of many nations and peoples across the world, it knows that such a massive blowback as Russia has been struck with could prove remarkably painful and harmful to the interests and future of China.
And so, I would be shocked to see any type of move on Taiwan for the foreseeable future. While Russia thought it could get what it wanted from Ukraine quickly, and without much international backlash, China has born witness to the reality of things, and that reality is that the Russian economy is contracting, and society is already being ravaged by the results of the yolk of the international sanction regime. Such a yolk upon the neck of any nation would be absolutely debilitating – as Iran and North Korea are further evidence of – yet upon China, it would not only drastically affect that nation punitively, but would change the course of that nation in a longer sense, as the very nature of the current world order would change accordingly.
While China hasn’t loved what is happening in Ukraine with Russia, or how the rest of the world has since reacted to that in almost three months of brutal, militarized conflict, they are certainly glad that they didn’t try for Taiwan before Russia tried for Ukraine. Russia pushed the envelope and is currently trying to “win enough” to justify the exercise in the first instance. China will not make the same mistake for much the same type of prize, only to further alienate the rest of the international community of which it is an integrated – if not always contented – partner; the Russian mistake is likely then, to remain only a Russian, and not a Chinese, mistake, and that is better and more mutually beneficial for the entire world than are terror campaigns and military invasions.
