The ongoing war in Ukraine, precipitated by the dictatorial Russian leader Vladimir Putin, has been a disaster of monumental proportions. Having apparently recognized his failure to subdue the heroic Ukrainian people, Mr. Putin has recently shifted to a strategy of exacting maximum suffering on the nation’s nearly 42 million people, including systematically attacking infrastructure wherever possible. The destruction of a major dam in southeastern Ukraine, which has caused widespread flooding and electrical blackouts, is a case in point. These war crimes have triggered major sanctions and condemnation by the world community, including the UN General Assembly and the International Court of Justice in Geneva. America has stood strong in this drama, providing material and psychological support to the people of Ukraine in their just struggle to remain whole and free.
The Kremlin leader’s war has now dragged on nearly a year and a half, with no end in sight. Despite Putin’s dissembling, the human cost of the war is being brought home to villages and towns throughout Russia, as body bags deliver the homegrown victims of the war. Putin is virtually alone in this horrible conflict. Even generally subservient former states of the USSR have either opposed or stood aside from this war. The only possible exception is Belarus, with Putin wannabe Aleksandr Lukashenko offering token support, in return for energy supplies and economic support for his fragile regime. Despite condemnation by western Europe and the United States, Belarus has thus far walked the perilous fine line between neutrality and material support for the Russian leader.
I do not see a happy ending to Putin’s war. But for now the question is how long it will take before Putin’s own people stand up and signal that enough is enough. Recent infighting between Putin and Wagner Group leader Yevgenny Prigozhin has introduced a new twist to this terrible conflict.
One servile accomplice to all this is the Turkish strongman Recep Erdogan. He has recently eked out another term, through controversial and widely criticized elections. Erdogan’s economy is in tatters, food shortages are widespread, and it seems only the shaky loyalty of his military keeps this man in office. Yet he — alone of NATO members — has not condemned the war or provided material support for the Ukraine’s noble cause.
So how do we apply the paradigm of Putin’s Ukraine misadventure to the island state of Taiwan? I believe there are several lessons to be drawn.
First, Taiwan poses a very different military challenge to the Putin model of aggression against Ukraine. Most saliently, despite the recent reckless provocation of PLA warplanes flying closer to Taiwan than ever before, the island is protected by 100 miles of open water from the nearest point of the “People’s Republic” of China. My brackets reflect the widespread recognition that a) the People of China have little say in their nation’s governance and b) it more closely resembles an autocratic regime where one man — Xi Jinping (習近平) — dominates the top of the governing apparatus almost as completely as Putin does in poor Mother Russia.
Second, the United States has long been committed to the freedom and security of Taiwan and its twenty-three and a half million democratic citizens. President Biden has been more forthright in his personal commitment to the island nation’s fate than previous American leaders. Despite many other partisan differences, Mr. Biden enjoys robust bipartisan support in the US Congress and among the majority of Americans for his enduring commitment to Taiwan. The history here is longstanding, dating back to the Chinese Civil War in the 1940s. That conflict ended with the remnants of Chiang Kaishek’s (蔣介石) army and government fleeing across the Taiwan Strait, following Mao Tse-tung’s (毛澤東) armed conquest of the mainland in 1949.
Fast forward seventy-four years, and much has changed. Taiwan has been transformed from a backward agriculturally-based economy into one of the world’s leading high-tech states. Chances are you are holding evidence of this each time you pick up your cell phone or fire up your laptop computer. The highly developed microchips in the heart of these devices are almost certainly the product of such global enterprises as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) or other similar conglomerates. Taiwan has also taken its place as a sterling model of democratic governance.
Sadly, the autocratic leader of China, Xi Jinping, has denied his people the dignity of charting their own future, choosing instead to maintain one of the most authoritarian states in the world. Like the odious Putin, Mr. Xi has grandiose ambitions to rule all he surveys for the rest of his life. That said, Xi does benefit from a more effective — though slowing — economy than his dictatorial partner in the Kremlin.
Yet Xi too sits on a simmering powder keg of grievances and dissatisfactions among his 1.4 billion citizens. The quest for a more open society briefly bloomed in 1989. But China has subsequently reverted to a more brutal — and likely quite brittle — state. No one knows for sure how deep the grievances are since there are virtually no outlets for public opinion in Xi’s regime. Yet Xi’s China is growing older and suffers from the ill-considered one-child policy that has created too many young men looking in vain for a marriage partner. These are certainly not the demographic attributes of a content society.
Mr. Xi regularly blares out his intention to take Taiwan back (as if it ever really were a part of China). He controls his People’s Liberation Army, though one has to wonder how eager the generals and soldiers there are to engage in a reckless war of choice. Standing between Xi and his wicked dreams are 100 miles of open water, a democratic society of 23.5 million people prepared to defend their way of life, and the implicit commitment of the United States to come to the island’s defense if attacked. More recently, our allies in Australia and Japan — and possibly others — have shown signs that they too would come to the island-state’s defense if it is attacked by the mainland.
Mr. Xi is no fool. He has watched the heroic people of Ukraine fighting to protect their democratic state against the unprovoked aggression of Putin’s Russia. The free world has rallied to this cause. Xi has a fragile economy, largely dependent on global trade for its success. He must recognize that an attack on Taiwan would bring all that crashing to the ground. The people of China have tried in the past to rise up and replace the authoritarian Maoist state with something more in keeping with the trends elsewhere in East Asia (viz. Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand). Perhaps that narrative might return in triggering a more open society, where its citizens get to select their leaders.
Meanwhile, American strength and resolve to do whatever it takes to defend Taiwan against an unprovoked attack has only grown stronger in recent years. President Biden has gone beyond America’s traditional ambiguity to state forthrightly that America would come to the island’s defense if attacked by China. It is all well and good for Mr. Xi to ramble on about “resolving” the Taiwan question in his lifetime. I seriously doubt the people under his tyrannical hand are at all eager for a war of choice that could end very badly for whoever is foolish enough to start it.
Biden recently dispatched his Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to China with the objective of calming recent tensions between the two nations. It is good that our two countries are talking to one another, even if the gap between our two systems remains vast.
Let me end on a positive note. Maybe Xi will live a very long life, therefore putting off his stated ambition to resolve the Taiwan question before he is gone. More realistically, the people in that country could finally take matters into their own hands and join the phalanx of thriving democracies that surround China. Many theorists have prophesied that rising living standards will inevitably trigger a demand for change, either from above or below, resulting in a more open and egalitarian nation.
In the meantime, the long-suffering people of China can only dream of joining the vast crescent of countries to their south, east and northeast, who already enjoy the succulent fruits of an open and democratic state. They need look no further than Taiwan for a ready model.
Ambassador Stephen M. Young (ret.) lived in Kaohsiung as a boy over 50 years ago, and served in AIT four times: as a young consular officer (1981-’82), as a language student (1989-’90), as Deputy Director (1998-2001) and as Director (2006-’9). He visits often and writes regularly about Taiwan matters. Young was also US Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan and Consul General to Hong Kong during his 33-year career as a foreign service officer. He has a BA from Wesleyan University and a PhD from the University of Chicago.
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