When Rudyard Kipling wrote the novel Kim in 1901, he popularized British intelligence officer Arthur Conolly’s phrase, “The Great Game.”
The game was the 19th-century geopolitical struggle between the British Empire and the Russian Empire, as each sought influence and leverage in Central Asia.
The British were worried that too great a Russian influence would threaten their control of India. The Russians feared that a creeping British influence would extend into current Afghanistan, Persia (now known as Iran) and Tibet.
A spin-off hostility would be the Crimean War, in which Britain and France teamed up with the Ottoman Empire against Russia. Alfred Lord Tennyson’s near-mythic poem The Charge of the Light Brigade immortalized one moment of that struggle.
Today, all that might seem like ancient history, except that a new great game is happening in Asia and it involves Taiwan.
In this game, the location has shifted south and the stakes are higher. The geopolitical struggle of great powers remains, but now it is over the South China Sea.
Russia is still involved, but not as a dominant force. Instead it is part of a triumvirate with China and North Korea.
On the opposite side is the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, more commonly known as the Quad, which is composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. This alliance seems strange until one realizes how each country would be impacted by which power controls the South China Sea, as well as the connecting link to the East China Sea, namely Taiwan.
The South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait are both areas frequently threatened with hostilities. War has even broken out, in distant Ukraine. Nonetheless free and uninhibited passage through the South China Sea remains the game’s focus. Japan and South Korea see it as vital to their survival.
Within the triumvirate, China is the more dominant force. It seeks to make the South China Sea its mare nostrum, much like how it seeks to control the Himalayan river sources of much of Southeast Asia.
On one level, this game can be seen as being between the triumvirate’s Marxist-Leninist perspective and the Quad’s democracy, but it goes far beyond that.
China has recently upped the ante by redrawing the map of what it considers the legitimate borders of its territory. Even Russia was surprisingly impacted by this.
The “great game” has little chance of ending soon, yet all sides are also shying away from the risk of an all-out war. Five of the nations involved possess nuclear weapons, so any war would be disastrous. Instead, they jockey for strategic position.
The symbiotic trade needs of each of the nations involved complicate the game further. India does not want to openly condemn Russia’s actions in Ukraine, since it depends heavily on Russian crude oil. The US and India are the two biggest trade partners with China, and they do not want China to gain control of the Indo-Pacific region.
However, they also do not want to alienate China so that they would lose their profitable trade and investment. The Quad is hedging their bets since they all heavily depend on either selling to the China market or buying cheaper Chinese products.
Perhaps this is why China behaves aggressively, as it regularly challenges ships within the South China Sea and those passing through the Taiwan Strait.
Nearby nations find themselves in the same fix. The Philippines exemplifies the limits of its weak position, as it can barely defend its own interests. In 2016, the Philippines won a case against China under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, yet it never pushed that advantage. Even now, it has trouble running supplies to one of its South China Sea possessions.
Vietnam is more aggressive. True, it did lose sea battles with China over the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島) in 1974, but in 1979 when China crossed its land border with Vietnam to teach it a lesson, it was China that got taught a lesson. China has never revealed the number of combat losses in that “invasion.”
Ultimately, this “great game” would be played out primarily between China and the US, with all the other countries playing important side roles. Taiwan remains the crucial lynchpin as it sits between the South and East China seas. Its importance grows with each day and year.
In short, Taiwan is the prize of the game. The US needs Taiwan to maintain its free and independent status. China, like a distant relative with a dodgy inheritance claim, tries to push its false claim for Taiwan.
So what does the immediate future hold? The US and Taiwan would have elections, and their leadership would change, as expected in a democracy. The people would also have a right to vote on the outcome.
As for the triumvirate, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) have already overextended their legitimate claims to leadership. Similarly, in North Korea, Kim Jung-un is leader for life, but he lacks a planned successor. If he were to die, North Korea would descend into a power struggle and chaos.
Taiwan remains as a participant and an observer of the game. Many rely on it being independent, but they hesitate to officially declare it as independent. Who will make the first move?
Jerome Keating is a writer based in Taipei.
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