Newsfront The Aftermath: UKRAINE WAR
A New Era of Global Turbulence
Russia’s invasion has changed everything, writes Gordon G. Chang. Oceans and skies will no longer be safe, and countries will sever trade links.
T
wo days before russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Global Times, China’s nationalist paper, demanded that the
West help Beijing forcibly annex Tai- wan.
“G7 supports territorial integrity,”
the Communist Party’s semioffi cial tabloid declared in a tweet: “Okay. Taiwan, China’s ‘Donetsk,’
has been trying to undermine China’s territorial integrity. When China takes action to eradicate secessionist regime in Taiwan, you must also give China unwavering support.” The comparison of Taiwan to the
Donetsk People’s Republic, a break- away region in eastern Ukraine, is hardly exact, but the reference high- lights Beijing’s obsession with the war in Eastern Europe as a template for its territorial ambitions in East Asia.
The People’s Republic of China
claims Taiwan as an inalienable part of the Chinese nation. The island, for- mally the Republic of China, main- tains it is a sovereign state. The dis- agreement is a leftover of the still- unresolved Chinese Civil War. In fact, the People’s Republic has
never ruled Taiwan, and no Chinese regime, including the Nationalist one of Chiang Kai-shek, has ever enjoyed indisputable sovereignty to Taiwan. These days, Taiwan’s people, who
largely do not consider themselves Chinese, refuse to be incorporated into Communist China. Beijing has repeatedly reserved for itself the right to use force to annex Taiwan. Now, the resistance of the Ukrai-
nian people over once mighty-looking Russia must be giving Chinese plan- ners second thoughts about an inva-
sion of Taiwan, especially because the island’s mountainous terrain and sprawling cities favor stubborn defenders.
Nonetheless, the Ukraine invasion
looks like it is accelerating the Chinese timetable to attack Taiwan. Perhaps most important, China
certainly noticed the greatest failure of deterrence since the beginning of World War II. After all, the United States and
Western partners enjoyed an over- whelming power advantage over Rus- sia: The combined economy of the U.S., EU, and the U.K. is more than 25 times the size of Russia’s. The Russian Federation is a weak-
ling, “a gas station masquerading as a country,” as the late Sen. John McCain famously observed in 2014. Vladimir Putin, despite everything,
invaded anyway, showing the Chinese the feebleness of Western leadership in general, and President Joe Biden in particular. Biden horribly mishandled the sit-
uation. He was, for instance, unwill- ing to impose sanctions before Rus- sia’s Feb. 24 attack. Coercive measures at least had a chance of preventing Russian armor from rolling across Ukraine’s borders. The failure to act undoubtedly con-
fi rmed the general Chinese view that the West is in terminal descent.
ADVANTAGE CHINA President Xi, far right, sees the weakness in Western leadership as an opportunity to strengthen Beijing’s global influence.
12 NEWSMAX | MAY 2022
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