Scenarios for Taiwan. Will China dare to start a war

Just a week before the visit, the major Western media, learning about such plans, started a whole discussion about the feasibility of "teasing China", especially at a time when the current foundations of world security are being destroyed by the bloody hands of the Kremlin. Moreover, official Beijing only added fuel to the fire by promising "consequences". And the then announced exercises of the People's Liberation Army of China (PLAK) around the island led certain commentators to believe that the Third World War, with the participation of two superpowers, is practically inevitable.

However, although the air traffic was diverted, the service itself did not stop. Likewise, no one has canceled major events in the island nation or, even more, evacuated staff. And what is interesting, compared to the foreign media, the Taiwanese themselves reacted more than ironically to the threat of invasion by the PRC, answering the Ukrainian's question about the level of preparedness of the population with the words: "If you had eight years to prepare, then we had goals for that decade". Doesn't that sometimes remind you of the behavior of many Ukrainians before the full invasion?

What is the reason for such self-confidence of a country where only 23.5 million people live and which is opposed to almost 1.4 billion people on the mainland? The fact is that this is far from the first such "rodeo" for the island state, whose survival for a long time was considered even less likely than ours.

Ukraine and Taiwan have large, aggressive neighbors who, thanks to their agents of influence, try to shape public opinion within the country. Both were occupied by other countries and are also young democracies - Taiwan only got rid of a long one-party dictatorship in 1987. But that's where the similarity between our countries ends.

Unlike Ukraine, "Chinese Taipei" (the name the island, along with former Beijing-controlled colonies Hong Kong and Macau, must use in official rhetoric thanks to the so-called "one China policy" that governs relations with the mainland) does not have access to diplomatic tools that we are used to it. Taiwan mostly has "economic missions" rather than full-fledged missions. So, specifically, there is no official representation of this country in Ukraine at all, and its affairs in Ukraine are taken care of by the representative office in Poland. Accordingly, the search for allies is complicated by "secondary" diplomatic ties, and every attempt to board an official plane is followed by a protest from China, which almost always threatens economic sanctions - this happened especially to Lithuania in 2021.

But such a situation did not always exist. The loss of international recognition of this country in the seventies is directly related to the rapprochement between the United States and the People's Republic of China, which took place in opposition to the USSR and completely ignored the interests of Taipei. And not only that, until 1971 the Republic of China (Taiwan's official name) , had a seat on the UN Security Council (!), when it was replaced by the People's Republic of China (PRC). And already in 1979, Taiwan lost the military guarantee of its independence from the United States — all subsequent treaties do not mention clear mechanisms of joint defense. The extent of the fall and the reaction to the "betrayal" of allies in the middle of society can only be imagined.

And after all, how, despite everything, did such a small country manage to survive until our time? There are several reasons for this.

Let's start with geography. The very existence of Taiwan as an independent entity is a consequence of its favorable geographical location. The point is that after the de facto loss of the Chinese Civil War to the Communists, the Kuomintang - the nationalist party led by General Chiang Kai-shek - was forced to leave mainland China. In turn, the Chinese Communists, who had superiority in manpower and weapons on land, did not have the necessary naval forces to expel the "Nationalists" from Taiwan. Any attempt to attack the island would end in complete failure for the communists, not least because of the unpredictable Taiwan Strait that separates the island from the mainland. And even after arriving on the island, the PLA would have to wage war in a mountainous area that occupies roughly one-third of the country's entire surface, against a well-prepared and experienced enemy.

Consequently, unable to completely end the civil war, the parties turned to a "cold" confrontation that continues to this day. Only in recent decades, fueled by rapid economic growth, has the PRC begun to invest significantly in such an expensive luxury as a navy, in an attempt to change the status quo to its advantage.

The good geographical location of the island itself has a significant impact on another main factor of deterrence - the economy. It is geography that allows Taiwan, along with its allies, to maintain potential "fire" control over the region through which the world's major trade routes pass and on which the PRC depends. The latter, in particular, covers its needs for energy resources thanks to sea corridors. Consequently, being in close proximity to the mainland, Taiwan acts as a significant lever in the relations between China and the US, as well as their allies in the wider region of Southeast Asia and Oceania. As long as Taiwan remains effectively independent, Beijing cannot hope for aggressive expansion, even as its economic weight grows.

Even so, Taiwan remains the largest producer of computer semiconductors, covering about 60 percent of the world market. This fact, in particular, determines the strategic interest of the US in maintaining the security of the islands, at least until the country develops its own capacity for the production of chips. Most of all, despite the efforts and some successes of the PRC to catch up with Taiwan in process technology, the main problems remain the scale and speed of production, which are still on Taiwan's side. The likely loss of semiconductor suppliers such as Taiwan today – whether through sanctions or military action – is crucial for Beijing, which is still projected to enjoy economic hegemony under current growth rates supported by a balanced relationship with the West, of which Taiwan is a part. .

However, the most important factor in the confrontation between China and Taiwan is society. On the one hand, Taipei has incomparably less human resources, but it can reveal its potential much more efficiently, has the ability to adapt and can boast of the existence of a real public discourse.

 

While the People's Republic of China adheres to the postulate of history, which in fact seeks to return the country to the borders of the Qing dynasty from the end of the 19th century, Taiwan is not standing still. Since 1987, instead of repeating the cruel policy of assimilation of national minorities, which is still happening in the PRC, Taiwanese have been trying to review the difficult pages of history. One such moment was in 1949, when General Chiang Kai-shek's army moved to the island. Then, under the conditions of the state of emergency, the Han people - numerous settlers from the mainland - carried out repressions against the local population, which differed significantly from them both culturally and linguistically. Today, such a policy is largely recognized as wrong, as it has effectively destroyed the identity of Taiwanese people, and efforts to reconcile and find lost ties receive comprehensive support from the state.

Thus, with considerable time for development and relative isolation from the rest of China, Taiwan is gradually turning into a truly independent state with its own Taiwanese identity and culture, combining the traditions of the Han people, the indigenous population of Taiwan and Japan, which occupied the island for a long time.

The search for one's own identity is one of the catalysts of conflict today. The struggle for legitimacy that has been going on in one form or another since the late 1940s between Taipei and Beijing is coming to an end, but it is not happening the way the latter would like. On the one hand, a new nation is being formed on the island, and on the other, the time is coming in the People's Republic of China when Taiwan could be at least formally referred to as a part of greater China. Doesn't the story remind you of rejecting the very possibility of a separate nation?

Interestingly, ironically, the Kuomintang Party, once the biggest enemy of the Communists, opposes the formal declaration of island independence and generally supports a significant number of mainland China's narratives. The reason for this is the same attraction to a unified Chinese identity around the most numerous ethnic group, the Han, and the retention of an imperial-era claim to control over all of China. But with each generation, this idea loses its supporters, and it is the young who become the bearers of the new Taiwanese identity, and the support of the Kuomintang relies more and more on older people.

Taking into account all the above factors, it can be said that the flow of business on both sides of the Taiwan Strait is in a state of disturbed balance.

According to one of the scenarios and under the conditions of current development, Taiwan will gradually lose its military advantage in the region, which not so long ago was undoubtedly dominated by allied forces led by the United States. In the next decade, the island is expected to lose its monopoly on semiconductor production, which is one of its structural advantages over its rivals. And the further development of Taiwanese identity will only encourage China to act as soon as possible to reclaim its imperial legacy.

In such a scenario, when Beijing gradually pushes back allied forces and strengthens the logistics of its own armed forces in the region, Taiwan will be left only to rely on its own professional but small armed forces in the face of a likely economic blockade.

 

The main obstacle in the way of this development of events remains the economic dependence of China itself on Western countries, which are the main sales markets for Chinese products. Energy dependence also plays an important role - one of the reasons for China's rapprochement with Russia and a likely proof of the path chosen by Beijing. However, to solve both of these problems, the PRC must spend significant resources and lose its current rate of economic growth in the process. Even under conditions of only passive opposition from the West, such a scenario will take about 10-15 years for the PRC to feel comfortable using any tools to "return" Taiwan.

What will await the Taiwanese can be imagined by paying attention to the example of the Chinese Communist Party's relationship with the Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim minority living in the southeast of the country. Precisely the facts of persecution, creation of centers for "re-education" and systematic discrimination of Uyghurs, and even earlier the harsh and unpunished occupation of Tibet, speak of the impossibility of coexistence of the People's Republic of China and its aggressive intentions.

The scenario of a military invasion here and now is unlikely, as it will lead to the mutual and rapid economic decline of many Western countries, and to a greater extent China itself. Moreover, while China's navy lacks the ability to conduct operations far from the coast and is unlikely to establish control over major trade routes to continue to secure its own energy needs and access to the few markets that remain open under such conditions.

So far, the most likely scenario is a return to the balance that existed until now. By the way, it is not known whether this would have happened without the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is precisely because of this brazen attack that Western countries are rapidly rethinking their own military strategies and are moving towards increasing defense spending. And for many experts, President Biden's sudden promise of a military guarantee for the island, as well as the announced military cooperation of the US, Great Britain and Australia last fall, only give little Taiwan even more hope for survival.